Honeymoon in Bath: 18th May

This week is dedicated to writing all about our honeymoon in Bath, all of the cool places we saw and the fun places we ate. After a relaxing Spa session the night before we woke up in out stunning room in The Bath Priory Hotel...

Up we get and down to the dining room for breakfast. Disappointingly there was no vegetarian option on the menu (well boiled egg but not the same) but they cheerfully made me eggs Benedict without the ham so all is well. All was more than well it was incredible. Like hold the chef at gunpoint and demand to know his hollandaise secrets incredible. Only we didn't have time... places to be and all.

Our first stop was totally my idea. As a former veg grower and total food nerd I like checking out farmers markets even when I can't go home with all the yummy looking chard, artisan bread and cheeses. Bath Farmers Market does offer plenty for the visitor though. 

Looks good, tastes better

We picked up some mango chilli sauce (I did, Stephen isn't a chilli chap). We stopped for a chat with a wonderful soap seller who showed us a picture of her garden full of the plants she uses and told us how she only uses collected rainwater. We left with a bar. I fell in love with these skirts. Stephen sampled an After Eight tart that may have come back with us.

the spread

Then we assembled our mid-morning snack. A macaroon each (mine was mango), a veggie scotch egg for Stephen and some sushi for me. Unfortunately the vegetarian scotch egg was horrible. The egg was wrapped in gooey undercooked stuffing. Everything else was thoroughly enjoyed in a park before we turned round and headed to The Herschel Museum of Astronomy.

"all I see is ceiling"

If you are in Bath this museum is well worth a visit. This is the house where William Herschel lived, played music, made telescopes and discovered Uranus. Uranus. The planet. Discovered. Garden. Go there. It was fascinating and fun to poke around the house where William and his equally awesome sister Caroline lived.

From there we went in the vague direction of lunch stopping first at this bookshop and then at this comic book shop. Both where incredibly friendly. I came out of the bookshop with a copy of How to Make Books by Esther K Smith and Asleep by Banana Yoshimoto (have you read anything by Banana Yoshimoto? You should. Gorgeous does not describe it) Stephen finally got a copy of V for Vendetta from the comic book shop and I caught up on a couple of titles.

Book shop shenanigans

The Bath branch of Lush compelled us to stop. Having a hotel with a giant bath meant we had to pick up some bubble bars and bath bombs. I also indulged in a little leave in conditioner (R&B, it worked very well) to help with the chlorine hair.

The memory of those sundried tomatoes is killing me

After that meander we made it to The Real Italian Pizza Company which is next to the Real Italian Ice Cream Company of last night. We started with a fab bit of bruschetta between us. Mainwise Stephen had Cannelloni and I had pizza with rocket, tomato cheese and basil
. 

For Him

It was perfect pizza, stunningly perfect. The flavours were balanced well, the sauce was especially delicious and the crust just that perfect level of crisp. This is the pizza other pizzas aspire to. Or they should. Get on that pizzas.

For Her

After lunch we felt like heading back to the hotel and trying out the spa. Nothing is going to be as spectacular as hanging out in a naturally heated rooftop pool but it was just as relaxing. The hotel also has a sauna (as well as a steam room) which I can breath in. Yep. I'm thoroughly spoiled. 

When you are tempted to eat the garnish you know it's good food

That evening we went to The Mint Room for some stunning Indian food. Stunning. The restaurant is small and beautifully decorated giving a sense of relaxed luxury. We shared a Vegetarian Platter for two to start. The paneer tikka and onion bahjis being highlights for me. 

Too Hot!

For the mains Stephen had Chennai Sea Bass which he was disappointed by. The accompanying sauce was too spicy for his taste. I had the lovely Palak Kofta which, I admit guiltily, Stephen would have loved as much as I did. The Kofta had an incredible texture, completely crisp on the outside to give a satisfying bite and rich and creamy in the middle.  

Just Right

Desert cheered Stephen up. He had a chocolate moose and I went for the Gulab Jamun. We walked back to the hotel very full after a day of nothing but food. I head to the bath (and my bombs!) and Stephen took a stroll around the garden. 

That's Better

  

Camomile and Oat Bath Soak

Generally the advice for eczema is to minimise baths and showers. I do find though that eventually build up from all my potions and lotions is just as irritating to my skin as being dried out in a shower.

One solution is a bath filled with things that are kind and gentle and soft on your skin so you get moisturised while washing off the built up gunk.

I've been tinkering with a couple of recipes, throwing together bits from two places in particular. I've melded this from recipes in A Year of Grow Your Own Drugs and The Ultimate Natural Beauty Book.

The camomile is great for sensitive skin and oats are a brilliant emollient. The bicarbonate of soda softens the water making it lovely and silky.

All it is:
4 tablespoons dried camomile
8 tablespoons oats
3 tablespoons salt
2 tablespoon bicarbonate of soda

I like to make this in a coffee grinder, mixing everything together. A blender or mortar and pestle also work. After it's good and mixed I store it in a clean jam jar tossing it into the bath three or four tablespoons or so at a time.

The Birthday Books

I love my Boyfriend. He bought me books. Well not just because he bought me books but we all know I'm rather obsessed with books so... No, really I do love him for many other reasons. Like how he manages to look prettiest first thing in the morning when I'm at my grumpiest and other things you will no doubt find nauseating. However this post is about the books he (lovingly) bought me for my Birthday and which I've spent all weekend practising with.

