It's a pier

When my niece Christina, now 22, was three, she spent Christmas at her granny's house in Scotland. Having flown over from New Zealand where she was born and lived, her Kiwi accent was a source of amusement to some, and consternation to others.

One day she drew a picture, and she showed it to one of her grandmother's massage clients.

"Very nice" said he. "What is it?"
"It's a pear" she replied, pronouncing it like "pier", as in jetty.
"Oh, it's a pier! Is that the loch, then?" (pointing to another area of the picture).
"No, it's an apple!' (pronounced "ipple")

Joyce Grenfell, eat your heart out!

Today was a 6-million photograph day as we walked around the old Bristol harbour area with our friends Pip and Mary. I didn't have time to compose many of the shots, though. I may go back and change this as I have not yet looked at all of the images yet. Our walk took us from the Cumberland basin, through a working boatyard to the Hotwells area, following Bristol's floating harbour, which keeps the tidal area level by means of locks. At Hotwells, once destined to become a spa area, the Clifton Rock railway, a funicular railway with a very grand station entrance lies abandoned.

This old pier, opposite, has also seen better days. I've chosen a tiny detail because the structure is immense. As the Clifton rock railway station is closed, we climbed steeply uphill to Clifton, where by the hotel a vast ballroom, flanked by pillars sporting carved stone ladies, also lies derelict. Sic transit...

Downhill again we went, via the Portcullis bar which serves an impressive range of malt whiskies seldom encountered this far South. Back to Baltic wharf and the Cumberland basin, where we picked up the car and returned to St Andrew's for an enormous lunch. There followed a discussion about "whatever happened to..." following Steve's discovery of some photographic prints from the mid-80s, including some taken at Pip and Mary's wedding and their home life with small babies. I did not know any of them in the 80s, so I amused myself by re-reading the truly terrifying tale of Samuel Whiskers ( a rat) by Beatrix Potter, whose name had somehow come up in conversation.

Back home again, we were relieved to find that Bomble, our cat, had not been kidnapped by rats and made into a roly -poly pudding, as in the Beatrix Potter story! He did, however, seem very relieved to see us, not least because we were nearly three hours late with his evening meal!