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Getting to Bath for my Algebraic Geometry short course was a royal pain. To begin with, I knew that Travel West Midland's services are crap but I didn't quite remember that the earliest bus service from Coventry to Leamington Spa runs around two in the afternoon. On non-term time Sundays, that is. Nonetheless, two.
This meant, I had time slowly enjoy the omelette Nikki had made while catching a later train than I had planned for. So far so bad. Later on, my train got a delay that handily caused an arrival about three minutes too late for my connection. Normally I'd expect the connecting train to wait for those few minutes, particularly as it didn't seem to be a particularly fast or important one. Normally, I'd also expect tracks to be electrified, though.
This gave me a lovely hour in Didcot Parkway, which thankfully had a pub full of ever-so-slightly grim people across the road to kill the time. 'The British Rail way to alcoholism', I guess.
Finally arriving in Bath, things went relatively smooth – modulo getting the wrong room key perhaps. The rooms, aka student residences, we occupy are less than impressive. Lovely concrete bricks in making up the walls and equally lovely but unpainted concrete slabs over the radiator, doubling as a bench/shelf beneath the window.
The whole building seems quite old and crappy, though. On the sixth level, even with closed windows, there's the constant buzz of some ventilation to be heard. Add to that having to witness every use of a tap along the corridor and the advantage of having a variety of half a dozen alarm clocks at your disposal in the morning. I wonder who educated those architects and builders. Building relatively quiet ventilation and plumbing is possibly.
I had a stroll through the town after arriving. It's still very pretty. When I first visited Bath many years ago, I thought I should live here because everything looks so nice. Lots of places that look like nice restaurants, too. On the downside, it's very posh and buying a house here would probably meant that all your neighbours are lawyers. So while it's a pretty town, I may reconsider whether it's a good place to live in.