Martin's Mag.

South of Weston-super-Mare, I’ve photographed this western end of the Mendip Hills before, but it’s always worth the climb from sea level, if only for the atmospheric abandoned 19th-century fort, jutting into the Bristol Channel (now documented on info. boards, below, by the National Trust). The cafe by the beach does good pasties, and this was the first time we noticed the poem by the splendid John Cooper Clarke (not a local boy, surely?) on the wall.

Nation’s Ode to the Coast – Dr. John Cooper Clarke

A big fat sky and a thousand shrieks
The tide arrives and the timber creaks
A world away from the working week
Où est la vie nautique?
That’s where the sea comes in…

Dishevelled shells and shovelled sands,
Architecture all unplanned
A spade ‘n’ bucket wonderland
A golden space, a Frisbee and
The kids and dogs can run and run
And not run in to anyone
Way out! Real gone!
That’s where the sea comes in…

Impervious to human speech, idle time and tidal reach
Some memories you can’t impeach
That’s where the sea comes in

A nice cuppa splosh and a round of toast
A cursory glance at the morning post
A pointless walk along the coast
That’s what floats my boat the most
That’s where the sea comes in…

Now, voyager – once resigned
Go forth to seek and find
The hazy days you left behind
Right there in the back of your mind
Where lucid dreams begin
With rolling dunes and rattling shale
The shoreline then a swollen sail
Picked out by a shimmering halo
That’s where the sea comes in…

Could this be luck by chance?
Eternity in a second glance
A universe beyond romance
That’s where the sea comes in…

Yeah, that’s where the sea comes in…

These “whales” were last seen at the Bristol Harbour Festival, 2015. They are now further down the River Avon at a new Avon Wildlife Reserve site, alongside the Portway.

On a damp day on Walton Common we needed all the help we could get to start the bonfire:

We managed to get “the best of the day”, as our parents would have said (i.e. the part of the day when it wasn’t actually raining), and walk from Cooper’s Hill in The Cotswolds, where the annual cheese-rolling competition is held (read HERE), along a wooded ridge to “The Peak” and back via Witcombe reservoir. Much of the path on the Cotswold Way.

On 1 July 1916 19,240 British Empire servicemen were killed on the first day of the battle of The Somme. By the end of the battle on 18 November 1916 – one hundred years ago today – 127,751 were dead in one of the bloodiest battles in human history.

The Shrouds of the Somme display, outside Bristol Cathedral, consists of 19,240 hand-stitched shrouded figures by artist Rob Heard to represent those killed on that first day. http://www.thesomme19240.co.uk.

Walking from Ladye Bay, north of Clevedon.

My chum Sweaty (many of my friends have bizarre and/or unflattering nicknames, although in Sweaty’s case, entirely justified) set a run on Sunday starting/ending in Gloucester Road, Bristol, and incorporating St Andrews, St Werburghs, Fairfield School, Muller Road, Stoke Park and the exotically-named Boiling Wells and City Farm allotments. Although we have run on the Stoke Park estate, Stapleton and Snuff Mills many times (and what conscientious hipster is not familiar with the Gloucester Road and City Farm communities?) there was an area of high ground at the confluence of two railway lines, overlooking the old Muller orphanage, which I couldn’t remember seeing before. So, on the following day, Sall and I went to investigate…

Autumn colours from high ground in St Werburghs. City of Bristol College, formerly Muller Orphanage, in distance.

Railway bridge, St Werburghs.

Fungal growth near Boiling Mills (City Farm).

Black cat in Happy Lane near St Andrews Park.

Graffiti in Happy Lane.