This was the boat club’s Weekend Away in Bath. As Commodore Andrew gets to chose the location (with a little help from me). Bath it is. We love the city and haven’t been there for years, and also importantly neither has the boat club. Our first stop on Friday was much more British than Roman. An olde worldly tea shoppe attached to the National Trust property Dyrham Park Estate. When it was built in 1818 the building was used to collect tolls for the Lambridge to Cirencester Turnpike Trust Road. After several reincarnations it now serves delightful cakes whilst providing fabulous views over the Severn valley. But, unfortunately , outside loos! A dozen or so of us met there before pottering down the A46 road to Bath.

We the arrived at the Bath Apex hotel. That’s when the parking stories started. I have no room to repeat them all but we had parking tickets, people unable to find car parks, people turning up at car parks without wallets, people getting lost on the way back from the car park…

Eventually we were all checked in and ready for something to eat. This was a casual evening of ‘find your own food’. A contingent made its way across the road to the Green Park Brasserie (highly recommended) with their jazz band, and another contingent walked all of 5 minutes to the Raven Pub. The pub is composed of two Georgian town houses located on a quiet cobbled street in the centre of Bath. It specialises in pies, and to go with that it had a choice of real ales, it serves over 200 different real ales every year. the boys were happy.