12 Dec 2020
A walk with Sarah focusing on Ashton and the surrounds, taken on a day with really nice light around sunset. Just what I needed.
13 Dec 2020
A long walk around Cliftonwood and Clifton with my friend Lisa, taking in some of the 12 Days of Christmas display at Queens Parade, picking up a take-away coffee from Pinkmans of Park Street, and poking our heads up against the glass of SS Peter and Paul Catholic Cathedral.
One of the best street names in Bristol. The street itself isn't up to much, mind.
We presumed this was the presbytery, and having checked the plans, we were right. Entered via a bridge.
15 Dec 2020
On the down side, I got to Bedminster and found long enough queues at both Mark's Bread and Hopper Coffee that I gave up on the idea of buying a drink and a pasty (from the former) or a mince pie flapjack (from the latter.) On the up side, I got to take some pictures of Cumberland Basin being drained and sluiced out, part of its regular maintenance cycle.
Just looking at this scares me a little. In an episode of Columbo featuring a flying instructor (I think), someone asks the scruffy detective if he's scared of heights. "I don't even like being this tall," he replies, and I can sympathise.
23 Nov 2020
I've just got to the bit in Fanny Burney's Evelina where our eponymous heroine visit a grand house on Clifton Hill during her stay in Hotwells. It was interesting to wonder if it could be any of the places I passed in my lunchtime jaunt, which took in both Clifton Hill and Lower Clifton Hill.
From Evelina (1778):
"Yes, Ma'am; his Lordship is coming with her. I have had certain information. They are to be at the Honourable Mrs. Beaumont's. She is a relation of my Lord's, and has a very fine house upon Clifton Hill."
17 Dec 2020
I think the cute little Duncan Cottage was my favourite bit of this wander up the hill to get coffee and a pain-au-raisin from Twelve, though I did enjoy gently musing on the public and private gardens of Clifton, inspired by a closer pass than usual to Royal York Crescent's garden.
I managed absent-mindedly to clear my GPS track before saving it, so this hand-created track-log may cause me problems in the future. I suppose we'll see.
19 Dec 2020
Despite a mild headache, I enjoyed this wander over to Bedminster. The light was lovely, especially toward the end. I always enjoy the view down the streets south of North Street at this time of day/year, with the distant hills backdropping the Victorian terraces.
I have to think that if you need a specific parking place marked out for your signal engineer, it might be an indicator that your traffic lights aren't terribly reliable.
20 Dec 2020
A long meander around bits of Bedminster, from the river to the north to Winterstoke Road to the south, taking a few roads I've seen before, and a few I haven't. The Christmas decorations were an extra bonus.
This is the second house called DUNDRY VIEW I've found on my wanders. The first is on Cornwallis Avenue, much nearer to me.
Something tells me Tom might be doing a timelapse, or similar, and needs to remember exactly where his viewpoint should be. I've thought of doing similar with my shots of the Avon Gorge, but they were only idle thoughts.
Argentinian artist Caro Pepe's mural is "a one-eyed woman (her trademark) with symbols of the suffragette movement exploding out of her head"
21 Dec 2020
Despite the weather, Sarah and Vik and I wandered around Ashton Court a bit as the sun rose. Not that you could really tell. Sadly, the bit we wanted to watch the sunrise from was closed, because people hadn't been treating the deer with appropriate respect. Ah well, at least it was some exercise.
The yellow is the lights of Ashton Gate Stadium. I know nothing of football or its stadia, but it seems a bit odd to leave them on all night.
Sadly we couldn't take photos from the usual spots at the ends of the Suspension Bridge; it's all railinged off, presumably to stop people gathering in any significant numbers. The pedestrian footways are now also one-way, and have these signs on to remind people of the rules to keep everyone apart as much as possible.
25 Dec 2020
A Christmas Day walk with my friends Sarah and Vik, taking in the shipwrecked Shadow and a hilly chunk of Leigh Woods.
I went to have a peep at the giant sinkhole that's opened up in Canynge Square—ironically, having recently discovered the gardens were public I'd had the (triangular!) square on my list to re-visit for a few days, but now there's no entrance to the gardens due to the danger. The area was well fenced-off for safety, but I tried to get a couple of photos from behind the barriers.
I also explored the area around Camp Road, an real melange of architectures, one of the most mixed-up areas I've seen in Clifton, in fact, and confirmed my friend Claire's suspicion that an earlier snap of a sign from Manilla Road was in fact for a fire hydrant. Nice.
Not as old as the sign on the building that first caught my eye, but this modern hydrant sign must still be fairly old, as it's pre-metric: the hydrant is a 3" hydrant, 6 feet in front of the sign.