Cheers drive

Arrived early evening, went to the first of three pub recommendations from Dean, the man whose special power is recommending pubs and restaurants in any city in England or indeed the world generally: The Barley Mow. Walked north in a vaguely random direction, ended up near Lawrence Hill station, so we got the train back to Temple Meads from there (handily staying about five minutes’ walk away).

Walked through Castle Park (somehow missed the castle??) to Dareshack for breakfast. We discovered it was Pride so hoped to see part of the parade, but ended up missing it. Made various supercilious comments to each other about how Pride parades in large southern English cities are probably highly commercialised anyway. Had a wee look at the Old Vic but the exhibition space wasn’t open because there was a children’s matinée on (in the actual matin, oddly). Went to the SS Great Britain and looked around the Brunel museum part first where I succeeded in drawing an 85% perfect circle … as someone with questionable fine motor skills, I’ll take it. There was also an “interactive film”, which we hoped would be more of a This Is Holland experience, but ended up not even including the promised smells.

Looked briefly around the ship – pretty nuts that steam ship design went from that to the Titanic over the next seventy years, tbh. Crossed back to the mainland for lunch at Spicer+Cole, then back onto the island and went to M Shed, which I kept referring to as “m’shed, tips fedora” because I’m such a witty person. Then we went for an iced drink (it was like 36 degrees) at what was supposedly “Bristol’s oldest coffee house”, which I thought was a bit naff, and later, for a couple of pints at the Cornubia, also recommended by the illustrious Dean. I suspected this one was owned by Reform voters, but it was redeemed by the near-complete absence of other customers due to not showing the England match.

Breakfast at Gail’s near the cathedral, then we looked around the outside of the cathedral for a bit but couldn’t go in because Eucharist was on … if we’d arrived a bit earlier we’d have gone to the service, because despite being edgy atheists we both have great enthusiasm for the Church of England. Looked at a couple of Banksys (they need a touch up imo), then walked out to Clifton, where we visited the observatory and the “caves”, walked across the suspension bridge, visited the suspension bridge museum, walked back across the bridge, then went for lunch at Primrose Café in Clifton village. Walked back into town, had the required iced drink at a café called Restore (let’s hope certain other organisations with that name soon fade into obscurity), then went to We The Curious … a cringe name, bring back @ Bristol please. The first exhibit we saw was about whether we have souls, which we thought was not really within the remit of a science museum, but it redeemed itself by allowing us to listen to the music from the Voyager Golden Record (specifically the first movement of Brandenburg concerto no. 2 … I would go to a museum where the only exhibit was that playing on loop tbh). @adt’s favourite exhibit ended up being one where you put scarves in tubes and they get ejected from the tubes … it’s more delightful than it sounds I promise. Mine was “you put a straw on a metal tube and bite on it and you hear music”, because isn’t that completely nuts.

Took the cross-harbour ferry as a means of, er, crossing the harbour, then went to look at the outside of the Aardman studios, which aren’t open to the public, but we did see these cute guys:

Went to the third and final pub on Dean’s list, the Ostrich, which @adt liked less than the others because it felt more tourist-orientated. Then went to a neighbouring restaurant called … Limone Ristorante, partly because we felt like low-stakes pasta, partly because “Limone Ristorante” is a hilarious name, especially for fans of yaoi and/or Jon Ronson.

Bath day … got the incredibly overpriced 11-minute train (#england) and went to the Roman baths first (last visited by me on a school trip in 2007). I declined an audio guide; @adt accepted one but had several complaints about it. Reading signs at one’s own pace … you can’t beat it. Alas, the effectively compulsory audio guides meant that the written signs didn’t have much detail on them, so I didn’t feel like I learnt a lot (or perhaps I learnt it all in 2007 and have succeeded in retaining it for nineteen years … look, I loved Latin at school but not that much, I hope). I would have liked to see more about a. the Celts; b. difference between life in Roman Britain and the more central parts of the empire; c. what happened in the time between the Romans’ departure and their transformation into a tourist attraction, but I guess everyone is just interested in The Romans and none of the surrounding context.

Lunch at a place called Coret which did tiny sandwiches and very wanky coffee à la Cultura, one of our east Belfast haunts. Then we went to the Jane Austen Centre (last visited by me on a school trip in 2008 … yeah all my school trips were to Bath, what of it). My expectations rapidly plummeted as the soundtrack to the introductory video turned out to be Handel, so like 100 years before Austen? I guess they just wanted something that sounded old and posh, but like, John Field is right there!! Then the lady who gave us a wee talk about Austen’s life and family did it in character as one of her protagonists, which for some reason involved doing a dodgy RP accent even though RP wasn’t around until about a century after she was writing. I guess they once again just wanted something that sounded old and posh … it’s postmodernism baby. I feel another highly cerebral TripAdvisor review coming on.

Went to Persephone Books … idk, a weird one. I don’t know how I feel about a load of public-domain works being bound in identical grey covers and sold off for fifteen of your English pounds, but at least they’re all by women I guess. Then to the Museum of Bath at Work, definitely the best museum of the day (and much less well-funded than the others), full of interesting industrial things including, if you squint, omegaverse liquid.

Dinner at the posh restaurant where @adt’s wee cousin is a chef; “This is random,” he said when we came in unannounced. That’s what we’re about.

We debated returning to Bath for a second day because there were various things we still wanted to see there, but the same was true of Bristol so it made sense to stay. Breakfasted at the Arnolfini café where it took an extremely long time for our food to arrive. Then we went on a brief boat tour around the harbour; by this point we’d already seen most of the things that were pointed out, but I enjoyed the guide’s subtly anticapitalist commentary (says the person who spent the entire weekend eating and drinking at various trendy cafés … eat the rich but also, simultaneously, avocado toast). Went back to the cathedral so we could see the inside and then stayed for an organ recital that happened to be on, another great opportunity to hear some Bach! Then walked up to Cabot Tower, although it was closed and we couldn’t go inside. Iced drinks of the day from Bird & Blend, the one non-local establishment I’m mentioning because it’s like Whittard’s for the board game café generation … impeccable.

Shared an enormous slice of courgette and carrot cake from Ah Toots … not sure I’m a fan of the name but as a casual cake hater, damn that was a nice cake. Popped into Excelsior, the local independent gaming shop, where they were not only selling FF MTG boosters but also actual packs of FF TCG cards … !!! I bought a few, opened them later in a shopping centre toilet, and got some lovely pulls including the Dion art card on the MTG side and my fave FFX-2 guy on the FF TCG side

In Bristol: the John Wesley museum (arrived five minutes before it closed), Wake The Tiger (could be trash but could be in the This Is Holland category), the Georgian house museum. In Bath: the museum of east Asian art (and probably the gift shop tbh), museum at 1 Royal Crescent, the abbey.