Bright afternoon in Bristol

Today we set off for Bristol on various missions.. CleanSteve wanted to sort out some photographic gear, and I wanted to see an exhibition at the RWA (Royal West of England Academy)up by the Clifton triangle. CleanSteve dropped me off, having advised me not to walk too much on my weak ankle, and I descended into the basement of the imposing gallery building to see the photo exhibition entitled Vanishing Lives, one man's (Reece Winston's) collection of documentary photos of everyday life in Bristol and Somerset between 1935 and the late 1960s. Many of the photos were taken in 1937, the year of my mother's birth. The detail was astonishing: see it for yourself if you are in the area!

CleanSteve turned up as I was finishing, having found his place shut because it was Sunday. We went round the exhibition again together, and then upstairs to the main galleries where the prestige exhibition, One Hundred Paintings, was displayed. We did not like this selection nearly as much, though there were one or two works that caught my eye and captured my heart. The light in the hallway outside the top galleries was strong, and while CleanSteve played with wide shots and stone carving close ups, I experimented with light and shade. The stone carving that CleanSteve has blipped can be seen here, it's the 'bobbly one'.

Afterwards we had coffee at the pavement tables outside the gallery, and my illusions about city life being so amazingly cultured and sophisticated were shattered by the realisation that it is also incredibly noisy, and busy....

Back at home, I cooked the tea (a Nigel Slater concoction we call Crispy Chickenfish) and a courgette cake (also courtesy of Nigel). I am thinking of renaming the cake Farrington Gurney cake, though it has no connection with that Somerset village, just so that I don't have to use the c- for-courgette word again. We are reduced to leaving bags of courgettes on doorsteps in Bristol, ringing the doorbell, and running away...