Monday, August 16, 2004

Sometimes a good weekend can feel more like a mini holiday than just 2 days of work. This weekend was one of those occasions; it started on Friday evening when we found ourselves at “The North” for the second Friday in a row. This time we hooked up with our old friend Ian + Maria for some simple but hearty food (sausage + mash for me, pie, mash and mushy peas for Orynthia), before taking the short walk to CafĂ© Bar Unlimited for the latest evening of entertainment from those splendidly misnamed Grumpy men.

On Saturday and Sunday the area around the industrial museum was turned into a bizarre 1940’s zone. Loads of old army vehicles, some fantastic clothing and jitterbug lessons were the highlight of Saturday afternoon. We had a couple of goes and I have to say that my two left feet were up to their normal standard, it was good fun if a trifle confusing for a simple champ like me. Then on Saturday evening a rouge hot air balloon from the balloon festival flew very low over our back garden, whilst I was watering the tomato plants, before floating gracefully off into the sunset over Bishopston, it's burner lighting up the sky in dramatic fashion.

On Sunday we returned to 1940’s land for a fascinating talk by Margueritte Patten, an amazing lady. 83 years of age, she stood and talked for an hour without any notes about food rationing in Britain during the second world war (and after). It was amazing to hear about the inventiveness (mock banana, made from parsnip!) and to hear that it was ILLEGAL to sell cream until 1953! Following the talk, we made our way to the small art space near Redclffe caves to see the “Tom, Dick and Harry” installation by our friend John Pym. It’s another amazing and unsettling piece involving crawling through tiny dimly lit tunnels attached to a very average looking sitting room. He really does incrediable things with “space” and never fails to provoke and amazing series of thoughts and reactions with his work. We wandered home looking very dusty, which must have confused people.

Oh and one small thing on Friday lunch time I was with Orynthia in M&S, and I think I saw the writer of was of linked blogs “Open Secrets” in the queue. She is not someone I know but she is a local journalist who occasionally has her picture in the paper. The thing is, should I go and say “Hello, I enjoy reading your stuff” or would that make me look like some mad stalker? Anyway maybe it wasn’t her, which would have been worse – “Hi I really like your blog” “Blog? What are you talking about? Security! Security!”


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