22 May 2021
I didn't even think I'd manage to get out today, such was the weather forecast. As it turned out, it's been quite a nice day, and I managed to nip up to Clifton Village to pop to the Post Office. As with my last outing, I decided after snapping one shop-front on Regent Street that I might as well snap the whole row, and muse on a few of them, the only service I really offer over and above Google Street View for a lot of my pictures đ
The Joy Raj do good food, from what I remember. I've never had any need for family law. Surprisingly, it was a hairdresser before it was a law firm.
I've not been in since it changed from a Boston Tea Party, but I may have to try it just to sit upstairs and watch the world go by like I used to...
28 May 2021
Another dash to Greville Smyth Park for a coffee from Rich at Hopper, but at least this time I managed to divert a bit and knock off a small section of Cumberland Road I'd managed to miss on previous excursions. Along the way I muse on a strange residence in between a warehouse and a tannery, and wonder if the Mayor might be deliberately letting the Cumberland Road Flyover area go to seed...
29 May 2021
I met my friends Sarah and Vik at Riverside Garden Centre today; I needed to buy some compost for repotting my wildly-overgrowing aloe vera, and I went a little bit out of my way to knock off a stretch of Ashton Road. It was a pleasant enough walk in the surprisingly warm (and surprising-not-tipping-it-down-on-a-Bank-Holiday-weekend) weather.
Interesting mixture. Behind Ashton Road, to the right and behind me in this pic, is Ashton Gate stadium, home to Bristol City, which goes some way to explaining the two big pubs (next two photos) on this stretch.
There's an arguably better snap of it on an earlier wander, but at least you get a glimpse of the cool street art on the end of Baynton Road with this one. I still need to walk down Baynton Road, so perhaps I'll save talking about that piece for later...
I managed to knock off a reasonable chunk of the roads I had left to walk around the University at the north-eastern extremity of my mile on this nice sunny walk. As well as being impressed by the number of big townhouses now occupied by various departments, I took some time on my way there to check out a war memorial, and some time on the way back to do a little extra wandering of Berkeley Square.
31 May 2021
A nice warm Bank Holiday Monday saw me walk back over to Bedminster to do justice to something we glimpsed on my last wander. Along the way I spotted a couple of new pieces of street art tucked away on the south side of the Cumberland Basin Flyover system, so this turned into a micro-graffiti walk.
We'll get to my main reason for coming here in a minute, but for now let's just have a little poke around this semi-industrial, semi-residential alleyway.
Apparently this is 34 Baynton Road. Looks like just a tiny, isolated house, stuck in a very odd little corner.
06 Jun 2021
The track on the map doesn't tell the whole story of this walk with Lisa around and about Clifton, Berkeley Square, Brandon Hill and the harbourside, because the batteries on my GPS ran out while we were on the roof of Trenchard Street car park, it seems. Oh well. I think I did most of the area I was interested in finishing off around the University; there were only a few new bits around Brandon Hill that won't be on the track, and I can easily do them again.
Still, technology woes aside it was a nice walk, albeit a bit warm for climbing all those hills, and sat on the harbourside watching the world go by for a while, too. It was good to see the Bristol Ferry Boats carrying people around again, especially.
We're just outside my mile radius here, but Osborne Villas Looked too tempting to just walk past.
08 Jun 2021
I had to return a book to the libraryâEllic Howe's Magicians of the Golden Dawn, very interesting, thanks for askingâso I decided to pick the Central Library as my drop-off point and walk down a segment of Deanery Road that I've surprisingly overlooked so far. In any normal time I'd have been walking to work that way quite often, or heading through at the weekend on the way to do some shopping in the city centre, or for a coffee at St Nick's, but those excursions have been quite thin on the ground for the last year or so, for obvious reasons.
I've never been inside a single building on Deanery Road itself; the Library is technically on College Green and the rest is mostly student accommodation or Bristol College buildings, by the looks of things. It's a fairly mediocre street, used merely to get to other places. (St George's Road, which merges into it, at least has the distinction of several good shops verging from the practical and long-lived car radio fitters to the excellent little Dreadnought Books, sadly currently closed for refurbishment...)
After dropping off my book I came home via the harbourside, the better to enjoy the nice sunny blue skies of the day.
19 Jun 2021
I hadn't really planned to go out for a wander yesterday; I just got the urge and thought "why not?" (Well, the weather forecast was one possible reason, but I managed to avoid the rain, luckily.)
I wanted to finish off the A369âas it turns out I may still have a small section to go, but I've now walked the bulk of it out to my one-mile radiusâand also a few random tracks in Leigh Woods. I'm still not really sure that I'm going to walk them all, especially after discovering today that "the map is not the territory" applies even more in the woods, where one of the marked tracks on the map wasn't really that recognisable as a track in real life... I'm glad I'd programmed the route into the GPS in advance!
Anyway. A pleasant enough walk, oddly bookended, photographically at least, by unusual vehicles. Leigh Woods was fairly busy, especially the section I'd chosen, which was positively dripping with teenage schoolkids with rah accents muttering opprobrium about the Duke of Edinburgh. I'm presuming the harsh remarks were more about taking part in his award scheme than the late Consort himself, but I didn't eavesdrop enough to be certain...
I guess it's more to reduce road noise than privacy, but it seems a shame these lovely-looking houses are all just peeping over giant hedges and walls.
There's something about a slightly brassy classic car that makes we want to turn up the Lightroom sliders a bit too high.
I love the individual wipers on each of the lights. Anyway. This was the last photo, mostly because I've walked the route from this point to home hundreds of times after walks in Leigh Woods, and nothing new really triggered my mind's photograph sensor along the way this time.
04 Nov 2020
You never know what you'll find when you go for a walk in Bristol. This gorgeous Mustang was in the Marina car park. Nice. I also surprised myself by getting a good photo of The Hand (to give it its full title, Green Hand of a River God, by Vincent Woropay. Thanks, @mfimage!)
I considered going down to the end of this engineering bit behind the Harbourmaster's office, but I know it's a dead end and I don't think the woman walking her dog did. It felt like it would be a bit weird to follow someone down a dead end, so maybe I'll go back another day. On the other hand, I don't think it counts as a public road..
05 Nov 2020
I spotted the fog and decided to go for a morning walk rather than a lunchtime walk today. It was cold on the Portway, but it was worth it. Most of my One Mile Matt photos are "record shots", but it's nice to get the chance to do something a bit more artistic.