Tagged: gas
Morning Walk
08 Jan 2021
Tempted by a hopeful repeat of yesterday's weather, I got up early this morning and went for a short walk up into Clifton Village, around Observatory Hill, back down the Zig Zag and home. Instead of beautiful and mysterious fog and crisp freezing brightness I got some murk and slight dampness which included witnessing a road-raging van driver and finding that it still wasn't cold enough for the hot well to be even gently steaming when I got down there. I've still never seen it steaming, but I've been told it does, on colder days.
Mirror Maze
10 Jan 2021
Went for a wander with my friend Lisa—the current lockdown rules seem to be that one local walk for exercise per day with a maximum of one person not in one's "bubble" is fine—up to the University of Bristol area right at the edge of my one-mile perimeter to see the Jeppe Hein Mirror Maze, among other things. On the way we mused about Merchant Venturers, the slave and tobacco trades, and dating in the time of Covid.
It may say "Reflections House", but in its listing it's called "The White House". Charles Dyer, 1850.
It's good to see that the most specific street sign in Bristol is still there. I'm actually a little surprised that they haven't added GPS co-ordinates yet...
Must've been a bit of a relief to do some simple bricklaying after the war.
I rescued this robot from the skip outside Engineering. It's a line-following racing robot called the Renesas Micon Car. No idea if it works as a whole, but there's a lot of good parts on it including decent-looking DC motors with integrated gearboxes, a servo motor for the steering, and a nice LED/photodiode array for line following. Even if only half of it works it's a crime that someone threw it in a bin.
Northern Clifton
16 Jan 2021
A raggedy wander with my friend Lisa, picking up a few stray streets and venturing only briefly onto Whiteladies Road, where it was too damn busy, given the current pandemic. We retreated fairly quickly. Found a couple of interesting back alleys, and got a very pointed "can I help you?" from a man who was working in his garage in one of the rather run-down garage areas behind some posh houses, and clearly didn't want us just wandering around there.
Oddly, this is a little crescent that two-thirds Coddrington Place and one-third Belgrave Place, it seems
The first woman in the UK to qualify and work as a doctor, says Wikipedia. Among other things, she established The Read Dispensary for Women and Children in Hotwells, so I'll have to see if I can track down where that was. It might, of course, have been in the bit of Hotwells that was demolished to make way for the flyovers, though.
Oh! No, a quick check seems to show that it's the building on St George's Road that now houses Oryx Recruitment. I know the building well.
This used to be a pleasant litte cafe called Brew, and it used to be the colour you can see in the unpainted bits at the bottom left hand side of the orange facade. Assuming that's a mobile cafe in the converted horsebox, maybe they're at least still managing to scrape by. On the other hand, it looks like their last tweet was in 2019, so maybe not.
The Artillery Grounds, Whiteladies Road. The Royal Engineers have a troop here as well as the Royal Artillery.
Coffee and Graff
22 Jan 2021
Took myself around the harbour to Imagine That's horsebox cafe and treated myself to a flat white and a sourdough cheese toastie. On the way there and back I encountered some local flooding and various bit of graffiti, from some ugly tagging on someone's front windows to a large new piece being added to Cumberland Piazza in the ongoing attempts to cheer the place up.
Can't be pleasant to have your house tagged. I don't imagine that anyone living in a house right on an arterial road whose front door opens virtually onto a pllar supporting one of the ugliest street signs of the Cumberland Basin is exactly swimming in money or time to re-paint their frontage, either.
Snowy Leigh Wander
24 Jan 2021
I started this wander with my "support bubble" Sarah and Vik, after Sarah texted me to say "SNOW!" We parted ways on the towpath and I headed up into the bit of Leigh Woods that's not actually the woods—the village-like part in between Leigh Woods and Ashton Court, where I'd noticed on a map a church I'd not seen before. I found St Mary the Virgin and quite a few other things I'd never experienced, despite having walked nearby them many, many times over many years, including a castellated Victorian water tower that's been turned into a house...
I came here to find the church, mostly. The steeple wasn't visible from the road, but this seemed likely to be a good sign...
And next to Chakas Kraal is Malmsy House. It sounds like a vaguely insulting epithet from a Bertie Wooster story to me. "Just get on with it, you malmsy fool!"
