A few days in Bristol with James was our next trip in the UK. Bristol seemed as good a place as any to spend a few days. We picked James up around 11.00. He travels with a Paddington bear size suitcase, on every trip, regardless of duration! This time he also brought 4 bags of vegetables!

We arrived at around 2.00 and after a bit of a drive around the town centre- not intentional, more a result of too many navigators, we got to the apartment. If I say so myself, I do find some splendid holiday accommodation and this was no exception. The apartment was in an impressive location on the bank of the river Avon right opposite the SS Great Britain. To be entirely accurate it is on the bank of the floating harbour, which was the river Avon before it got diverted along a cutting dug by navies in the early 1800's. The problem was that the Avon has too much of a tidal range leaving ships stuck in mud or tipping over at low tide. Shipping companies threatened to abandon Bristol for more congenial ports so in 1809 a William Jessop was employed to come up with an answer to the problem and the idea of the floating harbour was born. The harbour has water in it all the time, controlled by locks at either end, opening into the Avon.

We soon settled in and enjoyed a pleasant respite watching the gentle toing and froing around the harbour through a large picture window in the living area. After an hour, James got down to some serious Kale preparation for dinner. A bulging carrier bag of it cooked down to just enough for three.

Next day we set of to M Shed (an old dock warehouse) to take a walking tour of the floating harbour. We had thought it to be about an hour walk but after 2 hours we were losing the will to live. It started of very interesting but the two volunteers leading the walk soon lapsed into more general chit chat. We managed to escape (not easy as we were three of only six participants) and headed to a café for a well-earned jacket spud and cup of coffee. We must have walked a good 2 miles but didn’t quite make it to Brunel’s small rotating road bridge, which I thought sounded worth a look. So, that was on the agenda for next day, together with a visit to the historic Underfell yard.

Before heading back, we popped into the M Shed museum to see the book covered in not velum but human skin. It was customary in the 18th and early 19th century for the bodies of executed felons to be handed over to medical practitioners to be dissected. This particular doctor used the skin of an 18-year-old executed murderer to cover a book – how gruesome is that?

Next day we walked back down to Underfell Yard to visit the hydraulic engine house to watch the engines run, thanks to some enthusiastic volunteers. Just the sort of volunteering Peter and James said they would enjoy. The Yard was the main operating centre for the floating harbour and included a weir, which took excess water into the cut and later, in 1832, several sluices (devised by our friend Brunel) to remove the silt from the harbour. The engine house was designed byJohn Ward Girdlestone around 1888 and originally contained two steam powered engines replaced by the present electric engines in 1902. The prospect of the engines running drew an enthusiastic crowd. The engines at one time provided the hydraulic power which operated all the docks cranes, bridges and locks. A model accumulator was demonstrated to us by a volunteer with Peter and I as the weight.

After yet another cup of tea, we walked down to Brunel’s bridge. It was his first large rotating wrought iron bridge, built in 1849, so even older than the Clifton suspension bridge. It was decommissioned in 1968 and now sits sadly abandoned, under a large modern road bridge, adjacent to one of the locks. I noticed a small boat near the lock gates and thought it might be good to watch them go through but the two men advised me they were only going into the lock and not through it. I obviously looked puzzled so one explained he had dropped his car keys the previous day and was hoping to retrieve them. Oh dear. We were not very optimistic about his chances but decided to watch. They attempted the retrieval with a large magnet on a rope. After a while we got bored so wishing them luck we walked back to Underfell Yard for lunch. We did see the boat later but on quizzing them we heard they had no luck finding the keys.

After lunch we visited the SS Great Britain. When you realise the size of it you can appreciate the effort it must have been to get it back from Port Stanley in the Falklands where it had been scuttled in the early part of 1900’s. It had lost all its rigging but they had a photo taken in 1846 by the photographic pioneer Fox Talbot and with the gasworks tower behind the ship and a bit of clever trigonometry they managed to rebuild all the masts. It now sits majestically in the dry dock it was built in some 170 years ago. Brunel would be proud.

Our last day in Bristol we caught a bus to Clifton to see Brunel’s suspension bridge. Brunel won a competition for the design of a bridge across the Avon in 1831 and soon after work began. It wasn’t long before works came to a halt, dogged by political and financial difficulties, and by 1843, with only the towers completed, the project was abandoned. Brunel died in 1859 and the bridge was finally completed in 1864. Whilst at the bridge we learnt an unusual fact about Brunel. In 1843, whilst performing a magic trick, he inhaled a sovereign which got stuck in his right lung. A tracheotomy failed to reach it so Brunel designed a contraption, resembling a hinged table, to which he was strapped and spun head over heels. By harnessing centrifugal force he managed to dislodge the coin. Good thing he was so clever. We also learn that as the bridge is made of iron they can’t use salt on the road in icy weather so use crystallised animal urine and that the first modern bungee jumps were made on 1 April 1979 from the bridge, by members of the Oxford University Dangerous sports club.The students had come up with the idea after discussing a "vine jumping" ritual carried out by certain natives of Vanuatu.The jumpers were arrested shortly after, but continued with jumps in the US spreading the concept worldwide.

After lunch in a sweet little café in Clifton, recommended by a volunteer from Underfell Yard, we headed back into town to the Bristol museum and art gallery to check out the Staffordshire Hoard. We had seen it some years ago, when it was first displayed in Birmingham but there has been a lot of research work so we thought it might be worth seeing it again and hearing about any new information. It must have been quite exciting for the man who found it and it did for a time make me consider taking up metal detecting, until I thought about the hours trudging through muddy fields. The hoard consists of 3,500 items (the largest collection of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver metalwork ever found, anywhere in the world) weighing around 5.09 kilos of gold and consisting mainly of war-gear dating to the 7th or 8th centuries. The gold work is so minute and intricate. They must have had very good eyesight. The museum has quite a complicated layout and James did get lost but soon found his way back to the tearoom.

On the way, back we found a couple of bits of street art (one contributed by Banksy) and at least 3 groups taking a tour around Bristol’s street art.

That evening we had tickets to a film (Sideways), combined with wine tasting, at Averys wine cellar. I don’t drink wine but was under strict instructions to accept every glass offered. I have on occasions refused free drink and food despite glares from Peter. The event included 5 wines to taste at intervals during the film. Peter and I, not being wine connoisseurs were not convinced they tasted and smelt of anything other than red wine. James however claimed to detect a hint of cherry, cinnamon and mushroom, although after 8 glasses of wine I expect anyone could detect a whole host of edibles!

Of the trip, James and Peter were particularly impressed with the location of the apartment as it was within walking distance of 7 pubs which they made a point of visiting and reporting back on, in great detail, in fact too much detail. Pub 1 Myrtle Tree (draught Bass and dodgy meat dealings), Pub 2 Bag o’ Nails (cats), Pub 3 Three Tuns (something every night), Pub 4 Grain Barge (in the harbour BBF), Pub 5 The lion (lots of lights and nice open fire), Pub 6 Hope and Anchor (St Austell, excellent G and T and interesting bifold doors) and finally Pub 7 Lime Kiln (warm and welcoming)