Time Travel

As I travel around the Western USA I find myself taken on journeys through geological time, with the bones of the Earth laid bare. Britain presents quite another type of  time-travel: it takes place in historical time, documented time, and my sister and I have been for a trip!

The 21^st century city of Bath stands on a site first occupied thousands of years ago by people of what’s called the Mesolithic period.  Then followed the people of the Bronze Age, the people of the Iron Age and the people who made the place famous: the Romans, who named it Aquae Sulis.

It was probably a pretty important place from the earliest days: the clues are in the names “Aquae” means “waters” - right?  “Bath” - right?

 

Celtic triple goddess
 from the Roman bath site.

 

“Sulis” is the goddess, the presiding deity of this most fecund of hot springs. She's present here in many forms.

Sulis

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

People threw curses into the sacred spring
 - denunciations of thieves who had stolen money or goods.
 I hope the goddess could read this one.

 

 

Elizabeth and I exercised our bath-right by bathing in the hot mineral spa waters that have been running out of the Earth at the rate of more than a million liters (more than 265,000 US gallons) per day,  here in this steep and beautiful West Country vale, since, well, around 10,000 years ago –  an historical, not geological,  time scale!

 

http://www.thermaebathspa.com/news-info/about-the-spa/the-waters-of-bath/



The Lady Flavia with her slave, Apulia.
 Flavia is wearing her new hair extensions
which have just arrived from Egypt
 - the height of fashion

The present-day spa bath is on a roof-top, and very modern, but down in the remains of the historic Roman Baths we ran into Lady Flavia, there to take the waters, who explained the efficacy of Portuguese urine as a mouthwash.



Lady Flavia's mouthwash is in the ceramic jar.
The glass jars hold scents.




“Is that human urine?” I asked.

“What a question!” she exclaimed, wrinkling her delicately powdered nose: “What else would it be? Imagine using animal urine, ugh, how disgusting!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Roman Bath - it was covered in Roman times
with an arched ceiling 20 foot high.

Julia taking the waters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We left Lady Flavia to her mouthwash, and walked on, to Bath Abbey, where tombstones lie underfoot and all around, and Christian tales are told in medieval glass.

 



Read about Sir Philip Frowde's three wives
 in the photo to the right below!



A lot of detail!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elizabeth emerging from the Assembly Rooms

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the eighteenth century Assembly Rooms - yes, Jane Austen fans, those Assembly Rooms - I coveted the Octagon Room for Circle Dancing – we can dream!

 

 



Octagon - so called because - ??

 

 

We dreamed up some brilliant January sunshine which threw rainbows on our faces from one of chandeliers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 And then, in the fashion museum downstairs, who are these two Victorian ladies? 

 

 

 

We struggled into hoops and skirts, corsets and bonnets, among a crowd of happy families also trying on the costumes. “Where did you hang my crinoline?” is not something I ever imagined having to say to my sister!

 

 

 

 

 In Bath, I think I can say that we experienced satisfying total immersion: in water and in history.

 

 
 
 



The Royal Crescent, Bath, built between 1767 and 1774.

 

 

 

Raif Badawi #2

Second flogging coming up for Raif Badawi January 16,


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2912014/Saudi-blogger-Raif-Badawi-wife-Ensaf-Haidar-says-lash.html

Raif Badawi

This is not my usual type of subject matter, but I find this story so shocking that I want to share it.

Raif Badawi

I’m talking about Raif Badawi, the Saudi Arabian blogger sentenced to ten years in prison, a large fine and 1000 lashes for organizing and publishing online material that the government of Saudi Arabia finds insulting to Islam.

Whatever crime a person might have committed, be it the most heinous murder, the cold blooded act of parading that person in public every Friday for 20 weeks and inflicting 50 lashes each time would be unthinkably and gratuitously brutal, and would lead to the question: “What sort of people dictate and condone such cruelty?”

 Raif was flogged for the first time last Friday, January 9. I have no idea how long he, or anyone else, can possibly live under such a regime, I have no idea how soon it will kill him, but it’s likely that it will. 

Western governments have asked Saudi Arabia to show mercy, so far to no avail.  Many people from around the word have written to support Raif’s family: his wife  Ensaf Haidar, and their children, Terad, Najwa and Miriam, who have taken refuge in Sherbrooke, Quebec.



Raif Badawi and children in better times

Here’s their video:    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8knc104u0yo

I would like to help keep his plight in the public eye, I would like to try to do something, however hopeless it seems, because I believe that every voice counts.  

 

I can still write to King Abdullah, President Obama, other leaders and Raif’s family, and I can take time every Friday to remember what is happening in Riyadh.

 

I can post to Facebook and Twitter, and I can share this story with you and ask you to tell other people about Raif Badawi, and not to forget him and his family.  So that’s what I’m doing this morning.

 Here's a link to the Amnesty page with details:

 

http://www.amnesty.org.uk/write-rights-raif-badawi-saudi-arabia#.VLOXyk7FLIV

 

Here’s the link for sending an email to President Obama:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments

 

 

Thank you.