Day 42 – a day of two halves…..

~ Janet Fernihough

It’s always a dream start to the day when you’ve been kept awake by the people in the room above until gone midnight and you’re making a porridge pot up with a Travelodge kettle. However, sliced banana and a tiny jar of honey made it all worthwhile and got us off to a good start on the autumnal Severn way, and under the Prince of Wales bridge – the other (newer) motorway road bridge to Wales.

The view of the estuary and the strong wind carrying the smell of seaweed reminded me that there’s a lot of innovation in this area on the topic of sustainability. Companies like PlantSea are addressing plastic pollution by making biopolymers from seaweed and with SETsquared, an award winning business incubator in the region, there’s a lot of promising technology on the horizon.

Unfortunately the actual horizon only had a household waste incinerator and a wind farm on it. Not exactly the mirror of the romantic sea view we had on the North East coast in Scotland.

The industrial grittiness continued for the next 5km, with no fewer than 46 glove sightings, nearly 1 in every 100 metres. Avonmouth, this must be a ridiculous record.

///glove.thumbs.up
///glove.blue.slime
///glove.orange.hidden
///glove.strong.insulated
///glove.ancient.burial
///glove.cyan.flat
///glove.cyan.flatter
///glove.orange.llama
///glove.blue.banal
///glove.ribbed.hug
///glove.dusty.green
///glove.orange.ribbed
///glove.orange.slap
///glove.holey.blue
///glove.barely.recognisable
///glove.wild.three
///glove.predator.leather
///glove.flimsy.blue
///glove.new.cycling
///glove.squished.rubbish
///glove.dotted.special
///glove.fat.fingers
///glove.half.buried
///glove.fallen.leaves
///glove.hidden.leaves
///glove.ghostly.white
///glove.industrial.ironman
///glove.red.stripe
///glove.other.llama
///glove.hidden.blackberry
///glove.severed.finger
///glove.dotted.depressed
///glove.black.oily
///glove.turquoise.shimmer
///glove.fully.coated
///glove.scrunched.navy
///glove.roll.top
///glove.straight.up
///glove.turquoise.bracelet
///glove.worthless.satsuma
///glove.blue.bracelet
///glove.tarmac.grey
///glove.two.tone
///glove.piss.off

It may be a record, but I don’t think Avonmouth should be proud.

Thankfully we left the industrial suburbs of Bristol and within seconds were in the countryside, proving that it really is “only a step” from the sublime to the ridiculous, just in reverse, as we entered the Beaumont Estate.

Wisely the National Trust had put up signs on how to deal with an emergency should anything happen with the equipment left in the woods.

Thankfully, no children were harmed in the making of this blog and everyone reached the sublime Tyntesfield House safely.

A short wander past a very stylish pig

and we reached our third George: the George Inn at Backwell, which promised “stylish rooms”. To be fair, they weren’t wrong and although our room is named after George Best rather than George Clooney across the corridor, it is sublime. 

Distance 28.4km, but of course with the Strava tax and a closed footpath half way through, Mark won the sweepstake at 29.4km.

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