First up is the one that's actually about cooking. This was my surprise book. I mentioned that I'd like a bread making book that was a little more advanced, a little more artisan breads and a little less 'see how quick and easy it is to make your own bread at home'. Frankly I wanted beyond quick and easy. I wanted more kinds of bread. I wanted something that saw bread as serious.

I didn't quite want as much detail as there is in Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes at least I wouldn't have chosen it for myself (Stephens belief in my intelligence is reassuring, if misguided) but reading it (much in the same way as Joyce, ploughing through with the faith that I could go back on my confusion later, although with Joyce I never did, see the last lot of parenthesis) and working with it I've come too a truce with it's depth. Or perhaps it's more Stockholm syndrome; I love it for it.

Well not all of it. Granted it's a bit Western-centric - there is an Aloo Paratha as a nod to bread culture elsewhere - but then books like this generally will be. And as an American book all the home baking measurements are given in imperial. Which confuses me only in that they have points of ounces and we have fractions (and if you have point something why not have metric? Metric is nice, metric is easy. Honest!) and confuses Stephen because the scales are being left on imperial.

For my fist experiment I went for Baguettes with Poolish. They aren't anywhere near perfect. The scoring looks like the diagram of 'improper scoring techniques', the crust is cracked and the crumb is a bit too uniform. But I love them. Almost as much as Stephen.


On to the gardening books then! No surprises here, he bought me The Edible Garden. We kind of adore Alys Fowler. There is the red hair, the quirky dress sense, the enthusiasm and that is without coming to the bits where she is interested in skip diving, foraging and other things we find super exciting. In fact it's kind of a running joke in this flat that if Alys says so, we have to do it.

With The Edible Garden she is after our own hearts mixing attractive edibles and the purely decorative to get a productive garden that looks good. Also foraging, skip diving, preserving, baking and having a quirky dress sense and red hair. It adds up to a book that you can simultaneously open up and loose yourself in and get fantastic practical information from. No easy feat looking at the rest of my bookshelf.

As a nice bonus it has an (all too short!) recipe section. So I had Chard, Garlic and Hot Pepper with Instant Noodles with my own home grown chard for that extra smug taste. It was delicious.


Finally Grow Your Own Drugs: A Year With James Wong, also not terribly surprising. We love Grow Your Own Drugs, okay me quite a bit more than Stephen, for the sheer ingenuity and horticultural geekery. And how cool is it to have a book that discusses natural remedies and skin care stuff by bragging about the chemical contents in plants rather than knocking modern medicine and claiming to be chemical free. Very cool, that's how.

For a test drive I went for the Oats and Chamomile Bath Bag. Both precious emollients that hopefully would let me have a bath that benefits my eczema rather than irritating it (if you're wondering 'why have a bath at all then?' my eczema gets irritated then too. My skin is in a constant state of loose-loose.)

I suffer from eczema on my lower legs and occasionally -though rarely - higher up. It's manly a problem in summer (heat) and winter (dry) letting me be in spring and autumn. Although the prolonged winter weather gave me no respite this year. I manly let it be, treating with emollient cream and avoiding anything likely to cause agony, like scratching.

I only seek medical attention if it's particularly bad. Although a dose of topical steroids can clear it up rather quickly applying it is irritating and uncomfortable. I know. It sucks. So I only show my legs off to the doctor when they are over run or infected, and yes they are rather hairy. I'd rather be a laughing stock than in constant pain.

Anyway, that's my medical history. Back to the bath bag. It was luscious. It felt lovely in the bath and not only didn't it irritate my legs any further but it reduced the existing irritation, the itchiness and the pain. Cool.

I'll say

We generally make a pilgrimage to Lush every time we are in a city that has one. We enjoy sniffing things, looking at the pretty colours and chatting with the very lovely, very perky staff. We like that they value the handmade, and that they don't value too much packaging. We indulge in a bath bomb and go on our way.

It's a little tradition we take part in whenever we go to civilisation. So hearing about staff being threatened and stores being vandalised made us go a bit... 'you what?!' I mean I know of people who don't like the smell but...

Turns out they are selling a bubble bar until Boxing Day that supports the HSA. Which has made fox hunters more than a little bit angry. A lot of people on the other side of the fence are angry too though. We're angry that even though fox hunting isn't legal it's still happening, that foxes are still being killed. And that the people's champion, David Cameron, would quite like it to be legal again.

Which has lead to all sorts of fun. Like the aforementioned threats and vandalism of Lush shops. And also, I assume, this lovely review on the website:


Now I don't agree with everything done by (and in the name of) the HSA. Much as I don't like everything done by Greenpeace or vegetarians or feminists. However they are doing an important job in regards to fox hunting. Personally I wish the police would do it but it turns out we can't have everything we want.

However my rambling will never amount to more than tip of the iceberg on what is a strange part of British life and politics and I don't intend to pull it apart any more here. But I did buy the bubble bar. And it smells yum.


I used it today, it turned the bath slightly pink and the smell of aniseed and peppermint was rich and luxurious. If you got to buy one make sure to sign the petition urging police to investigate hunts and uphold the law properly.