A weekend in Bristol - Part 1

I was invited by my friend Anthony and his boyfriend Jon to make a trip out to Bristol for a weekend visit. Bristol is about a 2 hour train ride west of London, and was an important trading port. A lot of the tobacco from the new world came into England via Bristol. It is also an important town in the history of steam locomotion, which can be summed up in one man Isambard Kingdom Brunel.



Anthony, the pups, and I headed over to Paddington Station, (built by Brunel), and hopped on a train, which follows much of Brunel's orignally designed path from London to Bristol.

Anthony had purchased us two first class tickets, which were actually only 20GBP more than regular tickets. This was a terrific idea as it allowed us to spread out with the dogs and enjoy a nice leasurely ride there. We practically had the entire car to ourselves.

Jon met us at the station in Bristol with his car and drove us to his townhome, that was originally built in the 1800's as housing for coal miners. It has been in his family off and on for a couple generations. He's done a bunch of work on it, and it is very charming.



Interestingly enough, the dogs have been to Bristol already - Even before me. When Tony and I went to the states in December, they came with Anthony to stay with Jon for part of that week. They are quite the travelers. Bentley of course wasted no time getting reaquainted with his old buddy Jon.


The following morning we got up and drove into town. Bristol is built around the river Avon, which flows through the center of town. Being that Bristol was an important trading port, it was heavily damaged in WW2. We saw this beautiful church that had been bombed out.

For breakfast, we went to the Nicholas Market, a cute outdoor market to a restaurant called "Source".




We had a full English breakfast complete with ham, grilled tomatoes, and black pudding to prepare us for a solid day of sightseeing and fun.





The weather seemed to be working in our favor in that it wasn't raining, albeit, it was a bit chillier than I was expecting.



Bristol has been an important city to England and has been joined at the hip with London via Brunel's railroad since the mid 1800's. It's history goes back to medieval days when it was a walled city. Thankfully a handful of these buildings still survive.

We walked around Bristols downtown, which is very quaint. It is much smaller and lowkey than London, and will be a fun place to come visit as an easy weekend getaway. I think Tony would like it a lot.

Of course Queen Victoria, embodying the 1800's was there to welcome me.





The Bristol Cathedral is a beautiful building. I'm not sure how it survived in WW2, but it is a magnificent structure up on a hill overlooking downtown Bristol.



Bristol is also very much a University town, and there are areas that feel it. With cute outdoor Coffee Houses, to tons of bookstores, and a youthful culture.


With most of the shipping now moved outside of Bristol, the old warehouse district is undergoing a major transformation into a new cultural hub for Bristol. Tons and tons of new construction from shops, to restaurants, to new housing are moving in.







Bentley found this art installation with a swimming dog particularly confusing.

Bristol is also home to Aardman Animation, which make the Wallace and Gromit films as well as a ton of commercials here in the UK. Their presence is felt throughout the warehouse district, where they are headquartered.








I understand their main production facility is located further out from downtown, but it was still fun to see their business offices.

We went to visit the Clifton Suspension Bridge that was designed by Brunel. It connects the 2 sides of the Avon River in a most dramatic fashion. Completed in 1864, 5 years after Brunel's death, as a memorial to the famous engineer.

The bridge originally had a strong Egyptian motif which was a popular style at the time. You can still see hints of it in the bridge.



For lunch/dinner, we went to the Grain Barge. It is a floating pub, that serves beer from the Bristol Brewery, and some amazing food.



I tried 1/2 pints of the three beers they had on tap, and had a wonderful Chicken and Leek Pie with a Creamy Gravy - Absolutely delicious.









I'd recommend eating here if ever you are in Bristol. It is both unique, reasonable, and good. We were so stuffed after this that we didn't plan to eat dinner.





That evening we went to the "Tobacco Factory Theater", a local theater which puts on plays. They were performing Richard II, one of Shakespeare's historical plays. I'd never seen or heard of it, so I was intrigued. The theater is in one of the old Tobacco Warehouses, from which it derives its name. Jon, an avid smoker, got a kick out of a sign forbidding smoking inside the tobacco warehouse.

The play was excellent, and I would also highly recommend going if you are in Bristol.

Walking in Woking

I've been hoping for good enough weather to do an outing with the dogs. Work has been frustrating, and nothing clears the head like a grand day-out in the country.



