10 Days, Several Walks & 2 Medieval Barns Later…

… I finally get around to posting another blog! Spotted this on the first of our almost daily walks (these days, only the lovely British winter weather occasionally deters us from stepping out for a decent perambulation)

 At the front of the same flats, we spotted this risque pairing of showroom dummies and a gargoyle.

 Pulteney Bridge view.

 A great name for a garden design company!

UWE student union sign. 

 At the end of Perfect View walk at sunset.

On Green Street in Bath. 

 On the road to Prior Park Garden Centre.

 In our back garden (Su has also featured these lovely hellebores on Facebook).

A visiting cat - soon to leave us as his owners have just sold their house. 

Great tree bark.

 A frog who had been hiding in the wood pile temporarily located in our front garden.

My first ever attempt at baking a cake (after sampling...) 

After icing and lemon zest. 

 Pulteney Weir in full flow.

 Atop the Bog Island statuary, we'd never noticed these two before.

 Art, darling…

A very small place… 

Storm Doris view. 

Walking under the railway bridge along the river at Bradford-on-Avon.

Anti-rough-sleepers rocks? 

The roof of the Tithe barn at Barton Country Park 

 A magnificent structure indeed!

 Painted doves on this dovecote!

 At Lacock Abbey today, again alongside the river Avon - very ecclesiastical looking bridge design

Art at Lacock Abbey, former home of William Fox-Talbot, the early British photographer.

A might tree no more. 

Lacock Abbey in all its magnificence 

 Lacock barn view #1 - 14th century building skills on view.

 Barn view #2

Snowdrops and other stuff

Today I'll just show you the pics to enjoy as much as we did.  No doubt Marcus will show his collection soon.  All these were taken at Painswick Rococco Gardens apart from the last few of the churchyard (Painswick) and the river (back in Bath eating cake!).  Update on escape plans coming soon!

The cake was a cherry bakewell and absolutely delicious!!

Still Walking and Talking…

Given the gloomy and quite cold weather, we've been walking a lot while talking about our plans for later in the year - all still quite provisional, with many possibilities still to be decided on so we'll tell you when things have become definite! As ever, watch this space…One of our several walks took us down Walcot Street, where this display of little persons' colourful socks caught my eye.

Not far away, maybe this owner forgot to put their boot back on after trying some socks?

An emphatic, if ambiguous declaration in this shop - nihilist central? 

Quite a few empty shop fronts have appeared down the street - this one was being used to advertise a quirky play…

Great new poster at the bottom of the hill.

The River Avon was in full flow as we came over by Pulteney Bridge.

On the other side of the river nearer the weir.

A bit of guerrilla advertising for Opa, a Greek mezze restaurant we have yet to visit - may not be long before we do!

Further along the river, this boat has seen better days.

Victorian Graffiti chiseled in very neatly…

Art?

More modern graffiti…

Back home, I glanced out of our kitchen window to see this glorious sight - from there it looked as though the rainbow landed in our near neighbours' back garden

I blame the Management … 

Seagulls on a chimney stack of the new student residences opposite Green Park.

Work on the riverside improvements slowly moves forward… 

I wonder how? This sign can't do much on its own, surely? 

One of our walks was around Chippenham, where we saw this very old and off-vertical house front. 

Found on the pavement just down our road - a coin from Bosnia Herzegovina.

Another walk down Walcot Street, another witty slogan. Wonder how coffee and cupcake do with partial differential equations?

Spotted atop The Bell, a most jolly wind-powered piece of art. 

Further down Walcot Street, this had materialised since our last passage that way…

As had this bike-supported version at the bottom of Broad Street. 

A very odd coat of arms and motto on the wall outside Marks & Spencer…

Now that the Bath Police Station has been sold off and is being redeveloped (no doubt for luxury executive accommodation rather than social housing), this seems to be the best that the Constabulary can offer. The van was locked with no obvious police presence, so that's a lot of use! Mind you just after we passed here we saw two officers get out of a patrol car to arrest, then chase and apprehend somebody…

We came out of the cinema (saw "Twentieth Century Women", an enjoyable coming of age story with a great performance by Annette Bening) to this view of the moon rising above Bath Rugby floodlit ground.

Yesterday's walk saw us roaming around the edges of Larkhall - found a path up the hill we'd never walked just after seeing this tipped mattress. 

Up Charlcombe Lane to see the annual road closure will soon be upon us 

We've lived in Bath for 11 years now (and visited it for the previous 13 years when we lived in Clutton) and walking around it never fails to provide us with something we have not seen or noticed before. It's great to find new routes, so we'll keep on sniffing them out!