Rosalie Gilbert

This lovely photo is courtesy of Andrew Fraser, who visited my display over the Abbey Medieval Festival weekend.

To the right, a sample of healthy things- tooth powder, tweezers, scissors for cutting hair, combs and mirrors, hair powder, etc then the bath, the lavarbo and myself. Keeping clean has never been so informative!

I'd like to draw your attention to a pair of pretty fantastic slippers in this painting by Hans Memling painted in 1480. These slippers are exactly the kind that we use today, a design unchanged for over 700 years. Of course, slip on shoes have been in use since antiquity, but somehow this image of getting out of a bath, wrapping in a towel and sliding one's feet into indoor slippers is a scene we can recognise today.

The painting shows Bathsheba stepping out of her bath, which has, may I also draw your attention to, the best and most luxurious brocaded bath canopy I've ever seen.

Also of note is a flat brass dish with a wide brass rim on the floor, the type we see in many other manuscripts of women making their toilette and, also found in many modern homes today, a small, fluffy white dog anxiously waiting by the bath for it's owner to finish and just get out.

The painting may be hundreds of years old, but it has a recognisable feel of home today.

The countdown is on the the first public outing of the bath house and I'm so excited. Bits and pieces are arriving and it's really coming together.

I'm still very undecided on the use of the linen in the tub as so many of the images clearly show a tub without bath sheets. They're a cool addition, but are they so common I should be doing it?

Perhaps not.