... in Bristol

 The Adventures of the Anonymous Two in Bristol

The cat had been dropped off at the cattery the previous day so we awoke on the 28th to a bit of lie in and my birthday presents before setting off. 

On the back of a card envelope from step child the younger she had written Yes, there is a badge. Yes, we expect to see photos of you wearing it. The badge said ' Five star step mum, would recommend'. 

We had a relatively easy journey until we arrived at Bristol. Traffic on the M4 had built up following a car accident but the real trouble came with trying to navigate the city. The one way system was unknown to the car's sat nav. So we resorted to Google Maps. I could located the hotel car park, but the directions required us to go up a narrow No Entry lane. In the absence of other options, we did. And could see the car park. But between us and it a town planner has seen fit to install a bollard. I was curious about what this road actually was - a no entry at one end and dead end at the other. So it was unclear how you could drive into it in order to drive out the correct way.

A builder came along and made the somewhat obvious and not entirely helpful statement that we couldn't go ahead from here. Having established we were not from Bristol (which also seemed obvious) his interest in providing any useful assistance subsided. In a moment of inspiration, having backed out of this pointless road, Husband navigated us round the town and to the other side of the inconvenient bollard. Following an experience that was reminiscent of Bruges, finally we were parked.

A group of noisy young men were in the hotel foyer and the hotel receptionist was wonderfully high spirited and patient. And put us in a room which she informed us was some distance from them. Around this point it dawned on us that this was graduation weekend. That explains the hotel cost, muttered Husband.

We dumped our bags and made our way to Brewdog for lunch. On the way we passed the bustling street food market in St Nicholas. Near Brewdog there was a sandwich shop with an extensive queue outside. I wondered how good those sandwiches were that enticed people to the long queue rather than the vast array of street food only a few metres away. We shared a tasty pizza had a beer, benefiting slightly from our shareholder discount. 

We walked along the river towards Queen's Square, the grey skies overhead holding off dropping their belly full of rain. A unicorn stood majestically on the riverside which reminded Husband that there was a unicorn festival in town whereby several unicorn statues had been deposited randomly around the town. We crossed Georgian park that is Queen's Square, centred with a statue of William III rather than Queen Anne who the square is named in honour of, towards Broad Quay where we hoped to locate the open top bus tour, which initially seemed not entirely easy to find. During this walk from lunch to the bus both Husband and I thought we had seen another unicorn, a striped one. But we never found it again and indeed the map of unicorn locations did not show one in that area. Perhaps we had seen a real one.

We sat on the edge of a sadly neglected water feature, or would be water feature if there was water in it. It was the George V memorial fountain which was adorned by a rather splendidly snarling lion. 

When the bus tour boarding time arrived, we climbed to the top of the open deck bus, choosing to sit outside rather in any of the few covered seats at the front of the top deck. The bus did a useful circumnavigation of the city. There were a lot of similarities in look to Bath and the Victorian grandeur was periodically interspersed with modern eyesores, clumsily filling the gaps created by extensive second world war air raids. There were also large areas of dereliction. And a lot of building work. 

In one of the substantial houses in Clifton a massive Grommit dog stood on the balcony, surveying the passing traffic. 

As the tour bus dropped away from Clifton to the Avon gorge we travelled under the Clifton suspension bridge. Husband stood up to have a look at it, perched daintily on the edge of the cliffs above. Now I understand what all the fuss is about, he commented. 

At times we each had a little snooze on the bus while the audio information talked through local history  and gently explained away the source of Colston's wealth. The route took us past the very impressive Temple Meads railway station, neighboured by what is now the Brunel car park. Which seemed a sorry state of affairs, although preferable to demolition. 

After the tour we wandered back to the hotel, passing the Ox, a basement restaurant nestled behind large iron gates bearing the words Safe Deposit. Husband had been trying to remember this place, having enjoyed a very tasty mushrooms on toast starter there. We booked for dinner, which turned out to be sensible as they only had tables still available at 6pm or 9.15pm.

On the way back to the hotel we went into the Corn Exchange. The interior was used for a market but it was interesting to see the building. Four massive copper nails outside the building dated from several hundred years ago and the clock had one big hand and two little hands to show both Bristol time and GMT (or BST).

After a short refresh at the hotel we ventured out for our dinner at the Ox. The restaurant was dimly lit by light fittings that were shaped like bunches of grapes. 

We had a delicious but enormous dinner. The broccoli side dish, to accompany our steak, had what in the dim light looked like beans with it. I tried one. These are nuts, I stated. Husband thought I meant nuts in a mad or interesting way. No, I explained. They are actually nuts.

Having been unsure if we had room for pudding, we ate one followed by a cheeseboard and port. The cheeses were all delicious but the blue picos was particularly creamy and delightful. The restaurant filled, with people considerably more dressed up than us.

Very much needing to walk off dinner we wandered off to King Street in search of live music, which we successfully found and watched recent graduates party the night away. Young couples, momentarily thrown together by shared geography who were now, probably, going their separate ways. And coming to the realisation of that. Others were filled with excitement about their uncertain futures. I found it all somewhat saddening. We left the youngsters to it and wandered back to the hotel.

We woke the following morning, still feeling full. It looked like a beautiful sunny day and not at the all the rain that had been forecast.

After a sumptuous breakfast that we didn't need, we ambled off to M Shed, passing V Shed on the way, along roads with flowers painted on them. Railway lines and cranes littered the riverside. M Shed had a detailed museum of Bristol history. Outside a unicorn gleamed in the sun. 

