17 Oct 2023

 Went to the Roman baths and museum. It's a very layered place, starting with a spring and thousands of years of building and rebuilding around it. The Romans, and the Victorians, raising the water to different levels, controlling its flow, worshipping, praying, bathing, decorating, exercising.

The Romans used lead for all their pipes, also amazing sluice-gate engineering. The caldaria I found most impressive with their piles of tiles in little pillars under the floors, then in adjacent rooms people would shovel in coals, or hot water would flow through. I was also amazed by their hollow bricks - made using a slab-rolling technique, wrapped around a block and then fired with the block in pace. This enabled them to make a massive vaulted ceiling as the hollow bricks were strong but light.

I had a taste of the water - not the stuff from the actual pool, which looks orange, manky and gross (apparently all of the springwater has quite a bit of iron in it, hence the orange staining), it was warm and soapy/metalllic. It has lots of minerals in it and they treat it with UV to allow for drinking.

We drove through Avebury. I wish we'd had time to stop. It really looked amazing - a little village, which cute buildings with thatched rooves - all within a massive henge and stone circles around/through it. Also forgot about the Long Barrow which I would have loved to see.

We spotted two white horses on hillsides as we drove northeast.

Marilla dropped me off at Narborough, as it was the best intersection for her trip home and a train for me to Cambridge. Unfortunately, after my stop at Leicester, I got on the wrong train and ended up in Sheffield again... $100 and a couple more hours and I finally arrived at Rick and Mo's. Rick picked me up from the station and Mo had prepared a beautiful dinner. Leek and chorizo quiche, baked celeriac, beetroot (homegrown from neighbours), hazelnut and fetta salad, another leafy salad, french sparkling, nice cheese...and a hug from my mum.

I finished A Desolation Called Peace.

9,968 steps

6.7 km