I'd targeted Woking for a daytrip for a while. It is where HG Wells lived and set his famous book "War of the Worlds". The martians land in Horsell Common in Woking. Semi-Direct trains depart from Waterloo Station for an easy 25 minute train ride there.





As the majority of the day would be outside with the dogs, the weather needs to be decent. Finally, after a couple weeks of failed attempts (i.e. - rain, freezing temperatures), I had a Saturday where that looked promising (i.e. - partial sun, temperatures in the mid 50s).



The dogs and I set off for the station, and caught the train, and in no time, we were out in the suburbs outside London. It actually is a fairly compact city compared to LA.

We arrived in Woking, just as the skies cleared up to blue sky (a true pleasure and not to be taken for granted here). The town is a cute suburban town - most of my coworkers were confused when I said I wanted to visit it. It has a nice shopping area - much like a real mall back home.



And in the center of town is a sculpture commemorating Woking's favorite son HG Wells. It is a large statue of one of the Martian Tripods that destroyed Woking in the book. If you go down underground into one of the pedestrian subways, you will also find a cool mural dedicated to the book. It's funny to think that so much has been done to celebrate an event that didn't take place, and which in the book destroys the town and everyone in it.

Not far from the town center is the home where HG Wells lived. It still stands and is occupied. I tried to snap my picture but not disturb the people who live there now. It was here that he lived while writing War of the Worlds, and drawing inspiration from the town and businesses in it. As he describes it, he used to wander around the town thinking of places he'd like to destroy in his book.



From there, the dogs and I wandered on to Horsell Common, which is a lovely wooded park. It was nice to see some nature as a contrast to the endless brick and cement in London. A pretty canal runs right near it just outside of Woking.



I noticed some flowers starting to bloom. The promise of spring is in the air after a very cold and snowy winter.







We ended our trip to Woking at The Plough, a dog-friendly country pub that is famous for its homemade pies. Sadly, they were not serving food until after 6pm. They have about 25 different types of pies, which sounded fantastic. I'll just have to come back.

MURDER!

This notice was in my mailbox informing me of a murder that had occured a few blocks away, and that the police were looking for any leads as to the identity of the criminals. I can only hope that with as many CCTV cameras as there are in my neighborhood, that they should have all the information they need to find and capture them.

Yes. London still has its share of violent crime too. Though guns are banned from private ownership, they are still used by criminals. More commonly, knives are used in committing violent crimes and are the weapons of choice among gang members. I heard a figure that 1-3 violent crime injuries are the result of a knifing. So, violence is still violence.

I found it interesting that a coworker of mine who is planning to visit the US, asked me if he should buy a gun while there to have for the month that he is planning to be there. I assured him that the US is not the lawless wild west of television and film, though there are certainly plenty of gun related violence.

Visits from friends in 2010

London is a major hub for people coming and going from the US to Europe and back again, so we've enjoyed the visits of many of our old friends over the last year.













It is always so great to see friends from back home.





Be sure to drop us a line if you will be in London, or even just passing through.

New Years and Ice Skating at the Somerset House

For New Years Eve, we got up and headed down to the Somerset House to do some Ice Skating. I bought tickets on-line, and since I could only get time at the 10am session, it pays to order them early.








The rink is setup in the courtyard of the estate, and has a coat check and a place to change your shoes to the skates.








It was very busy, and though there were a lot of kids, everyone kept moving, and it wasn't a huge obstacle course. They have a little section off to the side for the really little kids to skate using these assistive scooters that look like penguins.

Neither Tony nor I are really skilled skaters, so it was a challenge making our way around the rink. Eventually, we found our legs, and had a lot of fun for the hour we'd booked.

I would definitely recommend this as something to do in London for the holidays.




For New Years Eve Dinner, we made a Pork Roast complete with Crackling using Gordon Ramsey's recipe. It cooked for almost 5 hours and came out perfectly delicious. We served it with Stuffing, Sweet Potatoes and Brussel Sprouts.

For Dessert, we served a Christmas Pudding that we'd saved from Christmas. Mark who joined us for dinner, had never had Christmas Pudding, so it was essential to have it even though Christmas was already a week behind us now. We served it with a small glass of Bombardino liqueur that we had picked up when we went skiing in Italy. Delicious!