Guess what?!

It's not yet another flower blip!!

Book group at the library this morning was a very small affair, just three of us! So we had a good old catch-up on our news and travels, and threw in a couple of minutes on 'War and Peace' for a token bit of book talk!

The new library layout has a lot of drawbacks, but the one positive side to the new development is that the nine intact panels of amazing Roman mosaic flooring (uncovered on the edge of town in the 1920s) at last have a home and are on public display. For many years they have languished in the Town Hall's cellars, but now they are set below a glass floor in the library so that they can be admired by all.

"Archaeologists think that it may have been one of the best (Roman Villas) in the whole country, home, possibly, to a retired high-ranking army officer or top civil servant. Perhaps they favoured the country life but still wanted to be near to Bath, a thriving centre of religious and cultural life.... The villa had literally dozens of rooms – some of which were heated, as was the custom, by under-floor flues (hypocausts) – and paved with expensive, expertly executed, mosaics. The spacious rooms were connected by a covered veranda supported by a colonnade which ran around three sides of a courtyard. Like other high-status villas, this one probably contained ornamental gardens and gravel walks. The building contained evidence of emperor worship, and of the country god, Silvanus." www.bathchronicle.co.uk