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Finding a Bed in Bedminster

I didn’t quite finish the story of my trip to Bristol to go glassblowing. The course was just one day, from 10:30 to 16:00 with an hour for lunch. I could get home to Malvern on the train relatively easily afterwards, but if I’d tried to do a return trip on the day, it would have required a very early start. I’ve never been good at early mornings, and I find them a real struggle at the moment. So clearly, the sensible thing was to go down to Bristol the day before and stay overnight somewhere close to the glass factory so that I could have a bit of a lie-in before the exertions of the course.

I don’t know Bristol at all well, but a quick look on line showed me that Bedminster is not one of the more affluent suburbs, and there was a distinct lack of hotels in the vicinity. So when I phoned the glass factory to book the course, I asked them if they could recommend anywhere local to stay – I reckoned they must have been asked that before, and a personal recommendation would give me some come-back if necessary. The receptionist said that there was a B&B just around the corner from the factory – literally less than a 5 minute walk, and also very handy for the station. I looked it up on Trip Advisor, and it got glowing reviews, but was rather more expensive than I was really willing to pay.

I phoned up the B&B, and told them that they had been recommended by Bristol Blue Glass, at which point the owner said that in that case there would of course be a discount, how much could I afford? I’m not sure that’s good business practice, but we came to a very amicable agreement on a substantial discount, that actually made the whole weekend entirely affordable. I really lucked out with the B&B – it turned out to be absolutely delightful. They didn’t do evening meals, but there was a pub on the corner of the street that was busy and noisy on a Friday night, but very friendly and welcoming, with delicious home-made pies (I had chicken, leek and thyme pie with mash and gravy, yummy!).

Windmill Hill Views - the living room with views over Bristol

The B&B was an ordinary Victorian mid-terrace, on a steep hill near the railway station, and had just the one suite that they let out to guests – but it was an architect-designed roof extension which was extremely comfortable. There was a small double bedroom, a bathroom fitted in under the eaves and around the chimney breast, and a big open plan living area with kitchenette, dining area, a comfortable sofa that I think doubled as an extra bed, and a glass end wall with French windows out onto a balcony. The views over Bristol were superb – I spent much of the evening just gazing out at the Clifton suspension bridge, Bristol Cathedral, the SS Great Britain, and the rest of the city below me – binoculars were provided to make the most of the views!

There wasn’t the usual cooked breakfast that one often gets in B&Bs, but that wasn’t a problem as far as I was concerned. Instead, the landlady brought up a tray heavily loaded with cereals, fruit, yoghurt, bread & toast, and fruit juice, which I consumed looking out of the window at the views. And when I checked out, I was sent on my way with a pack of hand-made greetings cards – the landlady’s husband is an artist and goes in for really detailed and quite beautiful botanical illustrations.

I found the B&B really relaxing, and a very pleasant place to stay. It really added something special to the trip, turning it from a one-day course into a mini-holiday.

20 09 2013 Gillian Day out Comments Off on Finding a Bed in Bedminster Permalink

A Works Day Out to Warwick Castle

The main courtyard at Warwick Castle

The Director of the business stream I work for wanted to thank his staff for the efforts we’ve put in over the past year, so invited his entire extended team, and their partners and children, to a “Mediaeval Family Fun Day” at Warwick Castle. All in all, several hundred of us took him up on the invitation, travelling to Warwick in coaches from the Malvern and Farnborough sites. It was a good choice of venue – not quite equidistant between the two sites, but not far off, and with plenty to do for a full day out for both children and adults. I’d been to Warwick Castle a long time ago with Christopher, and really enjoyed it, but even twelve or so years ago we were absolutely horrified by the admission price, so it wasn’t somewhere I had any plans to go back to on my own and at my own expense. But with work paying, and the Director’s PA organising it all, that was a different matter!

We had a full day out yesterday, arriving as the castle opened at 10am (which meant being at work on a Saturday morning to meet the coach a full hour earlier than I normally get into work during the week! Groan) and not leaving until after the Firing of the Trebuchet at 5pm. The castle is owned by the same group that run Madame Tussauds, and is a pretty much operated as a theme park, designed to ruthlessly separate punters from their money. But that does mean that there are plenty of attractions, and things that would appeal to most tastes – including gory dungeons, a girly Princess Tower, a wax-work recreation of a Victorian weekend house party, walks on the ramparts, birds of prey shows, and a restored hydro-electric plant which supplied the castle with electricity 100 years ago.

A falconer with Archie, an American Bald Eagle

I think I saw almost all of the attractions, with the exception of the Princess Tower (as a staunch feminist, I really can’t condone encouraging little girls to imagine they’re princesses!) and the face-painting (I didn’t think I’d ever live that down!). I particularly enjoyed the birds of prey, with a falconer flying a number of huge birds, including Archie, an American Bald Eagle with a 6 foot wingspan, which clearly wasn’t relishing the conditions at the castle yesterday and was rather grudgingly going through the motions of his flying display, going so low over the audience that I actually had to duck!

