Driving to Bath

This poem describes the trip to Bath from London in the rental car with my family. I learned to drive in Australia when in high school in Sydney thirty years earlier, so I expected to have no problems driving on the left side of the road.

Driving to Bath

We rode the London Underground, emerged at Hatton Cross.

We loaded up the kids and gear in our Renault Espace.

And sitting in the right-hand seat did little to disturb

My confidence to drive this thing - until I jumped the curb.

To navigate the streets of Bath you must have nerves of steel:

No time for timid feelings when you slide behind the wheel.

The roads are twisty, narrow, full of tricky intersections,

But real men never feel the need to stop and ask directions.

We viewed the Royal Crescent; we toured the Roman Baths.

We browsed the Christmas market; we walked the hidden paths.

But if you care to ask my kids what they remember most,

'Twould be the time I bumped the car into a concrete post.

But when the bag fell out the back, it really got me pissed

To have it get run over by a passing motorist.

So if you choose to go to Bath by automotive means,

You better have insurance, and some brass ones in your jeans.

John M. Campbell

December 2003

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