bath¹ Definition

bath

noun pl. baths

1. a washing or dipping of a thing, esp. the body, in water or other liquid, steam, etc.
2. water or other liquid for bathing, or for dipping, cleaning, soaking, regulating temperature, etc.
3. a container for such liquid
4. a bathtub

Here they are, the much awaited pics from our trip to pick up our new roll top bath tub...

The alarm went off at 4am, the cats still lay blissfully asleep on our bed. We had to leave at 4.45 for the 3 hour car-trip to Calais ferry port so we had just enough time to put our bags into the car and have a quick breakfast. The thunder storm from the night before wasn't far away and we caught up with it on the motorway approx around the town of Diest. Lots of heavy rain meant using the wipers on double speed and with no lights on the motorway that time of morning it meant tediously slow driving for 30 mins.

After a last petrol stop at Jabbeke we made good time and checked in around 7.45 for our 8.30 Seafrance ferry.

Luckily the weather cleared and the crossing was smooth.

Our first stop was to visit The Bathstore in Freeport, Braintree to have a good look at how the waste pipes were mounted and re-measure, hmmm it would definitely be too big to fit in the car!

Next was to my nan June who had ordered the bath for us and had taken delivery of it on the 22nd July. It had been safely stored in her shed since then, thanks nan!

We decided to leave the cardboard square around the roll top to make it easier to strap to the roof, it had been attached with packing straps and was very secure. We peeled the plastic back to check there weren't any scratches on the bath and then re-taped it down, a sheet was also taped across the bottom to stop the plastic from flapping too much in the wind, we used two whole rolls of tape!

Luckily my uncle Roy not only has a lot of experience knot tying from sailing but he also had some cushions to tape onto the bars of the roof rack (lets hope my aunt Gill knows what happened to the cushions!). The bath being more awkward than heavy was manoeuvred onto the roof bars and strapped down tightly.

We had mostly showery weather on the journey home from Chelmsford (UK) to Heusden-Zolder (BE) but the packaging held up and we (inc the bath) made it back in one piece. We're leaving it wrapped up for the moment because of the huge amount of dust and grinding work that still has to be done in our house.

Maybe this will be our next project? Snapped at South Wold's North Beach it's a beach hut no bigger than 2m x 3m, no running water allowed, no overnight visitors allowed for the bargain price of 35,000 pounds leasehold, I'll stick with a wind breaker and sand in my sandwiches thanks...