I had taken a book with me, so that I had something to read if I ran out of things to do before the coach left, but in fact I spent almost all the day wandering around the castle and grounds. It was quite odd though – at pretty much every turn I bumped into one of my work colleagues, often accompanied by their children, and looking quite different in an outside-work context. I enjoyed myself far more than I thought I would, and am very pleased that I made the effort to go. But I don’t think I’ll be going back in a hurry – certainly not under my own steam and at my own expense.

15 09 2013 Gillian Day out
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Fat Lip

A number of people have commented to me that the glass blowing looks downright dangerous, with no Personal Protective Equipment, and the tutor wearing shorts! In fact, I think the danger lies more in the perception and the potential than in reality. Yes, of course, if things went horribly wrong then it could get very nasty, very quickly. But in fact I felt very safe the whole day, even though I am frankly scared stiff of red-hot iron and molten glass.

In the course joining instructions, the students are told not to wear heels or open-toed sandals, and to wear loose, comfortable clothing. We had a safety brief before we went near the irons and furnaces, which basically consisted of telling us to make sure we always knew which end of the iron was the red hot one, and not to touch it! There was a one-way system in operation around the furnace, so we always approached it from the left and, a bit like a yellow box-junction on the road, never started gathering molten glass until we could see that our exit was clear. We were always very aware of where the hot irons and molten glass were, and treated them with respect. The tutor kept a very close eye on us and made sure we were always acting in a way that was safe.

The other students both wore short-sleeved tee-shirts, but they did struggle a bit in consequence when they were doing the delicate shaping of the blown glass at the bench. You have to use tongs to shape the glass, but that means reaching past the hot glass to come into it from the side, holding your arm within inches of the end of the blowing iron. They found the radiant heat from the hot glass very uncomfortable on the delicate skin of their forearms, to the extent that the tutor resorted to holding a damp wad of newspaper between their arm and the glass to shield them from the heat. I’d deliberately chosen to wear a long-sleeved tee-shirt, so although I had the sleeves pushed up most of the time as it was so hot, when I was shaping the vessels I pulled them down to cover my forearms and give a bit of protection, and that worked fine.

In fact, the only injury of any sort that any of us got was that I gave myself a bit of a fat lip through over-enthusiastic use of the blowing iron when I was trying to get a blob of molten glass to blow up like a balloon. It was worth it though – I made a “balloon” at least a foot in diameter, with walls that were about as thick as cellophane. It made a very satisfactory bang when it burst!

12 09 2013 icyjumbo Day out Comments (1) Permalink

Glass Blowing – the results!

I got home from work today to find a parcel waiting for me. It was the glasses I’d blown on Saturday, all very well wrapped up in bubble-wrap and packed in newspaper. They’d done a very good job of parcelling them up. And here they are! Proof that I’ve got years of training and apprenticeship to go before I would make a glass blower.

Wobbly glasses

I actually made more vessels than I thought – I’d forgotten the one on the far left, which was the first “trial piece” I made to go through the steps one at a time. It will make a useful small vase. I’m particularly pleased with the one on the far right – it’s a water glass, which I blew into a former to get the indentations in the body. I can see myself using that. It was an evolution of the vessel at the second left, which is a simple tumbler. I’m not sure what I’ll do with the bowl in the middle – it’s too small to be a fruit bowl, but I’m sure I’ll find a use for it.

I deliberately stuck with very simple shapes. The other two students were more ambitious, and both made stemmed wine goblets, whilst one also made a jug. But I observed that the more complex the piece, the more of the work was actually done by the tutor. So I decided that I’d rather try to make simpler pieces that I did the majority of the work on. In the case of my four pieces, the tutor made the base of the bowl but everything else was done by me – hence the distinct wobbles!

I’m not particularly enamoured of the colour – I find cobalt blue to be a bit garish and prefer my glasses to be colourless in general. But I suppose the clue is in the name. If one goes on a course with Bristol Blue Glass, one has to expect the resulting glasses to be blue! Overall, I am delighted with the results. It was a very intense day, and I learned I huge amount and enjoyed myself very much. It’s great to end up with something tangible at the end.

 

10 09 2013 Gillian art
Day out
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Glass Blowing for Complete Beginners

I mentioned a few months ago that I thought it might be interesting to have a go at making hand-made glasses. Glass blowing is something I’ve wanted to do, at the back of my mind, for several years now, but Chris wasn’t particularly interested so I didn’t take it any further. But for the last month or so I’ve been idly thinking about it again, and decided that I ought at least to look into the practicalities/possibilities of taking it further.

