Summer 2014: My To Do List

In my experience, the longer the holiday stretches, the easier it is to fritter it away.  So, when faced with 5 1/2 weeks this summer, I thought I'd best draw up a list of things I would like to have achieved by the end of them.  Maybe I should have added 'publish list on blog' as it's taken me over a week to do so.  But here it is:

(NB  Having decided that I was going to devote the first few days to recovering from the end of term, I based my list on 5 weeks - 7x5=35)

1. Cycle to Bath along the railway path
2. Hold 5 dinner parties (ie have 5 friends/sets of friends round for a meal!)
3. Day trip to Oxford
4. Bake 5 pies from my new Pieminister Pie book
5. Visit Tyntesfield
6. Make tomato ketchup
7. Visit the M Shed
8. Go to Bristol Balloon Fiesta Night Glow
9. Make falafels
10. Walk: Snuff Mills
11. Read 5 books
12. Create a sourdough starter
13. Get up early to watch Bristol Balloon Fiesta Dawn Ascent
14. Shop for clothes for work
15. Bake 5 new breads
16. Swim in Street outdoor pool
17. Make icecream
18. Picnic at Bristol Zoo
19. Visit the Jeremy Deller exhibition
20. Walk: Blaise Castle
21. Crack Prashad's dhokla recipe
22. Visit St Werburgh's City Farm, eat meatballs @ Ikea and shop at Bristol Sweet Mart
23. Make rhubarb & ginger jam
24. Take advantage of podiatrist appointment to window shop in Cotham/Clifton
25. Preserve lemons
26. Swim and lunch at th Lido
27. Make a start on a recipe folder
28. Make pizza
29. Walk: Leigh Woods
30. Make lemonade
31. Picnic on Brandon Hill
32. Have a BBQ
33. Finish crocheting my daughter's quilt
34. Walk: Bristol Old City
35. Bristol Packet ferry boat trip to Beese's Tea Gardens

It's an eclectic mix of cooking, eating, walking, culture and fun.

I'm under no illusion that I'll get through it all and am therefore not going to beat myself up over it if I don't, but it should stop me waking up in the morning wondering what to do with the day!    

Up the Feeder

A fortnight ago I decided it was about time we discovered more about the in which city we live (ie Bristol).  We moved here over 20 years ago (23 years and 3 months to be precise!) and although we are reasonably familiar with large areas of it, I am sure there are details that have escaped us, and pockets of it that we have never set foot in.

Our first sortie introduced us to the sculptures in and around the centre, which I will leave for another post.

This afternoon we decided to focus on the Feeder Canal, a waterway built between 1804 and 1809, by a workforce of over a thousand English and Irish labourers, to divert water from the tidal river Avon into the Floating Harbour and maintain its level.

No expedition should ever be undertaken on an empty stomach, so our first stop was Hart's Bakery, tucked away in one of the arches beneath Brunel's magnificent station at Temple Meads.  Fortified by mouthwateringly flaky lamb, pea and mint pasties, and two sublime slices of cake (orange and almond polenta and banana and toffee - half each!) washed down with a mug of latte, we boldly set off where we had never been before.

Here are some of the things we saw:

And here are some of the things we learned:

• Bristol was once home to the biggest galvanising works in the world, owned by John Lysaght whose Victorian Gothic fantasy office building still stands on the site.
• Netham Recretation /ground, known locally as The Brillos, got its nickname from 'barilla' a Spanish plant burned to extract sodium carbonate in the old Netham Chemical Works.
• The area between the New Cut and the Feeder Canal, known as The Marsh, was infested by rats, giving employment to local rat catchers.  Albert 'Hopper' Chinnick, the most notorious of them, allegedly bit off their heads as his party trick down the pub.  And for a 'tanner' he's said to have done the same with puppy dogs' tails!
• The rose bushes in Sparke Evans Park produced magnificent flowers on account of the high levels of soot from local industry and railways.

Where will our next excursion take us?