“I must dress in my best, I must brush up my curls,
For I’m going to meet the sweetest of girls.” — 1930s valentine
1) The spaciousness of my room included an electric kettle and instant coffee, so I could resume writing my morning pages in my room, and then go to the lobby for hotel breakfast.
2) The forecast had gone back and forth about rain, but when the time came for me to walk to the train station, it was decidedly raining. Since I ain’t stayin’ at the Ritz, the only thing to do was to rent an umbrella from the little machine in the lobby, and so I set off for Bristol Temple Meads, about 20 minutes away, along a couple busy thoroughfares and side streets with names like Old Bread.
2a) And across a serpentine bridge over the river.
3) The train to Bath took only about ten minutes or so. Dozens and dozens of day trippers boarded the train at Bristol, and there was a little confusion about seating (as not everyone had assigned seats, including me). And since many of us disembarked in Bath, that made it all right.
4) Bath was as I remembered it from two years ago, only wetter because of the weather. I drifted along a bit, just looking at all the chain stores, until I remembered a delightful little stationer I’d happened upon in 2023, Meticulous Ink. A brisk walk dodging the raindrops under my garish rented umbrella brought me there in about 15 minutes, and I had a really nice chat with Jack behind the counter while I picked out a couple greeting cards and other stationery.
5) And then I needed to proceed back from whence I came, to a little restaurant I’d never been to called the Cosy Club, in anticipation of a very special reunion. I climbed the hollow square staircase, checked at the desk, and settled myself onto a low stool where I could see everyone coming up the stairs. And after only a few minutes, there she was . . .
6) . . . my remarkable, wonderful, astonishingly talented Interlochen classmate Helen, unseen these 40 years. Bear hug! Sound the Call and all that! We settled in at a high top near the bar, and caught up on everything over a light lunch. (Spanish chicken and gallons of sparkling water for me.)
6a) Helen hasn’t changed a bit except for her accent, which is now unmistakably English without very much American. She was full of stories (and I guess I was, too), but hearing how she conducted a naval safety briefing before conducting a marine search for unexploded bombs near a nuclear power plant takes the cake. Also (in another story) her use of the phrase “while she was shredding newspaper for the hedghehog rescue league . . .”
7) Eventually it was time to head to the theatre, which is how this whole Rendezvous in Bath came to be. Our schedules were both in flux, but by the time I had settled on Bristol, her own plans had come together enough to know that she’d be home then. And a friend of hers, “while she was shredding newspaper for the hedghehog rescue league,” found a notice of a new play being staged in Bath, By Royal Appointment. Helen proposed we go, I suggested the matinee, and here we were, off to see it!
7a) And by this time it was chucking down rain, much worse than before, so I was very glad I had rented that umbrella after all. I just had to laugh; it was raining so much! But then Britain needs the rain . . .
The set for By Royal Appointment.
8) The little jewel box of a theatre, quite lovely, filled up very quickly. And just as every other theatre and concert hall fills up, too: the folks on the aisle (like us) got there first, and everyone in the center for whom we’d need to stand came in after. Ah well! We all handled it gracefully. The real advantage is that there was unused space between our seats and the wall for us to stow our umbrellas, hats, and gear.
9) By Royal Appointment concerns the collaborative, and sometimes rough, relationships between the late Queen Elizabeth II, her dresser, her designer, and her milliner. The play begins just after the queen’s funeral, and then takes us through 15 of her outfits from 1969 through 2022. A Greek chorus in the form of a curator conducts us through the changes.
10) I was surprised afterward when Helen told me it was only the third performance. All the performances were strong, but I did notice three or four little flubbings of lines — much more understandable if it’s so early in the run, but to me, oddly endearing. It made me side with the actors even more.
10a) Of whom my man James Wilby, as the designer, came out on top. Granted, I’m biased; Maurice was such an important part of my coming-out crisis. His interpretation of a creative man who had a difficult relationship with his father spoke to my heart.
11) The rain had stopped at the end of the play, and after a bit of confused poking about, Helen and I found a restaurant bar where we could sit over a coffee (for her) and a negroni (for me) and weave together our impressions of the play with our continued catching up.
11a) Helen pointed out to me a very handsome and well-dressed young man sitting at the far end of the bar. Later we were both happily surprised to witness him singing “Just the Way You Look Tonight;” he was the lounge singer! Too bad he had to sing to a background tape and not live accompaniment.
12) Too soon was it time to return to the train station, but we were both on the same train west. Helen knows her way around the trains, and we found a section that was mostly empty . . . except for a couple loud young men who had the potential to become rowdy. To my relief they got off at the next stop. The cute one then opened a bottle of beer with his teeth on the platform. Somehow, that didn’t change my mind about him, LOL.
13) Helen and I had a happy/sad farewell before I disembarked, but I very much hope I’ll get to see here again when I return from Paris and Vienna to London.
On the platform at Bath Spa.