Bath time

I’ve just returned from Bath, where I was involved in various events at the Week of Good Poetry organised by Sue Boyle. Before I go on to describe my stay in Bath, I’d like to congratulate Sue on her wonderfully efficient yet relaxed organisation of the festival, and thank her for inviting me to take part.

Unfortunately I was able to go to only the second half of the week, so missed readings by R V Bailey, June Hall and Anthony Fairweather. I did, however, manage to get along for the presentation by Wendy French and the Lapidus team on Words for Wellbeing, in which they talked about their work with some of the unwell and disadvantaged.

Saturday was fairly busy. It began with a joint presentation on publishing by Patricia Oxley, talking about getting published in magazines such as Acumen, and me talking about how to go about attempting to be published by Oversteps Books. The audience was interested and appreciative, and fully understood the difficulties faced by poets trying to make their mark.

I enjoyed working alongside Patricia, and we agreed afterwards that as we complement each other so well we should do joint presentations again. In this picture she and William were not, despite appearances, on board a ship, but were sitting in the sunshine in Bath Central Library.

Peter Charters, Jeremy Young and Ewan McPherson did a group reading of Poems of Faith and Doubt. There was more faith than doubt, but that is not necessarily a criticism of what was a lovely reading. This was followed by a reading by William Oxley himself, which I was glad to introduce. He read poems under the title of ‘Places of Spirit’, and this was of particular interest as his new book, ‘Isca’, had just been published. This he calls a ‘coffee table book’, as it contains poems about Exeter by William alongside lovely photographs by his son-in-law.

My own reading was in the afternoon, and I was given plenty of time to include both serious and humorous poems. Once again, the audience was warm and enthusiastic, and it was good to be introduced by William.

I stayed with some lovely friends in Bath, who welcomed me warmly and made me feel completely at home. I also took the opportunity to explore Bath, which I didn’t know.

I had decided in advance that I would love to swim in the roof-top thermal baths, so duly presented myself there on Friday morning. The price of a ticket for a swim nearly sent me racing for the nearest river, but having looked forward to it for so long I decided to close my eyes and pay. The swimming pool was really warm, and it was, indeed, extremely pleasant to float around in warm water with a view all over Bath.

There was much to explore, from the Georgian terraces and the tiny streets to the magnificent abbey.

The other great beauty and fascination of Bath was more arboreal than architectural, for the whole city was like a giant arboretum, with every park, square and crescent adorned with the most beautiful trees. I’ve included a couple of photos of trunks that caught my attention, and one scene from the Circus; but I could have pointed my camera in any direction and made a record of yet more delights.