First of all, thank you to my new followers - Mike, Gabrielle, Ben and Mike. I'm aiming to get up to a hundred in the next few weeks of travelling the globe so please do follow if you can. It's only a short step away from global domination after that so get in when I'm still, relatively speaking, on my knees!
I've now been on the road consistently for over a fortnight and the signs of wear and tear are beginning to appear. Call it advanced senility if you like but over the time in Ireland, London, Dorset and now Bristol, I've been forgetting things all over the place.
Well, no actually. I've been thinking I've forgotten things all over the place. Most days I've thought I've left money, passport, crucial piece of personal apparel or my brain somewhere only to discover them later, safely tucked away in my luggage. I set the poor old staff of the lovely Monart Spa Hotel in Ireland on a wild goose chase over two days looking for a pair of wet swimmers that I was convinced I'd left in my room/the pool area. Only to find them in my suitcase.
Yesterday in Bristol I excelled myself. Arriving at 11ish at the gorgeous boutique Hotel du Vin (of which more later) - www.hotelduvin.com/hotels/bristol/bristol.aspx - my room wasn't ready and since I was about to go for a three hour cycle along the old railway route to Bath, I used their loos to change into my cycling gear. Bristol is where Sustrans, who are responsible for the impressive 13,000 mile network of cycle tracks that criss-cross the UK, emerged back in 1978 and the Bristol to Bath cycle path was the first of their routes so, being a dedicated peddler, I felt duty bound to do it. So there I was in my cycle gear with most of my overnight gear, including 2 pairs of knickers, crammed into a laundry bag ready for my return.
It's probably an exaggeration to call the route lovely as it passes through some pretty rough parts of the city initially and takes a while to reach the countryside between Massive Attack's Bristol (the band emerged from this city in the south-west) and Jane Austen's Bath. But, impressively, interesting sculptures line the path giving the distances to each city and since this route was created by tarmacking the old train line, you pass through old stations along the way.
My favourite was Warmley, half way along, where sculptures of bygone passengers stand on the platform and the old ticket office now houses a cafe. When you reach the upsy-downsy countryside it feels like you are escaping the rumble of the city, which was surely the point of its creation.
Anyhow, when I got back after the thirty mile cycle, I found to my delight that I'd been allocated a deliriously delicious suite at the Hotel du Vin. All rooms are named after wines here and the suites get theirs from champagne of course, darling. It's called Veuve Cliquot and as much as you can on a fast-paced press trip, I've been luxuriating in it since arrival.
Not for the first time when I'm in glamorous, romantic locations on my own I do yearn for my significant other. I mean I loved having a long hot soapy bath in one of two claw-foot tubs that stand next to each other (with a champagne bucket on a table in between them) on the upper level of the open plan suite but ...The Hotel du Vin's been lovingly crafted out of an old sugar warehouse in the centre of the vibrant city and much of the brick work and space is still here.
But what of the knickers, I hear you demand to know? Well, a while after my bath, I was getting ready for a hard night of more eating - this time at the French-style bistro downstairs at the Hotel du Vin, when I realised to my dismay that I had no underpants. That I had, most probably, left them in the toilets when changing earlier in the day. There was nothing for it but to ring reception and sheepishly enquire. Alica, who answered my call and sounded French and therefore well used to people losing their knickers, was completely unfazed and went to look for them and make enquiries of housekeeping. "Idiot travel writer has his knickers in a twist," I imagine she said. In the meantime I went through my overnight stuff with a fine tooth comb and still couldn't find them. What the f...ing hell had I done with them. Answer: to save space I'd tucked them into my shoes. Thus making them almost invisible. Well done, dunderhead! I rang Alica and we both laughed our heads off at my idiocy. I don't suppose she'll forget the mad Aussie journo for a while...
Finally, suitably attired and in no risk of chaffing, I went downstairs for a drink in the stylish bar followed by a desirably light dinner. As my paunch has grown ever more spectacular after three gargantuan meals daily I opted for some beautiful late season asparagus with hollandaise sauce and a crab and avocado salad. Just what the doc ordered.
My day still wasn't over. In the twilight hours of Monday night, I joined John for a Haunted and Hidden Bristol tour - www.hauntedandhiddenbristol.co.uk/. They usually run on Fridays and John's an enthusiastic teller of stories, both ghostly and otherwise. My favourite was about the haunting of the seventeenth century pub the White Hart by one of two brothers killed in a fight - spine-tingling stuff. John's also a great source of information on Bristol's historic music scene with tales of the Beatles, Frank Sinatra, The Stones, Crowded House and Dire Straits playing and staying here over the decades. His walking tour also makes this unwieldy city, with big roads that rush around the centre, much more manageable and the depth of history palpable so well worth doing.
So today, my time in Bristol pans out with visits to the brand new M-Shed - www.mshed.org/ - where I hope to find out more about Ardman Animations, founded in Bristol, who brought us the incomparable Wallace and Grommit and Shaun the Sheep; the SS Great Britain, the ship that brought the first touring English cricket team to Australia in 1861 and finally this afternoon, Bristol Zoo, where I'll be catching up with my long lost relatives, Richard and Anne Scott. We haven't seen each other in twenty odd years so it should be interesting.
Now, just to make it through the day without thinking I've lost something!
Useful links: http://www.visitbristol.co.uk/; http://www.sustrans.org.uk/
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