Martin's Mag.

Weston has lots of potential, and a huge amount has been spent in recent years on the general infrastructure. It’s very similar, architecturally, to northern French and Belgian seaside towns, but they just haven’t managed to get the catering right yet (i.e. mouthwatering lines of seafood restaurants, fishing boats, food markets and wine emporia). Never mind. There are some good beaches and a couple of piers. Give them time.

Looking down The Avon to the M5 bridge and Avonmouth.

Our nearest pub, opposite us on the marina, is The Hall and Woodhouse, made from shipping containers. (Using them for international trade is so pre-Brexit, darling!) And they have episodes of “Hancocks’ Half House” playing in the gents. Lucy and I walk past most evenings, but she’s in a hurry for her tea (and not a Hancock fan) so we rarely linger. It is in front of the slip where boats are lifted for maintenance and transport. The RNLB Lincolnshire Poacher is currently located outside.

We popped into the Grayson Perry exhibition at the Arnolfini Gallery. Interesting, witty social commentary from another Essex boy made good. Worth a second (and third?) visit.

A circular walk, with F. and P., from Stroud up onto Rodborough Common, stopping at The Bear for lunch. Lucy reasonably good, much to Sal’s relief.

Nice old Massey-Ferguson in a field near Portbury.

Until now when working on Walton Common we have had to carry tools from the small lay-by on the road near the entrance. This can include some heavy-duty equipment and as it’s quite steep up onto the ridge some of us are knackered before we even start work. Not any more! We now have a smart metal container unit to house everything we’re likely to need. There should be room for a few emergency beers, too. Here it is en route to it’s final location, being checked out by our friends the dexter cows.

When it was in place we set about deciding how to get all our junk in it:
And we had an unwelcome visitor, a harlequin ladybird seemed attracted to some of our old notes:

The Forest of Dean sculpture trail is always good for a stroll. There are a few new installations this year, so I’ve saved you from ploughing through them all again and just concentrated on the new ones:

YASASIN by Pomona Zipser. The title is from the Turkish word for Hooray!

COAL MEASURE GIANTS by Henry Castle 2016. 300 million year old tree fossils sit alongside two cast iron sculptures sited 300 metres apart – the distance of the nearest coal seam below ground.

COAL MEASURE GIANTS by Henry Castle 2016. 300 million year old tree fossils sit alongside two cast iron sculptures sited 300 metres apart – the distance of the nearest coal seam below ground.

Much of the new building in Portishead is on previously industrial (“brown field”) sites. Conditional in the developments was the provision of areas sympathetic to wildlife. Ponds were constructed, which, as well as being safety “valves” for flooding, provide attractive places for birds to visit, such as this heron, spotted this morning by Lucy and me.

…the Roman name for the river Severn. We walked around the long loop, south of Gloucester, centered on Arlingham, with views of Newnham and Bullo Pill on the west (right) bank.