A true summer weekend, with unprecedented temperatures for October (near 90). It actually felt too hot, especially as I hadn't bothered to bring hot weather clothes with me! But the spectacular weather also meant that I felt compelled to play outside SO - many of you will be glad to hear that I finally went over to the sailing club! Discovered that if I take two one-day Level 2 sailing classes (and pass) I will then be able to rent a boat whenever I want :) So I signed up immediately, for Sunday. Unfortunately, my plans were somewhat foiled by absolute calm on Sunday ("Even the seagulls are bored" said the head instructor). I've rescheduled for the middle two Sundays of October - something to look forward to, although the weather will most certainly be less conducive to T-shirt sailing attire!
But I managed to keep myself occupied nonetheless. On Saturday I explored the lock system... Am coming to appreciate why the floating harbor was built - the tidal range from the Bristol Channel is apparently second only to the Bay of Fundy (hence the Severn Bore, which some of you have heard of). The Severn River is at the head of the Bristol Channel; the river Avon flows from the Channel through Bristol, from a point that is not that far from the Severn. So when the tide is in, the locks at my end of the Floating Harbor are closed, and the Avon flows south of the harbor, through "the cut"; when the tide is out, the entire length of the Avon drains almost completely, leaving mostly exposed mud flats dotted with sea birds (and the lock near me opens up again). Before the Floating Harbor was built, thus allowing ships in the harbor to remain afloat, the ships used to just settle onto the mudflats between high tides - this apparently spawned the phrase “shipshape and Bristol fashion” (that is, stow everything properly before low tide).
On Sunday, after being thwarted in my sailing attempt I decided to try to rent a bike so that I could explore a bit farther afield. I went to a place along the river that Alison had pointed out to me... But it turns out that they no longer rent bikes; instead they sell used bikes. However, the very nice guy running the shop then offered me his bike! So off I went, past the soccer (football) field to Ashton Court, another estate, this one comprising 850 acres of land that was willed to the city of Bristol, so that it's a free public park. The park has both paved and unpaved bike paths - I explored only the paved, which took me up the hill and eventually to the suspension bridge again... This time I crossed and continued north to "The Downs", a huge grassy and treed expanse bordered by enormous old and grand houses. Made me decide that I definitely need a decent bike - there's a bike path from Bristol to Bath that I'd really like to explore (as it's along the Avon Canal, it's apparently nicely graded).
Wednesday afternoon I joined Mark for an art walk on Windmill Hill (a suburb south of where Alison and Mark live - as the highest point around it was really the site of a Windmill). Alison's 80-something yr old friend Eve was showing her paintings in one of the houses, so we decided to keep her company. The neighborhood was quite attractive - although the streets are lined with row houses, I discovered that many are nicely fixed up inside, and that each has a back garden with a lovely view north to the central city. Including a view of the Wills Memorial building, which not only dominates the skyline but also the School of Earth Sciences. Which brings me to the promised subject of this week's post…
Well that was the intent except that I traveled to London on Monday for a Tue-Wed meeting at the Geological Society of London - the William Smith meeting, no less, for those of you who have read The Map That Changed the World. Arriving in London always startles me with the sheer number of familiar names and cultural/literary references. Just taking the tube from Paddington Station (of the eponymous bear) I passed a stop at Baker Street (Sherlock Holmes), exited at Kings Cross (Harry Potter and Platform 9 1/2) and walked to my hotel at Russell Square (of Bloomsbury fame, not to mention the nearby British Museum). It was another beautiful Indian Summer day so I dropped my things at the hotel, grabbed my map and camera, and headed off to the Tower of London, which combined a riverside location with a tourist attraction that I hadn't seen since I was 18 and which I decided was a good choice for a Monday afternoon in October. The afternoon light accented the dramatic aspects of the castle architecture, from the walls surrounded by the (now filled in) moat to the Traitor's Gate - the water entrance to the edifice. The Crown Jewels were just as glittering as I remembered but I found myself thinking more about their weight on a young queen's head than about the size of the jewels (hard to believe that they're real). Similarly although my memory of the armor room was only of the growing size of Henry VIII's armor through time, this visit I was struck again by the weight of it - not just a burden for the king/knight but also for the horse.... And there were even a number of tiny child-sized suits of armor for children!
By late afternoon the low angle of the sunlight illuminated the Tower Bridge in all its gilt and colored glory, drawing me across to the south bank to join the parade of others enjoying a n after work stroll... I thought of crossing back over London Bridge - to join the walkers and bikers forming a moving chain of silhouettes - but then saw a water taxi stop and decided that a trip on TS Eliot's "strong brown god—sullen, untamed and intractable" was an appropriate way to return from the Tower. The boat went to the giant ferris wheel (the London Eye) where I crossed back over the Thames on the pedestrian Millenium bridge and headed back to Bloomsbury. Everyone was out enjoying the warm weather, spilling out of pubs onto the sidewalks and flowing through the brights lights of the theater district. I finally found a quiet pub in Bloomsbury where I could sit with a beer, surrounded by photographs of Duncan Grant, Vanessa Bell and other Bloomsbury notables.
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