A week ago I was in England for a funerary visit (a very jolly affair, meeting up family members) but despite a cold (mine) and the cold (it was freezing over there!) I did do a few fun things.

First a visit to the Ashmolean museum in Oxford, which was wonderful. Here I am with my daughter and one of two pics I took before my battery died (as usual).

Exactly a week ago I was snuffling my way around Bath in very frigid temperatures–don’t let that blue sky fool you. We visited the Roman Baths and Pump Room and particularly enjoyed the warm, steamy inside parts of the tour.

You can buy a glass of disgusting Bath water for 50p but I think it just isn’t the same when it’s not drawn from water where people with various unpleasant ailments are bathing. We didn’t have afternoon tea at the Pump Room but we did have a Sally Lunn bun with lemon curd which we inhaled without even thinking of a photo opp.

Out into the cold again for a look at the Circus and Royal Crescent. Brrr.

At this point we were so cold and our train on which we had supercheap (as cheap as rail travel gets there) reservations was a long way off, so we went to see a movie, The Artist, which I highly recommend.

We also had time to drop in to William Herschel’s house, one of my favorite places in Bath. I have a soft spot for Herschel, who was a brilliant wacko (he thought people lived on the moon) and his house is beautifully restored.

He started his career as a musician and several of his instruments, including a serpent, are on display as well as artefacts relating to his career as an astronomer.

Here’s a gown belonging to his sister Caroline, a brilliant astronomer (a better one, according to the museum staff, than her more famous brother). She must have been tiny!

And I have to show you this pic of another English eccentric, my brother demonstrating his marmalade making exploits–yes, that’s a chair upended on the kitchen counter to drain the pulp. It’s Seville orange season, a busy time of year in England.

Have you visited any of these places? Ever made marmalade?