Quilts and Barges

Now for some people, the first few photos will be of no interest, as they will be seen as "too girly" or something like that, however, I find the craftwork associated with them to be exquisite and can really appreciate the skills involved, as my better half has some skills in this area and I have been exposed to it a bit.

Having said that, we visited friends in Bristol and while there, went to the Quilt Show. On entering the hall, we were confronted with this stall

There was a display of some quilts with the theme "ELEMENTS" and these tended to be related to the Large Hadron Collider, some giving the most wonderful 3D effect os looking down the massive tunnel, but this one was quite effective in it's stark simplicity.

There was a lady doing Japanese silk embroidery and I quite liked this one of the owl chicks in a tree.

A picture says a thousand words, the saying goes. This one, I can see inspiring a Hobbit like story.

I love geometrical patterns - I find something about them soothing and the repetitiveness of this one appealed to me ( sorry for the blurry image).

There were a number of triptychs, but this one of Saint Michael's Mount in Cornwall took my fancy

The four seasons

I loved these - they evoked such thoughts of the sea.

The following day, we took a walk along the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal, from Purton back towards Sharpness, where a number of barges from the 2nd World War have been deliberatley stranded on the canal bank to conserve the bank (it is extremely narrow between the canal and the Severn river at this point). The canal itself is certainly the widest I have seen in the UK, capable of taking ships all the way to Gloucester. OK, not massively big ocean going vessels, maybe, but huge in comparison to the usual narrowboats one usually associates with English canals.

One of the decaying hulks. Some of them are old concrete barges, which were common in WW II as they were easy to construct and good for carrying stuff around.

This is all that remains of the Severn Railway Bridge which was (mostly) demolished in 1970, after a collision in 1960 in the Severn River caused the collapse of one of the spans. The circular tower on the left housed the mechanism to allow the section it held up to be swung through 90 degrees, to allow ships to travel along the canal. The Severn river flows mere metres away on the left hand side.

Although the skies seem rather clear, do not be fooled. Rain clouds kept scudding in and dumping their wares on us all along the way. Nothing terrible, just enough to remind us we were walking in England in Autumn.

It was a wonderful visit to Bristol again, and our hosts were kind and gracious and kept plying us with wine and cheese and all kinds of delicious foods. Is it any wonder we keep going back?