We both needed to expel some of last night's dinner so used M Shed's facilities. The loo had a touch free flush system which went off when I sat down and whenever I moved, and when I turned to get loo paper. The one time it didn't flush was when I actually waved my hand over it, wanting it to flush, which I only managed to achieve by going through the motions of sitting down again.

We returned outside and went to look at the steam crane. 

Signs had referenced The Mayflower on the river. We saw a replica old boat, but it was called The Matthew. And then we saw Mayflower - a somewhat simple, low lying barge with no clues about why it warranted particular mention on the signage. If indeed this was the Mayflower being referenced. The Matthew, however, was an interesting replica of a ship that had travelled to Venice to pick up spices.

We continued on to SS Great Britain where, naturally, there was another unicorn. Similar to the The Cutty Sark a small amount of water in perspex surrounded the hull to make it appear to be afloat while in reality sitting in a dry dock. 

We went down to look around the hull. It was hot, with humidity maintained within strict limits to try and prevent further deterioration although, as the information boards advised, wood and metal need different humidities which created a difficult problem to solve. The clipper had originally been built in the dry dock where it it now spent its retirement so it was interesting to see the steep steps and wooden ladders which would have been used by the dock workers.

At the stern and bow you could get a full sense of the bulge of the boat, then look up through the thin water level to the upper part of the boat towering above. Naturally this was a badge photo opportunity. At the bow this meant standing in front of the huge sluice gates which held back the river. Which was a mildly alarming.

The museum included the opportunity to dress up as a Victorian - another badge photo opportunity - before boarding the boat. Conscious of Husband's knee discomfort I looked at the guidebook which showed how long each part of the exhibition took. The museum - with Victorian dressing up - allegedly took 40 minutes. Husband asked how long it would take without dressing up.

We had last visited 20 years ago before the ship was restored and we could go inside and see the broadly empty inside of the hull. Now it was set up to show steerage and first class cabins, promenading rooms, dining rooms. I sent some photos to the mother who said she now understood why her mother always insisted on travelling first class between New Zealand and England. A storage area at the bow end was still largely open to the skin of the ship, reminding us of its 2003 appearance.

Once we got onto the deck we were slightly surprised to the The Matthew sailing past.

We left SS Great Britain and took the small ferry across the river, conveniently getting ahead of the crowd which quickly grew behind us as the ferry could only take 12 people at a time. After a couple of beers on the other side, and a unicorn visit, we walked to Cabot Tower. Initially we went the wrong way, finding ourselves in a square with a water feature that children were playing in, a fair and another unicorn.

Correcting ourselves we headed towards Brandon Hill. popping into the cathedral on the way. A service was on but we were allowed to sit at the back of the nave and listen to the choir while admiring the tall, slender columns of the nave and enjoying the deep throated organ music. Some of the stained glass windows seemed suspiciously new as it referenced NHS nursing services and St John's Ambulance.

We left and continued towards the Tower, which had been built in the late 1890's to commemorate John Cabot's sail from Bristol to what became named as Canada in The Matthew. The road there, and then the path through the park took a sudden upward turn. 

Husband did not want to climb the tower so I was forced to do a selfie photo of the badge from the top.

The objectives of the day now achieved, we returned to town via the gothic monolith that is the Wills Memorial building. Due to the Wills family connection to slavery trade there had been petitions in recent times for the building to be re-named, as had happened with many locations in Bristol (and forced removal of statues). But the name still persists.

Back in town we had an early dinner at an Indian restaurant in the old stock exchange building. This was clearly party night for the university professors, who were only distinguishable from the previous night's student revellers by their age. The only other difference was that the students would move on while the professors would stay at uni, never really stopping being a student.

Dinner done, having not really stopped feeling full from the previous night, we returned to the hotel.

The next morning it was raining. A lot. With no obvious plans to stop. After breakfast and checking out we drove to the old Bristol General and Factory No 1 buildings which Husband had worked on to convert them to apartments. 

We drove up to Clifton Suspension Bridge and went round the visitor centre. One exhibit showed weights of things the bridge could take, described as 1 Boeing aircraft or 1327 me's. Husband helpfully pointed out that this meant I was 1/1327th the weight of an aeroplane.

The footpaths along the bridge were one way, and as you couldn't cross the road, this meant committing to going all the way across on one side, then all the way back on the other. In torrential rain.  

That done, we got back in the car to drive across the bridge and then went up to the Observatory where a grumpy cashier informed us that the camera obscura wasn't working and that there was a large queue for the cave.

Undeterred we went up the observatory and looked at the blank camera obscura dish where images should have appeared. By the time we came down the cave queue had gone so we descended down the steep and uneven steps through fissures in the rocks to an opening on the cliff face, and open grill walkway in the rain which offered the hint of a view to the suspension bridge.

When we re-traced our steps back up through the rock, I knocked a hard hat off the shelf which clattered its way down the steps and along the tunnel. I did not bother to go chasing after it. 

We turned for home, dealing with a couple of navigational challenges along the way and a stop for lunch at Midford where the only roast lunches they had left were one nut roast and one pork which was somewhat disappointing. But on a positive, and exciting note, there was a disused railway line and remains of an old platform which had featured in the film The Titfield Thunderbolt. We had a brief look at it before the rain came down again and we made the final last push home.