Deborah Harvey : The Red Dress of Poetry ...: Banksy

Showing posts with label Banksy. Show all posts

Monday, 3 May 2021

Ashton Court before the storm

There's a storm a-coming, they said, so we got up early and went to Ashton Court to walk the dog. First stop, visiting some old familiars now coming into leaf ...

... but before that, whoop whoop, green-winged orchids everywhere!

I spent a bit of time with the Domesday Oak, which is looking rather more cheerful than the last time I had a proper look at it some five years ago, when it was newly fallen apart despite the best efforts of the council's specialist tree officers. It's literally not half the tree it was, though.

And then it was into Summerhouse Plantation, which is one of our favourite places to walk, especially on days that are threatening to be stormy, and very lovely it is right now too, what with the bluebells and wild garlic and all.

Down near the bottom of the wood, we paused to pay our respects to the Fattest Oak ...

... before skirting the back of the mansion which looked quite busy and heading back up through the woods, a much easier prospect than when the slopes are deep in winter mud.

Even so, we were glad to sit for a bit on a fallen log to catch our breath, while Cwtch happily ran up and down the path about eight times to our one.

There was a bit of tree art going on the wood. I hadn't spotted the addition to this beech from last year before today, though I don't think Jeremy Corbyn would really appreciate his name being carved into the bark. Still it could have been worse, it could have been Boris Johnson.

Some lovers had embarked (ouch) on a collaborative piece with another beech, utilising some natural heart shapes in the declaration of their love ...

... but I have to say, I like the trees' own art best. Heart balloons, Banksy? Our city's beeches got there first.

Back out in the open, the red deer were up near the deer park fence for once, so I left Cwtch at a distance with the Northerner and went to see them.

Hello down there!

One last visit to one last massive oak in very bronze leaf and we were home hours before the rain and wind set in, here in Bristol at least, with a pleasingly tired pup.

Saturday, 12 December 2020

On Sneezing and False Teeth

Getting over my latest bout of gastritis - the fourth in three months. This time I was in sufficient pain to be whisked to our local A&E. These days it's not a place for the faint-hearted. The staff were run off their feet, and as I was waiting for a taxi to get home, a bloke who looked about 40 was ejected, complaining that 'all the fucking foreign people' were being seen before him. He was going to WRITE TO HIS MP. The nurse accompanying an elderly woman who was waiting for her husband to pick her up looked at me and rolled her eyes. I bet they hear that all the time.

I was pleased to see the new Banksy that's appeared on a house at the bottom of Vale Street in Totterdown. (The steepest residential street in the country, don't you know.) It's of a woman sneezing her false teeth out, and it reminds me of a story my late Uncle Noel tells in his book about my grandmother, Hilda Hill, and her neighbours in Douglas Road, Horfield in the 1920s:

'Then Mrs Amor, further down the street. Kath to her friends. Born to well-to-do parents but somehow ending up in Douglas Road with her second husband. Very smart but with a slight flavour of 'no better than she ought to be' about her. Given to muttered conversations with Mum that suddenly seemed to stop if I entered the room. Don't know what they were about, but suspect that Les Dawson used to have the same subjects under consideration when he did his sketches for the television. My favourite story of Mrs Amor concerned a visit to town with my mother: when walking up Union Street, Kath sneezed suddenly and her dentures flew from her mouth and landed in one of the numerous heaps of horse manure common in the streets in those days. Faced with a choice between such weighty considerations of hygiene and vanity, Kath opted for the vanity and replaced the dentures.'

Here's a photo of Vale Street back in September. You can just see the house that now bears a Banksy at the end of the road on the right, in the centre of the photo.

Sunday, 29 September 2013

A Voyage Around Brunel and Bristol's Floating Harbour

The weather forecast had been grim - heavy rain for Saturday afternoon - but as it turned out, it turned out nice - warmish, definitely dry, rather grey admittedly, but a beautiful soft grey, the sort that makes you think of the end of the world (but in a good way).

The inaugural event of Bristol Poetry Festival 2013, the intrepid IsamBards' celebration of Brunel, was all set.

Having discovered that Temple Meads Station - that masterpiece of Brunel-designed architecture - was even noisier than we had envisaged, we beat a retreat to Temple Quay rather sooner than we had planned, there to finish our railway poems before embarking on the water-borne part of our voyage.

Mal dressed for the occasion

Then we were off on a quick detour under the first of Brunel's bridges over the Avon before executing a nifty turn in the allotted space and heading off on the first leg of our journey, to the SS Great Britain.

Passing St Peter's on Castle Green, bombed during the Bristol Blitz and now a memorial to Bristol's civilian dead.

Dru just before she gave me an impromptu physics lesson on 'How concrete barges float'

Brunel's Severn Shed, now a restaurant, previously a storage facility for the luggage of SS Great Britain passengers.

Now another restaurant, The River Station was formerly the HQ of the Port of Bristol Police.

The familiar landmark of Redcliffe Parade.

Thekla ...

... with her very early Banksy. (An even earlier one was painted over by the Harbour Master who failed to appreciate the fine line between vandalism and art.)

Proof that the Press Gang is still operational in Bristol.

A fishing boat from Fowey moored near the Lloyds Bank HQ.

The replica of Cabot's Matthew heading for SS Great Britain.

Two iconic ships

At the SS Great Britain, we stopped alongside its bows and poeticised, which seemed to go down well ... at least, none of our listeners took advantage of the drowning option.

Then it was on to the Underfall Yard, a historic boatyard dating from the early 19th century, with improvements by Brunel in the 1830s.

The name Underfall comes from the series of sluices Brunel designed to keep the harbour as silt-free as possible.

The Matthew seemed to be following a similar route to us.

At the Yard we disembarked for more poetry.

So good to see it still being used for its original purpose also.

A short distance on, and our last poetry stop of the day, at the lock, considerably enlarged and improved by Brunel so that his SS Great Britain could pass through. Looming above it - as if you didn't know - is that other iconic emblem of Brunel's Bristol, the Clifton Suspension Bridge.