neadods | Travel: Jane Austen (Reply)

The Austen tea at Cheltenham was one of the quick sellouts. I found Dierdre Le Faye's talk fascinating; she was talking about how she'd read a casual line from, say, Mansfield Park about taking a fork in the road, and then another casual line about how the land was flat somewhere, and add a few more casual lines and confidently say "They took a left turn at [x] and Austen is describing this part of the country, which she had visted when..."

I started my spending spree by buying all three of the books she was signing - her latest compilation of Austen's letters ("I like to pretend I'm Cassandra and she's writing to me"), Jane Austen's Country Life and The World of Jane Austen.

That last is also the title of the 2015 JASNA Big Do, so perhaps Le Faye will be coming to America.

Val McDermid's talk included her work on the update of Northanger Abbey as part of a modernization project, and the writing problems of having to stick to the original plot and that the tension of the original plot had been "relieved far too soon, only 3/4 the way through the book, leaving a gentle canter to the altar."

And on the Tuesday of our trip, M and I hared off to Bath. We had exactly 7 hours, so we visited with slightly more efficiency than leisure, shoving in the Roman Baths, the Assembly Room/Fashion Museum (I was aided in our timeline by the museum being much smaller than I expected), the Jane Austen Centre whose main exhibit is the new waxwork, but my favorite part being the sign on the wall explaining incomes and what they would buy you, and Bath Abbey.

Between the first parts of that sentence and the Abbey we stopped for tea at The Pump Room. The waiter's head kind of exploded when I said I didn't want tea or coffee -- I loathe both -- so M said "bring her hot cocoa." The decadent results are under the cut.

Also under the cut are some shots of things from the Abbey, including a diptych exhibit running along one wall. Frankly, there are better shots of the waxwork and the baths than my camera takes.

Pictures:
So here I am at the Pump Room, waiting for tea and reading Mansfield Park (still finding it a hard slog, sorry Mansfield fans) and THIS arrives. From elegant to Eloise in 3 seconds!