What I did on my holiday

We planned to spend a bit of time in Bristol with son then head home and catch up with chores. After a lazy breakfast he took us for a walk in a dappled wood laden with the delicious scent of wild garlic and full of the unintended sculptures that damaged trees make.

When we emerged into full sun he suggested we go to the harbour. After coffee and mezze under plane trees (one of which was curiously self-root-bound – extra), with a gentle breeze off the water teasing the heat, we meandered through Millennium Square in search of ice cream. I was captured by the sun bouncing off this steel-lined waterfall. We kind of should have headed home then but it was glorious and somehow we found ourselves in a boat doing a tour of the harbour watching fluttering flags on SS Great Britain and absurdly out-of-time dragon boat racers, and admiring the postcard paint-swatch houses on the hill and even more the matching buildings below (extra).

After which we ought to have left but instead we started to walk up Park Street towards Cabot Tower, then up through the park, and up the tower for aerial views of what we’d seen in the boat. It was still shirtsleeve weather even in the wind at the top of the tower.
 
Then we really should have left but the sun was still shining and it was still warm so we walked back down through the park and through some modern architecture son admired where he showed us an impressive drainage feature (another story, his fascination with what happens to water once most humans have lost interest in it). Then somehow it was time for an early evening meal in the sun and his evening plans got cancelled and we all sat and chatted as the sun slowly sank.

We never found the ice cream and by the time we got to Oxford, where it turned out it had rained most of the day, it was far, far too late for the chores.


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And news of the massacre in Orlando. How can anyone hate so much?