Something of a misty start took me around the viewpoint at the end of Spike Island and then on to try to find a new way into Greville Smyth Park. I got lost.
I think of the four spiral staircases (two at either side of the span of the Plimsoll Bridge) this is the least-used.
This started as a little local walk with my friend Lisa, but when we randomly met my friends Sarah and Vik at Ashton Court, turned into joining them for a very long wander out to Abbots Leigh Pool. Most of this was well outside my one-mile radius but it was a lovely walk.
My friend Sarah mentioned the high tide and I managed to drag myself out early, though still a little late. We nearly drowned in torrential rain, but the weather changed quickly and we ended up walking over to Bedminster in sunshine.
I think there were plans to turn the council bulding (on the right) into some kind of community centre, but last I heard they were still trying to stop the place leaking like a sieve first.
Have I got the wrong listing?
Terrace of 3 houses. Dated 1831. For the Bristol Docks Company. Coursed Pennant rubble and render, party wall stacks and slate roof. Single-depth plan. Each a single storey; 3-window range. Symmetrical houses have a rubble plinth to the ground floor cill, central doorways with pitched canopies on plain brackets to a segmental-arched doorway with splayed reveals to a plain board door.
There's definitely more than three houses. On the Bristol council map of listed buildings, this is "Floating Harbour Nos. 1-5 (Consecutive) Old Dock Cottages Grade II". Colour me confused.
I don't know what industry happens in the building on the right, here, but this is definitely where the workers take a break.
A walk back from Bedminster to my place, mostly down Duckmoor Road, which I found a little dull—probably because it reminded me a little of the suburbs I grew up in on the outskirts of London—then held up slightly by some filming on Ashton Avenue Bridge. They were trying not to let the crowds build up too much in between takes, it seems, so it wasn't a long delay.
A quick lunchtime jaunt to Dowry Square, which is very close to me but, being effectively a cul-de-sac as well as a square, I've probably only circumnavigated a couple of times in the last couple of decades.
I never need to walk down Polygon Road or Dowry Road. I couldn't say I've not been down these streets at all before the One Mile Matt project, but if I have it's been vanishingly rare and so long ago I don't remember it.
In which our intrepid hero levels up.
A sunny day, and though I should have probably headed for less well-travelled territory I just headed over to the Marina to grab a flat white from Imagine That's horsebox café.
What, should I keep clear from this side? I'm assuming that this doesn't actually affect anything on dry land...
Just a quick wander up the hill to get a flat white from Twelve. I really enjoyed the spooky mannequin (?) in the window.
The one nearest is an AirB&B-style rental and looks lovely inside. This is the kind of quirkiness I might aspire to.
A little retirement housing block sitting at the end of a private road at the end of the Fossway. I've never wandered up and seen it before, though I've walked past it a thousand times.
I'm not sure what's going on in this fanlight on Richmond Terrace. Maybe it's space for a lamp?
I wonder how many times I've crossed this zebra crossing, or cut across the road at the little traffic island in the background to get to the diagonal path across Victoria Square?
A rather more wide-ranging weekend wander with Sarah and Vik, taking in some mock Tudor bits of Bedmo (I should note that I've subsequently been corrected to "Bemmie", but I'm an outsider and have been calling it "Bedmo" for short for decades...), a chunk of Ashton, a path up Rownham Hill called Dead Badger's Bottom(!), The Ashton Court estate, a bit of the UWE campus at Bower Ashton, and some of the Festival Way path.
I have no idea how anyone managed to smack this street furniture so hard, or what direction they came from to do it. It's a pretty straight 30mph road right there, and this is only one side of the dual carriageway. Never seen so much as a near-miss there.