vacation day ten

Thursday, August 11

We were looking forward to spending Greg's free day exploring Bristol, but Caroline had had a rough night, so we girls took our time at the hotel in the morning and sent the boys off to get started without us. They visited St. Mary Redcliffe church (more on that tomorrow) and then walked along the riverfront to the SS Great Britain. Caroline and I caught up just as Christopher was climbing the rigging (!), and then we all went on what Dan used to not entirely affectionately call "one of your forced marches" down to the next bridge (with a stop for lunch at this pub), back along the other side of the river, and up and over Brandon Hill to the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, which has a...let's say "eclectic"?...collection of art, artefacts, taxidermy, and donated collections. After that things get foggy...I think this was the night we got takeaway Nando's from the mall, and probably in my enthusiasm for spicy chicken I forgot to take a picture. 

my kid gets nervous about a number of things but heights are not one of them!

it is my brother! contemplating whether "Butcombe" sounds a bit naughty

and my husband! who, after 19 years of marriage, has pretty much come around to my random-walk style of tourism

because it's cute - or would be, if it were alive

part of "Birds Twitter and Fragrance of Flowers" by Wan Liya

Simon Fraser, "Ticket Rug"

Detail of the Withypool Tryptich by Antonio da Solario, 1514. "Clutching a goldfinch, symbolic of 'The Passion', the Christ child lies on a marble slab," explains the label on the wall, which didn't help me out much. I hope the kid on the rigging above fulfills his dream of becoming an art historian so he can explain things like this to me someday.