Bristol sights and more Commonwealth Games rehearsals

Some of the Birmingham Commonwealth Games performers posing for a shot during rehearsals. We're in there somewhere but you can't see us as we're at the back over towards the left somewhere

Chilled out Millie cat

Bristol is nearly over, how (Brian: by the time I got round to posting this it is already over!)?

We’ve walked a couple of times, on Monday from the house (see Relive short video with photos: click here), on a walk that had some lovely bits, and some horribly overgrown bits. Not good in shorts! Some of the most overgrown bits were on ‘the Gordano Round’ a well known local path. Obviously not that well known. Thursday from below Sea Walls in the Avon Gorge where we often used to park to go climbing. We went up through a little gulley that has goats for wild flower preservation! Apparently they prefer bramble and woody things, to grass and flowers so are good at providing the delicate habitat these rare plants want. Bit of a walk across the Downs and to the ice cream van that is marked on Googlemaps. They’ve got to be there regularly to be on Google maps! See another Relive short video with photos: click here

Part of the Gordano Round trail. Marked on the OS map as a major trail, but actually most of it was like this, overgrown and difficult to follow. Nice day out though

We had visitors last Friday, my brother and niece, stopping over between university visits in Bristol and Bath. How very convenient. It was lovely to see them and practice my vegetarian cooking. We are trying to encourage Caroline to come to Bristol, so we can spend time with her when we sit next time.....

Here's another interesting bit. Look at that big fungus growing on that fallen tree on the left. Don't try this track after heavy rain!

We had our second CWG rehearsal on Sunday. Much more specific, our individual bibs all had marker points on them , so we know where to stand, to form various shapes at different times. It’s all becoming a little clearer. We both had our costume fittings too, I was pulled out of rehearsal to try on, thinking oh well, Brian can tell me, but no, he was sent in too. We get the feeling the vibe is “Peaky Blinders” and are both really hoping we get to keep the costumes as I could happily wear all my bits, though not necessarily all together. This has yet to be confirmed, but apparently is quite usual. It was a long day, up at 06.20 on Bristol, Longbridge to rehearse, dash to Morrison’s to grab something for lunch (15.00 ish) to eat with mum, then back to little cats. This week much the same, except we aren’t coming back to Bristol.

From the hills looking down towards the docks at Portishead and, on the other side of the Bristol Channel, South Wales

Concorde in Bristol museum

Wednesday we had a busy day, booked Jurassic World at the cinema so thought we might as well go to the aircraft museum at Filton with the last Concorde that flew. It was an interesting visit and we’ve left the ‘valid for a year’ tickets in the drawer I found the SS Great Britain ones in, in the hope we’ll be back within the year to use them! Didn’t enjoy the movie as much as Top Gun, but still good to see at the cinema. We followed it with a bite to eat, so all go!

Today (now yesterday) we’ve cleaned in preparation for our early departure tomorrow, and packed the car, so he won’t publish this blog, because the computer is already packed!

Third rehearsal on Saturday, it is all coming together and you realise that everything we do has a second purpose, it’s really all very clever. We are loving it despite the wind and rain. The atmosphere is fabulous, the camaraderie and enthusiasm brilliant. We are meeting people and having a really good time.

Back to mums for what is looking like an action packed few days, before Smokey cat in Milton Keynes on Wednesday

View from the back of Concorde with those four huge Bristol Siddeley Olympus 593 jet engines 

Here's an interesting fact: the square inlets on each of the four engines have controllable flaps to regulate the air speed entering the engine. Apparently the engines worked optimally with an airspeed of 350mph, but as the jet could travelling at up to 1350mph, the flaps would deflect the air away from the engine input in order to reduce it to 350mph.

The view you could have had inside Concorde if you had enough money. A transatlantic flight, which used to take 3 hours, cost £8000 when the fleet was retired in 2003

And here's the flight deck. There's a lot of knobs and switches there!

