An appropriate city to visit today

Well, if we'd jumped in here, we couldn't have been wetter and at least we'd have been warm!

Yes, today we decided to visit the city of Bath, to do a little shopping, have a wander around and go somewhere nice for lunch. As you will gather, it rained.

And rained.

And then rained some more.

And when it had finished raining it snowed.

But more about that later.

It never really got light all day. I looked through this fuchsia pink window around 10.30am - yes, the street lights were still on.

At least there were no pesky tourists to get underfoot. In fact, there were very few people about at all. Sensible folks stayed home today. By lunchtime, we were soaked to the skin even though we were wearing wet weather gear, strong shoes and had darted in and out of shops all morning.

Even the Pump Rooms were practically deserted at lunchtime, though the musicians played on.

and the water continued to flow, inside and out.

Whenever I'm there I like to go and look at the panel of English Kings and Queens, embroidered by Audrey Walker in 1973 because it was one of the pieces which inspired me when I very first began to stitch creatively. Sad to say, one or two rust spots are beginning to appear, but the colours and the overall design never fail to win me over.

We braved the wind and rain and headed back to the car and drove home through sleet. Once back home, the sleet turned to snow and within an hour, the garden was covered in a thin white blanket.

I came to upload photographs and read email around 6pm, but shortly after I did, the lights went out and we were without power for two and a half hours - a major overhead power cable had failed in the area and all the surrounding villages were affected. As usual in a local crisis, we turned on the BBC local radio to hear that once more, Gloucestershire is hit by floods, though thankfully, not so badly as in July. Several roads are closed due to snow or lying water and we are thankful that we are at home and do not have to venture far tomorrow.

41degrees in Australia, so Sue tells me. Hmmm.....right now, that sounds pretty nice.