Prohibition Themes in Bristol

    Yesterday, Susie and I went on a fab day out to Bristol. At Temple Meads station, right at the beginning of the day, my left knee decided it would be a fantastic idea to give out again. It was so painful and I was just thankful that I had a nurse-in-training with me to make sure I would be able to stand up again. It was so distressing and embarrassing because the station was packed. A hot guy came over and asked me if I needed a hand getting up, or if I wanted him to call anyone. It was so sweet of him, but I was far too upset to take advantage of his kindness. I'm ok, but I can tell you my knee has now seized up fantastically and I can barely walk. Fab.

After finding painkillers, we walked to the centre via the cathedral, and found a chip shop called Catch-22, which I found absolutely hilarious. They do the nicest chips ever! We got a portion each and then chilled on the college green to eat them. It was a nice day - warm and sunny, but also with a nice cool breeze.

We visited the Bristol City Museum & Art Gallery, where I was immediately drawn to the Ancient Egypt section. They had canopic jars, which thrilled me. Elsewhere in the museum, they had cool things like: a Romani caravan; an angler fish that had washed ashore (I don't even know how an angler fish got to the surface without imploding, but he apparently did); and DINOSAURS. I love museums, they're so brilliant!

We walked all the way up to Clifton Village, which is a really posh part of Bristol. It was here that I spent a lot of time crying over beautiful townhouses that probably cost more than I'll ever earn in my life. The architecture is lovely around there. We stopped in a little dessert shop and had milkshake and a wonderful chocolate pie.

Feeling energised by our sweet snacks, we made our way over to the Clifton suspension bridge. I've lived a half-hour train ride away from Bristol for most of my life and I've never seen it in person. Standing on the bridge, looking out at the city on such a beautiful day, was really pleasant. I was getting the 'call of the void', though, and congratulate myself for not jumping off. It was nice to stand up there and have a chit-chat while watching the city go about its business. We spent a long while there, feeling the cool breeze and taking in the sunshine, and I'm glad I forced my aching knees to carry me up the steep hill to get there.

To get down to that main road in the bottom photo, Susie and I had to walk down a treacherous path known as 'The Zig Zag'; it's shaped, strangely, like a zig-zag and it's so steep. Honestly, we spent the whole trek down giggling nervously and convinced we'd end up falling off the path and breaking our necks. Great butt and thigh workout though!

Having walked all that way, we decided we deserved a drink so we strolled to a place on the waterfront called The Apple. It's a bar that sells cider, and some of the seating is on a boat! It was such a nice atmosphere there, watching people go by on their boats in the sunshine. After that, we moved on to The Old Duke, an old jazz pub where Susie's Dad used to play. The pub has such character, and a great band was playing (they were called J.C. Calloway & The Prohibition Jazz Band and they were fantastic). Susie was putting some make-up on in the loos and I'd mentioned how ridiculous my pale skin is; Susie said in a really blasé manner, "Do you want some lipgloss... Corpse?" and I couldn't even be mad because it was so funny.

We decided we were ready for some grub, and we were going to eat at a great pizzeria that Susie had been to before, but they didn't have tables until 8pm which was clearly ridiculous. So we walked over to Gloucester Road, an area full of artsy types and lots of brilliant graffiti, where there are loads of food places. However, we got waylaid by a bar called The Bootlegger - it's a Prohibition-themed bar with signature cocktails, good music, really friendly barmen, and they served some of my drinks in mason jars! It's such a cool place (and I've noticed there's a bit of a Prohibition theme going on here, which suits me fine).

We had dinner a few doors down from The Bootlegger, at an Italian restaurant called Amici (we were dead set on pizza at this point). The pizzas there were so fantastic! They were really rustic and tasted properly homemade, with the most delicious tomato sauce. And they were quite big too, so we soaked up the drinks we'd already had at this point, in order to make room for more cocktails of course!

When we got back to The Bootlegger, it was a lot more lively. There were so many well-dressed people there (including what looked like a birthday party of women dressed as flapper girls!) - lots of men in shirts and braces, which Susie and I loved. Amongst other drinks, I had the one in the photo above. It's a Dark & Stormy; I'm thrilled someone named a cocktail after my personality, plus it has ginger beer in it. It tastes pirate-y. My other favourite was Black/Dark Passion (I can't remember the adjective, lmao). It had fresh blackberries in it, so I pretended that that totally made it healthy. Live music was playing in the bar at this point, and they played bloody Miserlou from Pulp Fiction, it was so funny.

We managed to just about make the last train, and of course it was full of drunk people. It also became delayed because of another train stuck on the tracks; we had to take a big detour and then go backwards to stop at Chippenham before going home. It was such a pain in the ass and was really annoying me because I was so tired from all the walking and hilarity. However, there were some crazy drunk men in the next carriage who provided some entertainment. With no context, we heard the following (all said in broad Wiltshire accents):

• "Oy listen, I just saved you from a WORLD of SHIT."
• *slightly singing* "Cheeeeese on toast... Maaaarmalade on toast."
• *after a long period of silence* "AARRRRRRRRRR!"
• "I saved your life."

Susie and I were in fits of laughter over how ridiculous they were all being; it didn't help that all the yelling was slightly muffled as the carriage doors were shut. I finally got home at about 00:30, and slept gloriously.