There were lots of other interesting exhibits to see there. This is the Bristol F2B fighter aircraft used in 1918

So this is my costume for the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony. Not sure if I should be sharing this or not, but no-one actually said not to. I like it and hope I can keep it. I particularly like the flat cap. Jackie's is something along the same lines 

Rehearsals on Saturday 25th. On the platform is Nathan, our very enthusiastic director. We're all wearing headphones with a number of different channels so we can hear him or our individual instructors telling us when to move and where to move. We think we'll be wearing them at the ceremony to keep us all together, telling us when to move. It's quite scary but its also a lot of fun and he makes it for us with his jokes, praise, enthusiasm and professionalism. He's done a few of these now so he's quite experienced and knows exactly how to teach and keep a thousand or so people on track. Here he's being wheeled on his platform to a new position as we have to make a new shape

They did tell us that the rehearsals would be outside and would continue despite the weather. Here a rain shower had just passed us making us quite wet. They handed out these cagoules to help keep us dry, but you can see there was no loss of enthusiasm from us all, it is such fun. You can see the cloud shower moving off on the right, to be replaced by blue sky. The tower there is to enable them to get an overall view of the shapes we are making. Apparently, so I was told by someone in the know, this area at Longbridge is set out exactly as Alexander Stadium, where the opening ceremony the track events during the games will be, and that tower is in the position where the press box will be. Beneath it is the main entrance into the stadium where all athletes will come out onto the pitch. We will be here in front of that for a good part of the ceremony so we might be on telly! There again, we might not!

Princess Tinsel cat on her cushion was unimpressed by the whole thing and would have preferred us not to have gone in the first place!

This was in Chiquitos at Cribbs Causeway, Bristol after the Jurassic World Dominion film. The hat fitted so I wore it!

This was the start and finish of our walk in the Avon Gorge at a crag called Sea Walls, scene of many climbing adventures we've had in the past. Multi pitch climbing on these 300 feet crags

This is Old Sneed Park Nature Reserve. It's been fenced off and filled with these goats who protect the  wild flowers here. Apparently they feed on the prickly undergrowth leaving the flowers alone, giving them space to grow. The stone edifice you see there is a vent for the railway tunnel that runs beneath

They are actually quite cute goats and quite happy for us to walk past, giving us a mere glance

Up on the top in Clifton Downs we came across this exercise equipment so felt we had to try it out

Having promised Jackie an ice cream stop on our walk as I had seen it marked on Google Maps, I was a bit sceptical it would be there taking into account it is mobile. However, it was exactly in the position marked on the map. You've got to be there for a long period of time to be marked on the map

This might look pretty flat here, but just the other side of that fence is a sheer rock face that plummets down 300 feet (100m) into the Avon Gorge. These two guys were painting the scene they could see...

And here's what they could see and were painting. That's the River Avon, tidal at this point, just in the distance is the huge bridge that carries the M5 motorway over the river on its way between Birmingham in the Midlands and Exeter on the South Coast

And there's the view the other way. In the distance you can just see the Clifton Suspension Bridge built by Brunel and down there on the left is Sea Walls crag that we've climbed many times, Main Wall crag further along on the left, another place we've climbed on many times. The road is the A4 into Bristol, which you can just see a bit of in the 'V' under the bridge. Our car is in the car park at the bottom of Sea Walls and at the top is the fence around Clifton Downs. When we've climbed on this crag it was always disconcerting to arrive at the top of the climb into a park with people walking, jogging, eating ice creams and gazing at the view. We'd just spend the best part of two hours climbing and waiting on belays, completely isolated, to suddenly be thrust back into civilisation at the top. The fence did provide a very convenient place to belay from though, even though the signs said not to! We'd often see people standing here watching us climb, then to walk round and have a chat with us as we topped out

So it's bye-bye to these two pussy cats for now, We've had a lovely time in Bristol and it was great to catch up with Bev and Iain before they went off on their holidays. We look forward to seeing them without having to housesit and again when we next look after their house. It's Sunday afternoon now and we've had word that they are safely back home now after being delayed on their return flight so these two are quite happy, dinner will be in their bowls tonight!