Tagged: vehicle
Sequel Injection
07 May 2021
I saw this tweet the other day and started thinking of my second Covid-19 vaccination as my "Sequel Injection" (to a geek, it's funny. You'll have to take my word for it.) Whatever you call it, this morning I went and got it.
It was in the same place I got my initial injection—my left arm! No, okay, it was at the Clifton College Prep School. I didn't take any photos of the event itself; the NHS production line is so efficient you barely have time to do anything else, even if the privacy of other patients wasn't a factor.
Along the way I mused at all the road resurfacing going on in Clifton, and also discovered a secret (okay, not-well-known and possibly slightly trespassey) way into Canynge Square, and on the way back I knocked off a few streets from my "leftovers list" of north-east Clifton. I've got much of Clifton done now, with the only obvious "to dos" on the east side of Whiteladies Road...
It was quite a long walk, and I'm feeling pretty tired now, though that might be the effects of the jab too, I suppose. Anyway. Tomorrow and Monday I'm walking outside Bristol, I think, and I imagine my feet will need some recovery time on Sunday, so it might be a while before I post another Wander.
There were a lot of closed roads in Clifton this morning. I watched the white van at the end make its way carefully around the ROAD CLOSED signs at the village end of Observatory Road, drive past me, and get to where you can see it in the distance here before the driver was sent back with a flea in his ear from the workman on "stop the idiots driving through the newly-laid tarmac" duty.
As well as confused van-drivers, the buses weren't having a great time of it, either, having to squeeze down narrow streets like Canynge Road rather than their usual broad avenues. Never seen a traffic jam here before.
I'd spotted in my Canynge Square researches that there might be a cut-through from a gate I'd seen in previous excursions to the side of the Regrave Theatre.
Told you they were doing a lot of resurfacing.
Here's a related fun fact to go with a dull picture, at least: the "greatest advance in road construction since Roman times" is the process of "Macadamisation": crushed stone bound with gravel on a firm base of large stones, with a camber, raised above the surrounding ground. It was invented by Bristol Turnpike Trust surveyor John McAdam, and was later refined by the addition of tar as a binding agent, giving us tarmacadam, or "tarmac", as we generally call it today.
So, basically, this ROAD CLOSED AHEAD sign, due to resurfacing, can be traced back to 1820s Bristol, where the very idea of surfacing roads was invented.
I vaguely remembered having "get better picture of Worcester Terrace" on my "to-do" list, so of course it's got scaffolding up now.
The Long Lunchtime at the End of the World
27 Nov 2020
I took an extra-long break at lunchtime today as I'd taken the day off my normal day-job to do the accounts for my previous side-job, which is still generating paperwork, though not much in the way of money. This took me through some undiscovered bits of Cliftonwood, including Worlds End Lane, which unexpectedly leads to White Hart Steps. That's certainly not where I expected the end of the world to lead to...
I came up here drunk one night, searching for a shortcut home from somewhere around the Triangle. At least this time I was reasonably sure I'd not get out of the far end here.
After twenty years of careful consideration, I think this sign and its supporting structure are the ugliest bit of the Cumberland Basin Flyover System, and that's quite some competition.
A long ramble, starting with trying to find the Hot Well of Hotwells and leading up the side of the Avon Gorge to the Downs and then through Clifton for coffee.
In full flow. The flat top of the water to the left of the overflowing rim sits above a semicircular-profile concrete trough that's designed to calm the water and channel it into the fairly calm wide flow you see here to reduce the erosion it would otherwise cause.
This is Towerhirst, on Sea Walls Road, "A fine example of domestic architecture in the Free Gothic style", according to the listing. I heard somewhere that it was a wine merchant's house, and that he had the tower built so he could watch for his ships coming in, but I can't find much to back up that story. Apparently built c. 1891.
Ten O'Clock Shop and Can't Dance Coffee
30 Nov 2020
I had to return a faulty AirPod Pro to Apple (there's a first-world problem!) so I just took a quick trip up the hill to the nearest UPS drop-off point, The Ten O'Clock Shop, which is famously open until 11pm. Unfortunately it's a fairly cramped little place and neither of the staff were wearing masks, so I made it a very quick drop indeed and got out of there as quickly as I could.
I grabbed a quick coffee from Can't Dance, a stall that's—as of yesterday—in a tiny converted cargo container on the edge of Victoria Square; up until this week they were running from a little trike parked in the same place. Hopefully the new premises will let them see out the winter without worrying quite so much about the weather.
I tried to fit in a few extra streets from the surrounding area on my there and back, but that was basically my wander today: a quick little shopping trip.
This bit of grass is apparently called "Bobby's Green" or "Bobbies Green"—I've seen it written both ways. Several locals call it this; the only guess I've seen came from Louise on NextDoor:
don’t know why it’s called the Bobbies green except sometimes policemen used to lean or leave their bikes on the railings before there were so many parked cars. They used to come up constitution hill from the old police station at the entrance to Brandon hill on Jacobs Wells Rd and cycle around clifton so maybe that’s the reason- but that’s just a random guess.
Got your work cut out making that window look good. They were actually working around the corner.
Fruitless Coffee Excursion
01 Dec 2020
Unfortunately by the time I got to Greville Smyth Park I was already about halfway through my lunch-hour, and the queue was too long to wait to actually get a coffee. Is that a fruitless excursion? Presumably a coffee bean is technically a fruit...
