Girl With The Pearl Burglar Alarm

I was out walking very early this morning. Not far from the Bristol campsite is a shipbuilding yard and some old warehouses. Not such a ‘pretty’ part of the city. But there IS one of the many Bristol Banksy’s there, easily missed if one walks by quickly. I’ve seen it before and it makes me smile! I would like to do a Banksy tour sometime when I’m here but I discovered they’re only on weekends so I’ll wait for another time.

First Extra photo
It was cloudy and cooler today. I decided to do a short boat tour. There’s a water taxi system here but they’re not operating the taxi service because of Covid (which I think is a bit silly since the buses and trains are operating?). They ARE doing a harbour tour however, so I enjoyed being out on the water for an hour, although masks were required even outside which also seemed silly!  The bottom left is the water taxi/tour boat. The top left is the cross-harbour ferry that shuttles people across the river in about 60 seconds for the princely sum of £1.20. It operates on demand and was designed by Dyson of vacuum cleaner fame!

The top right is a view of Bristol’s M Shed museum which I plan to visit tomorrow. To the right you can see The Matthew - the ship I featured in one of my extra photos yesterday. Middle Left is the Harbour and Underfall Yard, which was also in my blip yesterday. Middle Right is the campsite behind the tall hedge, with the larger Motorhome roofs peeking through. Bottom right is the view from Prince Street Bridge towards Redcliffe and St Mary’s church. Queen Elizabeth the first once said that this was "the fairest, goodliest, and most famous parish church in England."

Second Extra photo
After my tour and after a quick lunch I took an Uber to the station and took a train to Bath which is only 12 minutes away from Bristol on a fast train. I went to visit my nephew and his family. I was there just a couple of weeks ago for Elijah’s first birthday party and it was great to see them all again so soon. They live near the station so it’s an easy visit. The top left is the view leaving the station from the ‘back’ entrance, crossing the canal. Baby Elijah had just woken up from his nap when I got there. I could have easily filled a whole collage with his cuteness!  But I saved room for some food photos!  They gave me an option of either BBQ or Pizza for dinner and that wasn’t a difficult decision - I knew they had this pizza oven and I was eager to have homemade pizzas made outside!  There were 3-4 savoury pizzas and then a sweet one to finish off the meal!  Who’d have thought?? All very delicious!

I didn’t want to get back ‘home’ too late so I left soon after 9 and took the train back to Bristol and then an Uber back to the campsite - all very quick. The colourful picture at the bottom is Bristol Temple Meads train station. So beautiful. The original station was designed by Brunel (of the Clifton Suspension Bridge fame, see yesterday’s blip), but this building was the extension of that building, built in the 1870s. The tower originally had a spire, but it was destroyed when bombed in WW2.