I squeezed a sachet of honey onto my porridge, and dug in with the plastic spoon you always get at these places. I was al fresco, and loving it, taking in the passers by, the street scenes and the musicians eager to start the busking day. I smiled to myself, very happy with the world just outside Pret A Manger.
First came the violin. I don’t know why, but there always seems to be a violin player, right outside Bath Abbey. He was playing some sort of Russian dance, the kind I imagine in an Agatha Christie novel. His open violin case rattled with change.
Soon he was joined by a trendy young singer with a resonant amp and a six string. I heard the unmistakeable chord progressions of Gs and Ds and Cs and E minors as his ‘Busted’ style voice echoed around the High Street.
It’s interesting how many al fresco bistro places there are in Bath city centre. It makes sense - it is very much the place for that kind of thing. In the late 1990s, not so much, but nowadays, this much fancier place lends itself very nicely to the tables and umbrellas, baristas and bistros. And of course, the on-street entertainment.
The violinist stood midway between the Abbey and the Pump Rooms. A queue of people with timed tickets for the baths stood listening and filming. He winked at me as I walked by, on my way to the Abbey. I smiled back under my face mask.
I’m probably going to dive into memories today. I know that that can be annoying, but it just so happens that more things kept tumbling out of the past, and they do add context for where my mind wandered through Bath. I knew I had to start in the Abbey, and so I did.
-
She gripped my gloved hand and squeezed it. It was cold still, and the December night seemed to pervade, even inside, somehow in the stones. In blue, the choir, standing in a crescent at the altar, sang a carol, and with gusto, we (and what felt like the entire university, city, and angelic host) all joined in. She looked at me and smiled; it was rare, but not rare enough for me to realise.
-
It’s different now. They were doing construction work down the South Transept, so I wandered over the weathered grave stones, looked up at the glorious stained glass, and marvelled once again at how the sunlight painted the tall stone columns. There would not have been room for the university carollers today. I prayed, then exited through the gift shop.
I really wanted to trace some old steps today - perhaps from one type of cathedral to another. And to get there I knew I’d need to walk past my old houses.
The first wasn’t recognisable. The path had overgrown with weeds, and a bushy looking shrub had taken over the front garden. The half-hidden front door was very different to the one I recalled, replaced of course over the years. The house was apparently empty, waiting I assumed for its next batch of students; the twentieth generation since I last passed by. It’s quite possible that one hundred different people have lived there in the intervening years. That seems like a lot.
The second house still looked smart. I remembered Jacqui looking pleased with herself when I arrived that September - we had, she’d assumed, found a great house and excellent flat mates. She was wrong, unfortunately, on both counts.
-
How in the world did I walk up this hill with loads of shopping? I pictured myself, aged 19, with two Sainsbury’s bags chuffing up Coronation Avenue. It’s steep. Bath is a city that lies in a valley, and I remember that to get anywhere you had to go uphill. Splendid views, but also exhausting. We lived on one side; campus was another. I don’t know why I’d refused to catch the bus from Sainsbury’s, but clearly I had.
-
The grass was long, still glistening with dew. I pushed through it, ever closer to the trig point at the top, silhouetted like a tiny obelisk. I breathed the air, then slumped to the ground with a satisfied exhaustion. Everything was exactly as I remembered.
I’d discovered this place in my second year. Just on the outskirts of Southdown, near that inconvenient house my friend Jacqui had chosen. From the very beginning it had been a place I’d loved - a sparkling view of the city on one side, the fields and countryside stretching away to the south on the other.
If you’re lucky enough to have a clear day, you can see both Severn Crossings from up there. I looked out today, out to the West. Sure enough, lit white by the warm sun, the suspension bridges were both visible, bright white against the hazy backdrop of Welsh hills. I smiled as I must have done a hundred times up there.
It’s interesting this idea isn’t it, of finding God. He was never lost, nor even far away. In the centre of the city, Bath Abbey, where an hour before I’d seen sunlight catch through stained glass windows, was standing tall among the other buildings, old and new. That place, since the Eighth Century, must have been the obvious place to feel close to Heaven.
And yet, up there on top of the world in a place where I’d spent countless hours praying as a student, I felt just as near.
The air was fresh and warm - more like May than September. I put my rucksack behind my head, lay back and crossed one leg over the other; the city and the blue sky twinkling between my feet.
No comments:
Post a Comment