In Which There is Sunshine, and Fighting Swans

I had been feeling a little disappointed, as I'd thought I might go to the Bristol Comic Con & Small Press Expo which is on this weekend, which would have meant the opportunity to but it turns out that having thought "I really should buy a ticket" doesn't have the same effect as actually buying a ticket, and by the time I got around to the whole buying a ticket part it was too late, and they were all sold out.

Which was sad, as lots of interesting people, such as Paul Cornell, Tony Lee, Jason Arnopp and others, many of whom I follow on Twitter. (plus, you know, comics and books and stuff!)

Still, when I woke up, it turned out it was a glorious sunny day, so I was reconciled to the idea of not having to get up early, and get a no-doubt hot and crowded train into Bristol to hang around inside a hotel...

Instead, I've been doing lots of chores -it's so nice to be able to get washing dried outside, for a change, and my clematis has come out in a riot of flowers and my tomato, lettuce and cauliflower plants all seem to be thriving, which is all most pleasing.

I went over to Bradford on Avon where my favourite picture-framer is based, to take him my 'Desert Wind' print, from Neverwear to frame.

When I got there, and was walking along by the river, I saw a couple of mute swans fighting.

Given the third swan which was swanning around watching enthusiastically I'm guessing this was some sort of sordid sex and violence thing - although I suppose it could simply be a territorial thing.

It made me very aware of just how BIG these birds are. It was clear that each was trying to get the other's head under water, and by the end the winner was allowing the loser to have his head above the water, but was holding the rest of his body under the water.

They must have considerable stamina - I must have watched for at least 10 minutes, and the fight had started before I got there.

After that excitement I did get to the framers , and had a discussion about how the print is to be framed, and then, inevitably, I ended up in the bookshop. . . . although I was very good, and only bought one book (and that, second hand)

I then spent some time admiring the more picturesque bits of the town, before heading home where I did lots of housekeeping, as a result of which I now have clean floors, lots of clean laundry, much less dust, some freshly potted put tomato and aubergine seedlings, some newly planted squash and courgette seeds and lots of portions of bolognese in the freezer. And some different library books.

I also got time to go and queue up in the Post Office in order to post my engagement gift to my sister K and her fiance C. I will do another post about that later, with pictures (the gift, I mean. The queueing was uneventful, and doesn't deserve its own post), but I will wait, just on the off-chance that K or C stumble across this blog in the next few days, before the parcel arrives, and it spoils the surprise.

I bought a lot of stamps, too. Probably I should write to people in order to make use of them. The Post Office recently issued stamps for the Acession of King George V. This took place in 1910. It's good to know that they are so on the ball.

All in all, it was a good day.

In Which There Are Friends, And Tea

I love Bank Holidays, especially this one, which for some reason crept up on me and felt, as a result, lke an unexpected gift.

And a second pleasure, a couple of weeks ago E, a friend of mine from university, got in touch to say she'd be visiting the area with her hsband this week, and suggested we meet up. Which I felt was a perfectly splendid idea. We don't see each other often enough.

We met in Bradford on Avon, which is a lovely little town, and has what may be the country's best tea shop. Having successfully rendez-voused, we started with a quick wander down to the Tithe Barn, and into the various little shops selling charming frivolities, then walked back along by the river, up into the town (Mainly to point out the bookshop, which was closed for the bank holiday but will no doubt be a point of call for E when it is open tomorrow...) and went into The Bridge Tea Rooms, which is one of my favourite places to go as a treat.

It's a "Victorian" tea-room - full of knick-knacks, old, sepia toned photographs and suchlike, with open fires and waitresses in mob-caps, in a 17th Century building, and it serves glorious teas - by which I mean both leaf tea (they have a selection of over 30, including white & green teas), and afternoon tea. They even provide sugar-tongs, for those wishing to preserve properly genteel Victorian manners.

On this occasion, as it was three in the afternoon and we had not lunched, we decided to really indulge ourselves and ordered the "Prince Albert's Tea" which provided sandwiches, scones* & cake, served on a three-tier cake stand.

Which gave us the opportunity to settle down for a long chat (and, as it happened, to avoid the ferocious hailstorm which interrupted the mostly-sunny afternoon.

And then (having eaten to excess) we went for another amble along by the canal.

A most enjoyable afternoon.

[*It should have been meriengues, not scones but we don't much like meriengues, and they let us substitute the scones) ]

In Which Further Blizzards Fail to Materialise

At the risk of tempting fate, and calling down further snow upon us, it seems that the additional snow forecast for this afternoon has held off - it was quite overcast so didn't appear to be anything like as cold as it was yesterday or on Friday.

Indeed, by mid afternoon it looked as though the street outside was clearer than it has been since it first snowed, on Wednesday, with patches where the ashphalt is visible again, and a lot of people seem to have gone out so there were fewer parked cars. I decided to see whether I could safely drive out to the main(er) road, on the bass that if I could, I could park overnight and then, even if it freezes again overnight I would be close enough to the treated roads to get out and be able to get to work.

My plan worked, and as the road was completely clear when I got to the end of the street, I decided to go a little further, and drove over to Bradford-on-Avon, where I went for a short wander along by the canal.

The canal (The Kennet & Avon) was frozen, although there were places, by the lock, under bridges, and where a small stream drains into it where it was not frozen - there were also places where the ice had been broken and refrozen - it looked at thought the ice was between 1" and 2" thick, and from the foot-prints in the slush on top of the ice it was clear that it was strong enough to bear the weight of the swans and other waterbirds., although various holes seems to show that it was not strong enough to bear the weight of various lumps of stone being heaved into it!

A little further down the canal one comes to the Tithe Barn, which was built in the early 1300s and used to belong to Shaftesbury Abbey, until Henry VIII pur a stop to all that, of course! It's a beautiful (and enormous) building, and it is one of those places where it tends suddenly to hit me how rich in history we are here: The barn dates from the 14th C, with the church having owned the farm & land since 1001, and the barn continued to be used, certainly into the 1950s...

I enjoyed my walk, and, in accordance with the original plan, subsequently left my car down the street, in the hope that I may be able to drive tomorrow morning..