This kind of vague musing was sadly overshadowed by my delay at Ashton Avenue Bridge on the way back, where someone—hopefully still a someone, rather than a body—was being stretchered up the bank of the river, presumably having just been rescued from the water. As I made my way home the long way around, avoiding the cordoned-off area at the back of the CREATE centre and its car park, I saw an ambulance haring across the Plimsoll Bridge, siren running, presumably on its way to the BRI. I'd like to think that was a good sign.
Nothing New
02 Dec 2020
This may be the very first time I've gone for a One Mile Matt wander and not actually gone down any new roads, trod any new steps. I just wanted a coffee, frankly, so I went the same old way to Imagine That in the marina and back again.
Cliftonwood and a Secret Garden
03 Dec 2020
I love the isolation of Cliftonwood -- the geography of it, with its solid boundary of Clifton Vale to the west and Jacob's Wells Road to the east mean that you tend not to be in Cliftonwood unless you've got a reason to be there. It's not a cut-through to anywhere, at least not from side-to-side, and you can only really exit to the south on foot.
I sense that I'd be happy living in Cliftonwood -- like my bit of Hotwells, it's a quiet little area with a sort of quirky feel to it. Plus it contributes the colourful houses that are the backdrop of about half of all Bristol postcards ever made :)
I found the "secret" garden especially interesting, just for the fact that it really does feel quite secret, despite the obvious name on the gate. I've lived a half-mile from it for twenty years and I don't think I've ever noticed it before, despite exploring the area a few times.
I got curious about Bioinduction's sign down on the Hotwell Road once. According to the company's website theire mission is to "develop a precisely targetted brain pacemaker that offers new hope for the millions of sufferers... To revolutionise the treatment of cerebrovascular and neurodegenerative diseases where there is no effective drug therapy available today."
Apparently Gnodal "was a computer networking company headquartered in Bristol, UK. The company designed and sold network switches for datacenter, high-performance computing and high-frequency trading environments"
It's a great pub. Friendly, welcoming, family-run, extremely good food. Only been a few times. I hope it weathers the Covid storm.
Strangers' Burial Ground
04 Dec 2020
I tried to find the Strangers' Burial Ground the last time was up in Clifton, but I'd not realised that Lower Clifton Hill continues further on after the turning with Constitution Hill. Sadly it was chained shut, but it still looks beautifully-maintained, perhaps by the same man referenced by this story from John Hodgson, which helped me find it. Apparently Thomas Beddoes is buried here.
Although, given the sign, perhaps I shouldn't have. But I didn't think they'd object terribly. I've actively interested in living here; a couple of flats have popped up on the market in recent times and the views are amazing.
I take a snap of the Clifton Club virtually every time I pass. Perhaps it's having read too much Jeeves & Wooster; I fancy belonging to a private members' club. But then, on reflection, I'm perhaps with Groucho Marx on that one.
Only been in a couple of times over the years. I like the way it's got a back entrace from the Arcade, and I seem to remember the beer was varied and well-kept.
Alma Vale
06 Dec 2020
I wasn't really feeling it when I set out today, on my first car-assisted wander. By the time I'd parked on Alma Vale Road in Clifton it was just starting to rain and I picked my way about in quite a desultory way. It felt strange, as I was very familiar with the area because I'd walked through it hundreds of times when I worked at the top of Whiteladies Road, and used to walk up the hill from Hotwells and through Clifton to get there, and back again, every day.
Then a complete coincidence seemed to make the change I'd been hoping for. I was standing taking a photo of Christ in the front garden of All Saints church when a couple of people walked out of the front door. I got talking with a lady I took to be part of the ministerial team, who invited me to come in and look around—something I'd always wanted to do on the morning commute. (I think we connected a bit when I recognised the name John Piper, who did the amazing windows—I learned about him while I was at Warwick, through his connections to Coventry Cathedral.
I left with much more of a spring in my step, wandered around the area a bit more, finally working out that the tennis courts I used to pass every morning are those of Clifton Lawn Tennis Club, and finally grabbing an excellent Hungarian sausage hot dog from the Budapest Cafe. I feel a lot better now than I did before I went out.
Mark's Bread
07 Dec 2020
I realised that if Hopper Coffee in Greville Smyth Park was in reach during my lunch hour, then perhaps Mark's Bread at the end of North Street would be do-able, too. And I was right. I also managed to cross Clift Road, with its pretty gable bargeboards, off my list, and encounter a dapper gent walking his dogs while playing loud jazz music from somewhere under his jacket. That's North Street for you.
Pleasingly, a year and a half after I took this picture, Know Your Place Bristol tweeted a World War I-era photo postcard from the archives that has a very similar perspective on the same road (Direct KYP link)
I thought this was especially relevant as the tweet mentions that the road is otherwise unremarkable; the interest is in the fact that someone turned this presumably quite average street scene into a postcard whose image survives today, more than a hundred years later. I'd like to think that someone in a hundred years time might be interested in the quotidian scenes that comprise the vast majority of my little project here. Will this street still be here in a century? Will it still be lined with cars, or will transport perhaps have moved on into a new phase where streets are back how they were in the early 1900s, with no visible cars? (I doubt it, as that would require a massive change of mindset and the provision of decent public transport in Bristol, neither of which seems very likely...)