I didn’t even know if there was such a thing as a glass blowing course for the general public, but a quick internet search brought up Bristol Blue Glass who offered one-day “taster” courses. I phoned them up and said that while I was well acquainted with drinking from glasses, I was a complete novice at making them, and did they really teach absolute beginners? They confirmed that was indeed the case, and I booked myself on the next available course, which happened to be yesterday. They are based in Bedminster, a suburb of Bristol, which isn’t too difficult to get to from Malvern.

I was very unsure what to expect when I turned up in good time for a 10:30 start yesterday morning, and in fact was wondering if I’d overdone it this time and bitten off more than I could chew! But I needn’t have worried. There were just three of us on the course, and we got lots of individual attention and tuition. I sort of recognised all the stages in glass blowing from my experience throwing pottery, as there are a lot of analogies – but with one major difference. With pottery, you’re dealing with a lump of room temperature clay which is pretty inert and benign. If it all goes horribly wrong, the worst you get is a muddy puddle on the floor and the air turning blue with swearing. With glass blowing, you’re dealing with a red-hot lump of molten glass, and if accidents happen you can easily end up in hospital! The other major difference is that, whilst throwing clay is a solo activity, glass blowing is a collaboration between a master glass blower and an assistant. It takes at least five years of apprenticeship training to graduate from being an assistant to being able to blow glass moderately accurately, and there was no way that we could fake that training in one day. So the tutor kept in charge of the most highly technical and skilled elements – such as knowing when to whip the part-formed objects off us and “flash” them in the “glory hole” furnace for 10 seconds to keep the glass at the correct working temperature. We took it in turns to blow and shape glasses under his tight supervision.

Forming a bulb of molten glass - under tight supervision!

A key job of the assistant is to prepare the “punty”, a rod with a bead of molten glass on the tip which is attached to the bottom of the blown object so that the top can then be formed and shaped. We were informed that one of us in turn would work with the master blower to make an object under heavy supervision, and  we would also  take it in turns to act as the assistant and prepare the punty, on demand and unsupervised. That was scary!

Making a punty. The "Glory Hole" is behind my left shoulder. One of the main furnaces containing the molten glass is at the far right of the picture

Once the punty has been made, the assistant and main blower have to collaborate to stick them together firmly, so that the glass can then be freed from the blowpipe. That was quite a hairy process, and we all felt a huge responsibility not to mess it up for eachother!

Attaching the punty to the base of another student's vase

We each made three vessels, and collaborated with Marcin, the tutor, to make a fourth. The pieces then have to be annealed  overnight at 550°C to reduce the risk of spontaneous cracks and stress fractures. The other two students live in Bristol, so they were planning on returning today to pick up their completed items. I’ve asked for mine to be packed and posted to me, so I ought to receive a box of glassware (or at least shards!) later this week.

08 09 2013 Gillian art
Day out
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Frustrating Fireworks

Eastnor Castle held its annual fireworks competition last night. I realised during the late afternoon that something was up at the castle, as there was more traffic than usual crawling down the hill past my house. It wasn’t too bad during the evening, as I had music on quite loud which drowned out any noise from the castle estate. But I really wanted an early night, as I had a stinking headache and was still tired after a very long day at a customer site on Thursday. That clearly wasn’t going to happen – I could hear every explosion, and there were lots of them! And some pretty big fireworks too, by the sound of it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t actually see any of the fireworks from the house or garden (I did go outside to check, since I clearly wasn’t going to get any sleep until they finished). Although my house lies just outside the Eastnor estate, and close enough to get the full audio experience from events in the Deerpark, there’s a huge great hill in the way so it’s impossible to see anything. Frustrating! If I’d realised earlier that it was happening, I’d have bought a ticket on the grounds of “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em”. They ought to offer discounts to their neighbours though, as we do have to put up with quite a lot.

01 09 2013 icyjumbo invective Comments Off on Frustrating Fireworks Permalink

Roast baby new potatoes

I’ve never been particularly keen on potatoes. They are a staple part of my diet, but I much prefer them to taste of something other than potato – such as roast potatoes with goose fat, mashed potato with lots of cream and cheese, or chips with vinegar. I simply won’t eat plain boiled potatoes, not even boiled new potatoes with lots of butter; they just do nothing for me.

However, recently I have surprised myself by cooking and enjoying baby new potatoes, roasted according to a recipe given to me by my sister. Pre-heat oven to 180 deg C. Take some really little baby new potatoes, still in their skins, and give them a quick wash and scrub. Cut the larger potatoes into two, or even into four, leaving the very smallest ones whole, so that all the pieces are pretty much the same size, about 1.5-2cm across. Put in a plastic bag. Add a couple of glugs of olive oil, and optionally some chopped rosemary. Close the bag, and give it a good shake to cover all the potatoes with a coating of olive oil. Tip the potatoes out onto a baking tray and put into the oven for about 35-45 minutes, shaking and turning occasionally to stop them sticking.