Another Lunchtime, Another Quick Coffee Trip
28 Jan 2021
With very little photography, and no new streets. Still, I did manage to buy milk at the "Simple Cow" vending machine—and "simple" is very definitely false advertising; it took me bloody ages to work out how to use the thing—and snap the new ACER/SEPR piece down in Cumberland Piazza.
It was not simple. But now I have some clue what I'm doing I might manage it better next time.
Jacob's Well Wander
01 Feb 2021
I just wanted to get some exercise, really, so I set out to knock off the lower bit of Jacobs Wells Road that I'd not managed to walk up yet. I set the new signboard that the community association had had erected as my destination, after reading about it on their blog.
As it turned out, I couldn't even read it, as the building that houses the actual Jacob's Well had water flooding out onto the pavement. I wonder if it was actual Jacob's Well water? Have the soles of my walking shoes been mystically blessed now?
You can't see much of the flood in the photos I snapped, but I did shoot a little video, too. Ed on Twitter said:
I spoke to the seller at the time with a view to buying it - I mentioned an old friend who grew up nearby remembers it flooding regularly. He swore blind my friend was wrong.
This isn't a great photo of the flooding, I admit. I did shoot a little video, too, though.
Greville Smyth Path Completionism
02 Feb 2021
I needed to get away from my desk at lunchtime, and I saw a little segment of path in Greville Smyth Park that needed knocking off my "to walk down" list, so that gave me a target. Sadly Hopper Coffee's little Piaggio Ape wasn't there to sell me a coffee. I hope Rich is all right, not seen him so far this year.
Anyway, a fairly uneventful walk. They're putting new boundary fencing up around Hotwell Primary School (I wandered down Albermarle Row to see what the pneumatic drilling was about), the house on Granby Hill that's been covered in scaffolding and swaddled in protective sheeting has finally been revealed in its cleaned and refurbished form, and they were doing something to the flyover that leads up from the end of the Portway/Hotwell Road to the Plimsoll Bridge. Nothing much else to report.
I think this may be the first time I've been able to walk through this gate; normally it's the gate at the bottom of the Plimsoll Bridge spiral stairs that's open. Hopefully this is to reduce the impact of that pinch-point while we're meant to be keeping 2 metres apart, and it'll stay open for the duration.
In Between
06 Feb 2021
A lovely walk in the early spring sunshine with my friend Lisa. We headed directly for Jacobs Wells Road, to start off around the scene of one of our earlier walks, but this time took in Jacobs Wells from QEH upward, stopping to snap some photos of a Bear With Me, some interesting areas between Park Street and Brandon Hill including a peculiarly quiet enclave with a ruined old build I'd never found before, then crossed the Centre to grab take-away pies from Pieminister (I had the Heidi Pie) and head back to my place down the harbourside.
Byron has a few things named after him around here. Not sure of all his connections to the area, but I know Lady Byron bought Red Lodge—currently a Bristol City museum—and gave it to the woman who turned it into a girls' reform school.
We walked past Hotwells' Holy Trinity Church on the way here, but apparently one of the ones he's famous for is the The Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity with Saint Jude, in Sloane Street in Chelsea.
We decied it was probably the kind of place run by earnest hipsters who would make you an excellent espresso but probably weren't big on small talk or cake. We moved on.
These steps up to a car park look like they're the remnants of an earlier house at the end of this terrace, but that's just a guess. Wouldn't surprise me to find that the terrace lost its end house during the war, though.
No idea what this place would have been, but there's what looks like one of those old-school bells for a phone that needs to be heard across a work site of some kind, and the sockets say "SITE POWER". Given the lack of integrity in the roof, I doubt it's still connected...
A wander to knock off a couple of bits around Clifton Park that I'd missed out on previous excursions. This one took in the drinking fountain near Sion Hill and explained a little of how the Seven Years War, which ended in 1763, still has some history on display near Manilla Road.
It makes a lot more sense when you realise that there's a bit missing. On this page you can see a drawing of the original with an ornate centrepiece where "a central urn with four consoles offered drinking cups suspended by chains", and there's also a photo from c. 1980 of a replacement "font" in place, rather more utilitarian, but still at least raising the water from down here up to a bowl rather closer to drinking level!