It’s a unique city, Bath. Named for the Roman bathhouses raised there around the time of Christ. Built from locally quarried limestone, the historic core stands apart from all others on this island. The architecture, the palette of a typical British sky, is magnificent in its restraint. From the authoritative grandeur of Georgian pillars in the centre to the serried townhouses that climb the hills, the whole urban form sits heavy in the valley—as if carved directly from the earth itself.

The days grow shorter. The leaves turn amber, brown, and green.

At this stage of life, autumn carries a tremendous weight—beautiful, but edged with the quiet knowledge that youth has passed.

At least for this body of flesh. The soul within continues to move, still seeking to flower in its own way.

That awareness deepened when I stepped into a bookshop. If the Abbey is the soul of Bath, this place was its mind. Surrounded by shelves of disciplined thought, I felt the pull to join those spirited souls in their search—not only for their own evolution but for that of others too. As I lifted my phone to film, I thought about the power of knowledge to connect us in profound ways, and how the same object in my hand so often severs us from that possibility.

The mornings and afternoons were grey. But as evening came, the sky broke and bathed the city in the last warmth of the year’s light. The buildings, once dull against the cloud, began to glow in high contrast—a wonderfully warm hue. Then came night, and with it the radiating light and hum from the old pubs and restaurants, spaces that for centuries have carried the same spirit forward.

A friend from Ukraine will join me soon. She wishes to visit Bath, and so I chose not to enter any of the familiar landmarks—the Abbey, the bathhouses, the museums. Those interiors can wait. They will belong to a future visit, a future entry in the archive.