The recipe seems pretty much fool-proof. The oven temperature can vary a bit if you are cooking something else at the same time. And the length of cooking time seems not to be critical – if you overdo it the potatoes go browner and more wrinkly, but still taste just as good.

According to my sister, any left-overs can go in the fridge and are delicious cold the next day. However, I am unable to corroborate this. I have not yet had any leftovers whatsoever – they’re so tasty that however much I cook, I manage to eat the lot in one sitting. I even had thirds on Wednesday, which for someone who claims not to like potatoes is rather excessive!

30 08 2013 icyjumbo food
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A Voice From Beyond the Grave

It’s a Bank Holiday today, so I’ve got the day off. I decided to spend at least some of it sorting out my new laptop – ripping CDs to iTunes, labelling photos, and generally making sure that it’s set up the way I want it.

My previous laptop was so slow that it was really painful to use, so I never really got to grips with the full functionality of iTunes. Today I was exploring some of the menus and came across one I’d not seen before – “shared music”. I clicked on it out of curiosity, and it seemed to be a link to some audio files on the external hard drive which is mounted on the network and which Chris set up to do our backups. I’d never told iTunes about the external storage, and I certainly hadn’t instructed it to go combing through the files on there looking for audio formats. But that seemed to be what it had done. I recognised some of the files – they were albums I’d ripped from CD and stored on the hard drive, then copied across to populate iTunes when I bought my new laptop. But other files were completely new to me.

I clicked on one out of sheer curiosity, and got a huge shock. Christopher’s voice boomed out from the hifi loud speakers, reading a poem by Anne Bronte! iTunes had come across a backup of some of his Librivox recordings and had silently indexed them. It was nice to hear his voice, but I wish I’d been better prepared as it was a real shock. I’ve just about stopped shaking now.

26 08 2013 icyjumbo librivox
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Relativistic Cooking

I’ve been doing some more cooking from Jamie’s Fifteen Minute Meals. I don’t like the way that in many recipes he gets a lot of flavour in a very short cooking time by using lots of chilli – I can’t stand the stuff! But if one carefully reads the list of ingredients, his book contains a number of interesting chilli-free ideas that are quick and fairly easy to make – there’s simply not time in 15 minutes to go for any really complicated cooking techniques.  I’ve been away at a customer site again today, so wanted something quick to cook tonight. I went for a chicken breast with rosemary, on a bed of leeks, baby spinach and peas, with a potato, onion and sage gratin. It’s really tasty, completely chilli-free, and I’ve cooked it several times now. I know what I’m doing, and what the requisite timings are to get the potatoes fully cooked at the same time as the chicken.

I’ve come to the clear conclusion that it is physically impossible to cook it all in Jamie’s claimed 15 minutes. I’ve dropped one of the ingredients (there’s no need for bacon on top of the chicken) and even so the absolute minimum time I’ve got it down to is 22 minutes, and that leaves no time for clearing up as I go along, so the kitchen looks like a bomb has hit it by the time I plate up the food. The only way the Jamie can possibly do it all in 15 minutes must be to move so fast from chopping board to hob to grill that he reaches relativistic speeds, and time dilates and slows down for him!  22 minutes doesn’t even leave enough time to pour a much-needed glass of wine after all that effort!

21 08 2013 Gillian food Comments (1) Permalink

Boringly Normal

My work has been having a bit of a health kick recently. I think they reckon that a healthy workforce is a productive workforce, so they’ve been offering free basic health screening, coupled with diet and exercise advice. It only took 15 minutes one lunch time, so I thought it was worth going along.

My weight, waist circumference, and BMI were slap bang in the middle of the acceptable range for my height; my cholesterol and blood sugar levels were fine; my blood pressure and resting heartbeat were very slightly elevated (unsurprising given how stressed I’ve been recently) but nothing to worry about; and I was told I ought to take more exercise which I knew anyway. All in all I was told I am “boringly normal”. It’s not often that anyone says that about me! But it’s reassuring that there’s no major problems and it shows that at I’m at least managing to feed myself a reasonable diet.

In fact, the only interesting result that came out of the test was that I found out that I was half an inch taller than I thought I was. I don’t know where that’s come from – I stopped growing decades ago!

I did find it quite funny that AXA Healthcare (the corporate provider of occupational health) have a big poster up in the works canteen promoting “Wellbeing” and “increased flexibility” with a picture of a woman kneeling on the floor and peering into a kitchen cupboard. Except that it looks very like she’s kneeling down to put her head in a gas oven! There’s clearly some hidden message there…..

16 08 2013 icyjumbo status Comments (3) Permalink