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The river runs behind Comfortable Place and brings people and bears. One of the most regular visitors is 'Anise Star' a true Bohemian, with her paints and pencils, sketchbook and easel.
What shall I paint today?
Anise Star lives onboard the colourful narrow boat ‘The Laughing Duck ’. A brightly painted and beautifully decorated boat which chugs up and down the river stopping here and there as the mood takes her.
Onboard, every cupboard and table, chair and windowsill is piled high with paint and brushes, paintings and sketches. The windows sparkle with colour and light from the sun-catchers and mobiles that twist and turn in the sunlight.
’The Laughing Duck ’ chugged gently toward Comfortable Place sending ripples in her wake that left drowsy ducks bobbing along the waters edge. A Moorhen 'curricked' from the rushes with her little chicks pecking at the reeds and the water in her shade.
Anise Star sat on deck in the sunshine. A little cerise and chocolate brown teddy bear. In her paws, a little purple sketchbook with hand made paper. She was busy drawing and hardly noticed the river, trees and animals as they slipped by.
The light danced on the water, which sparkled and frothed as the narrowboat slipped through the calm water. One of the windows, near the back of the boat displayed a particularly splendid panel of coloured glass. The glass made up the face of a handsome looking man with a beard and moustache and hair that waved from his head like rushes in the wind. The man in the coloured glass was Prince Bladud.
Now for those who are wondering who Prince Bladud is, I can only tell you the tale as I heard it.
In ancient times, Lud Hudibras eighth king of the Britons had a son named Bladud. Poor Bladud developed Leprosy and as ‘imperfect’ could never become king. Sadly his father sent him away and Bladud roamed the countryside from place to place doing whatever work he could find. Before long Bladud was reduced to the lowly job of a swineherder, the only work he could get. How far he felt he had fallen from a Prince and Heir to the thrown of the Britons but he carried on his task as best he could.
He would walk with the pigs as they scavenged for food in the countryside. Soon the pigs caught Bladud’s leprosy their skin blighted and broken with the terrible disease. Bladud watched in despair as the poor pigs suffered with the very thing he had passed to them. How much worse can life be for me, he thought. This terrible pestilence and the disappointment I have brought to my father. His spirit was low but his kindness and faith never left him.
One day, as he walked the pigs by a muddy swamp near the river Avon, he let the pigs wallow in the sweet mud to cool and ease their sore skin. For a while they rolled and grunted in the soothing soft mud, and as they shook the mud from their skin Bladud couldn’t believe what he saw. The leprosy had vanished!
Could it cure me? He thought, and quickly rushed into the mud and covered himself from head to foot. Sure enough his leprosy was gone.
Overjoyed he ran to his father, the King, I am cured he pronounced. His father was so pleased to see him and there was great rejoicing, the prodigal son had returned.
Bladud went-on to become King, and founded a spa at the place where the mud had cured him, calling it Bladud…which later became known as Bath.
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