More about Bristol

I'm doing my best to catch up on the past few weeks, but this blog still seems to be about two weeks behind. However I leave Bristol in 3 days and will then have regular internet access again, so hopefully I'll get it up to date then.

Two weekends ago (12-13 august) was the Bristol Balloon Fiesta. Richard and Hilary came down from London and we spent the weekend exploring Bristol and trying to see the hot air balloons. Unfortunately the weather over the whole 4 days of the fiesta was such that they never managed a mass launch and the few balloons that did go up each morning were blown south and away from Bristol. So the only time we got to see balloons was at the night glow on the saturday night. That was fantastic - about 15-20 balloons tethered to the ground and then they opened up their burners in different sequences in time to music. A little cheesy but still lots of fun and really interesting to see.




During the day on Saturday we did a bit of sightseeing around Bristol. first we went up to Cabot Tower which is a nice view out over Bristol centre. The tower was constructed in honour of John Cabot who sailed from Bristol to America to help establish a colony there. I didn't go all the way to the top of the tower, just to the first lookout points, but there was still a reasonable view from there.




After climbing the tower and walking around we had a very long lunch and then went to Wildwalk @Bristol. This is part of the science and discovery centre in Millenium Square and we were expecting it to be interesting but mostly for young children. However we all found it much better than we thought it would be and spent over two hours in there. Considering the price of it (expensive) it needed to be good. The Wildwalk looks at nature and ecology etc, and has parts that are both fairly standard museum / science centre type set up, but it also has a great big tropical greenhouse that you can walkthrough as part of the discovery of different ecologies. They had lots of tree-ferns in the first section of this greenhouse which was nice. Good to see some things from home again. They also had lots of birds and butterflies for natural pest control. Some of the butterflies were quite large, and we were able to get some pretty good photos of some of them.




After such a full day on Saturday, we decided to start a little later on sunday and just explore Clifton. So we went to the Clifton Suspension Bridge and saw the cresecent again, and had lunch at an interesting little cafe tucked away down a side street. There wasn't really time for much more, but it was a really nice day just walking around and seeing Clifton again. It really is a nice part of Bristol.

So while we didn't do lots over the weekend, it was very pleasant and it was great to spend some time with Richard and Hilary again and show them around.

Photos from wells

for some reason the blog didn't allow me to post most of the photos from my trip to wells, so here they are.


The Sentinels



Cloister Conspiracy - this was my favourite of the sculptures.


The Don


Gale Force Nun


Icarus Rising


Steps to the chapter house - worn away on the left.


Vicars Close


Looking back down Vicars' close to the cathedral.

Wells

This is a bit delayed and i do apologise for posting old news, but without regular internet access outside of work it is hard to keep this up to date. However, I went to Wells on the 6th (yes two weekends ago). Wells is quite close to Bristol, about an hour away on the bus, and is the smallest city in the UK. It is also where the author Elizabeth Goudge lived for a lot of her childhood and as she is one of mum's favourite authors, mum suggested i went.

The town itself is nice, but nothing special, however at the top of the high street is the market square with the cathedral and the Bishop's Palace. These are two stunning buildings and are the reason the town is on the tourist map. I went to the Bishop's palace first and just found it so calming. The gardens are wonderful, much of it backs onto a former deer park and now protected park, and you cannot hear any traffic once you are behind the garden walls. It also benfits from having the springs that give the town its name all within the garden. These springs have been turned into a wonderful pond with a stunning waterfall that feeds the moat. It really is a very peaceful place.






I was also lucky enough to go there when they had a sculpture exhibition on Phillip Jackon's work called Sacred and Profane. These were a series of very clever sculptures many of which played on the religious history of the site. They were scattered throughout the garden and really lifted it. I really enjoyed wandering around and encountering the sculptures.

After leaving the palace and grabbing some lunch i went to the cathedral and was there for one of the sunday services. again really nice and the cathedral was stunning. I haven't got many photos of it as you had to pay for a photo licence and i was feeling a bit poor, so didn't pay. however i did get a photo of the steps up to the Chapter house which are so worn and show their amazing history. The chapter house was completed in 1306 and the wearing on the steps to it suggests they have been there the whole time.

after leaving the cathedral i wandered around to Vicars' close which is apparently the oldest continuously inhabited street in Europe. It was completed in 1363 and was built to house the men of the Vicars' choir. It looks back towards the cathedral and was just wonderful. Once again the history of so many of the buildings here just leaves me astounded. That these houses are over 600 years old, and still lived in is amazing.

By the time I had done all that it was pretty much time to leave so that i could get back to bristol at a reasonable hour. It was a lovely afternoon and i'm really pleased i went.

I have lots more to write about but that will have to wait until next week, or even the week after, i'll see how busy i am.

catch up

sorry it has been a while. i've now managed to join up at the local library so can get internet access here for the next few weeks. however there hasn't been all that much that has happened. so this post will be short - lack of news and a pretty severe time limit on internet access will make sure of that.

Work at the British Empire and Commonwealth museum is going well. I'm certainly learning lots with my placement and while there are times that are frustrating, in general i've really felt that it has been worthwhile.

Other than that, I'm still enjoying living in Bristol, although i'm regretting the lack of time i have to really explore. there is so much around here that i'd love time to see. I think that i would have preferred for my time to be switched around, so that i had 8 months here and 2 months in leicester. But that is just because of the feeling that i'm not going to get to see everything i want to.

Last week i went to bath for dinner with a friend from sydney. I got a lovely suprise when he let me know he was in bristol for a few days, and we met up on three evenings. It was great catching up on hockey gossip, seeing him again and just feeling a little more normal (ie have a sort of a social life). We didn't go into the roman baths at Bath as they were verye expensive and we got there only an hour before they shut. but we wandered around the town, saw the abbey and the grand crescent and had a nice dinner.





I have also been to the Bristol Harbour festival. On Friday night I went to the opening with Ben and Derek (hockey friends from Sydney). It was a great night, lots of fun and so nice to hang out with some hockey mates again. We saw Jamaica Jazz who were very good, lots of funk and soul and very good to watch. I had to bail out early to catch the bus home, but went back on saturday. Saturday was more like a typical british summer day so it was cold and damp, but there were some very good bands on and the acrobats and circus performers were excellent. I think i actually spent more time at the circus stage than at the bands. My standout band was 'The Madness of Kign George' who were and eastern european style band. Wonderful energetic folk music, but i also saw some very interesting Bristol based groups who were generally very good as well. I enjoyed the day, but after the friday night with friends wandering around by myself was a little bit of a let down. However I'm glad i went and i did enjoy the music.




Other than that, i've joined a frisbee team and i'm training with them once a week. I'm gradually getting some more work done on my thesis and i'm looking forward to Balloon Fiesta and a weekend of walking in wales.

Now that i have discovered the library and got the system worked out i'll hopefully start posting a little more regularly again.