8 July Bristol

This appears to be a free day.  Probably this will be catch up on things we haven't done or I am sure there will be breweries or cider manufacturers demanding our presence.

We used this primarily to go to Bristol to check the cathedral and to indulge in some retail therapy.  It was a very relaxed start to the day as we left the barn at about 9am rather than 7am as has been the case in the last few days.  There were no great dramas getting into Bristol and once I had assessed exactly where we wanted to go little trouble in finding a parking station giving easy access to the Cathedral.  We walked cross this interesting bridge (over a sideshoot of the Harbour that seemed to be used mainly as a home for boats taking tourists and wedding parties around) on the way.

On the way to the cathedral we walked past the Information Centre with a large planetarium and a few statues of famous residents of Bristol (including William Penn and Cary Grant - the latter being very popular for very old persons to have their photos taken with).  In the image the wrinklies are easier to see than Mr Grant!

The cathedral seems to be rated as small in guide books - one cheekily says that people sometimes go to an ornate church nearby by mistake.  Personally I think that is downplaying the place quite a lot.  While it wasn't huge (certainly not a Durham, Lincoln or Salisbury) it had a lot of good stuff in it.  I noted:

• good ceilings and vaulting;
• The rose window (apparently very unusual in English churches);
• Another set of windows commemorating (or celebrating) service personnel around the Bristol area;

• a very detailed altar screen (stone as usual);
• yet another reference to the indian Rebellion and the soldiers who died therein; 
• the organist practicing (playing very well); and
• some interesting art work with my favourite being some carved soapstone statues - which only took 4 weeks to carve!

Frances acquired some nice earrings in the Cathedral shop and we then wandered to Hobgoblin Music to get some sheet music, CDs and (another) tin whistle.  No accordions were acquired although a good range was available in their Alladin's Cave of instrumentation.  We noted the grand appearance of the Council Chambers (no need to go to Bath for fancy architecture).  I also bought a copy of The Big Issue from a vendor.  (Later another vendor tried to sell us a copy with a call of "Sponsor a tramp."  When I said that I already had he enquired "Wuzzie gud trump?" which is my linguistic highlight for the day.

Our first negative for bristol was finding out that because we got back in a tad over 2 hours we could part with Stg 9 to the private enterprise bums running the place.  Oh well, on to find the Bristol Glass factory.  At this point I decided there were two Bristols:

• the good stuff we had found on the way in; and
• anything associated with the 4-letter word 'Bath'.

The first application of the B**h problem was when a  sign directed us round a corner to suddenly find that we had to be over on the RHS of the road to get the turn to the A4.  A quick lap of some architecture got us back and in position to head off to the glass (which we managed as we were following road numbers, not references to certain towns).

The glass works were quite interesting especially since it was possible to watch the goodies being made.  A small purchase was made, and then it was back on the road.  Unfortunately we found the dreaded word appearing on the road signs again.  However so did Shepton Mallet so we were going well until an intersection with no reference to Shepton (nor one to B**h which would have allowed avoidance behaviour to inform our decision-making).  Fortunately we only got a few hundred metres out of whack before turning and recovering.

We the went back to Chew Lake and found very few birds.  I am so over people telling me this is the quiet season, come in Winter!

For our evening meal we went to the Queen Victoria pub in Priddy.  It was OK but not as quiet as the George.  Since the beer (Butscombe) was similar this means we rate the George better.  On getting home I had a half of Hobgoblin Ruby Ale which was very pleasant indeed: much fuller bodied than the Butscombe.