Thursday 26 September 2013

Do you like where you live?

Walking home from school through the woods
Liz over at Violet Posy asked this question recently after writing a love-letter to Cambridgeshire.

We live on the outskirts of Bristol.  On one hand, we've got the countryside on our doorstep, with horses occasionally trotting through the common and woods behind the house...on the other, we're just a few miles away from the city centre which is a brilliant mixture of old stone buildings and gleaming modern ones.

Office building near Temple Meads, John Foster's Almshouse, Christmas Steps
There are beautiful parks to explore and play in...


Every summer the skies fill with hot air balloons.

The Bristol Balloon Fiesta
If the wind's blowing in the right direction, we can watch dozens of balloons float over our house and wave up at the pilots.

Bristol has always been focused around the river, and the Floating Harbour, which turned the city into a bustling port for two centuries.  The waterways are still important to the city, and we celebrate each summer with the Harbourside Festival visited by dozens of tall ships.  The Matthew sails daily around the Floating Harbour and you can join scores of school children exploring Brunel's SS Great Britain, or maybe take a Pirate Walk.


There are always festivals going on in the city.  A cider festival, chocolate festival, a festival of puppetry, circus festival, food festivals...we have them all.  I always try to make a trip to the organic food festival.

Bristol is also the sort of fantastically wonderful place where a zombie can walk down the street, covered in blood and brains, and no one even blinks.  Shopping trips are occasionally livened by bumping into Daleks, Chewbacca, and Judge Dredd fundraising for charities.


Bristol is awesome.  I can't imagine living anywhere else.

I love living in Bristol.  Do you love where you live?

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10 comments

  1. I love where I live! Northampton, MA. It's a big time college town as well as a small city. We live in a forested pocket of it. If we want to take guests to breakfast, five minutes in one direction takes us to hot, trendy places, waiting in line and big brunches. Five minutes in the opposite direction takes us to small, country sugar shacks for some great pancakes.

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    1. Mmm...I do love pancakes. I always wanted to have pancakes with freshly boiled maple syrup but we've always just missed the season when we've been in that part of the US on holiday. I do love having the best of both worlds like you!

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  2. Ahh, I love the Balloon Fiesta! We used to go a lot when I was young and then when I was a teenager, I used to go and sit on the downs with friends and watch them float past the Clifton Suspension Bridge.
    I remember back in the day when they used to have a GWR FM free pop concert on the Thursday as well :-) x

    I do like where I live (only 20 mins or so from the city) but I agree, Bristol *is* well cool :-) x

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    1. I've only been to the fiesta once--I had to take Lucas there to see Optimus Prime, a couple of months after getting a blood clot in my leg. I was not happy.

      I would love to go to a nighttime or dawn glow at some point, but for now I'm totally okay with watching balloons sail past (one landed behind the house last year, L nearly popped with excitement) from home.

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  3. What a great idea for a post! I think I'll be stealing it soon ... ;) x

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  4. This is a lovely post. I really like Bristol - I have visited a few times as I have a friend who lives there. We went to the balloon fiesta too!

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    1. Thanks, Beeta! The balloon fiesta was fun, but tiring. Bring chairs!!

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  5. Oh stop it you, I've already got home town envy!! You're selling Brizzle well, I'm thinking Balloon fest might be worth a drive up the motorway for!
    Cute post M x

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    1. You're going to have to come and visit, Michelle! You know you want to...

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