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These are some stories from my travels in 2019.

I hope you enjoy the text and the pictures.

COTSWOLDS 3 - July 31 2019

Today was a really nice day as we went to Bristol in the morning and met up with my cousin Sheila. Apart from my father, she was one of the first people I remember who read me a bedtime story. She was, is and always has been seven years older than I am and I was about 3 when she obviously came to our house one evening and offered, or was coerced, into reading me a story before I went to sleep. Unfortunately I asked her to read my favourite story that I knew by heart. I, therefore was able to correct her when she read out that "the rain blew and the wind fell".

We haven't really seen much of each other over the years so it was really nice to catch up and have a chat. She now lives in Cornwall, yes I am jealous, and caught the train up to Bristol. We then took a boat trip along the river before disembarking at the quay which served the tourist attraction of the SS Great Britain. When she was launched in 1843 she was the longest passenger ship afloat and held that position until 1854. She was also the first ship to be made of iron and have a screw propeller.

Her owners went bust in 1846, she was sold for salvage in 1852 and then used to transport immigrants to Australia for a while and eventually ended up as a warehouse in the Falkland Islands. In 1937 she was scuttled and sunk but in 1970 she was brought back to the UK and restoration work was begun. I had visited the ship on each of my three round England trips and this may be another reason why I didn't take so many photos this time.

Originally the four decks provided accommodation for a crew of 120, plus up to 360 passengers who were provided with cabins, and dining and promenade saloons. Live animals were stored at the front of the ship along with the coal to power the steam engines. The cabins were amazingly small and sometimes whole families would live there for a six week sea journey to Australia. The present day clientele in the posh dining area look a bit suspecct to me.

It would appear, as you can see in the photos, that there is an organisation who give young kids the chance to climb the mast, with suitable safety equipment. In the old days sailors would be aloft in a rolling sea with no such precautions. My intense dislike of heights meant there would be no chance that I would ever climb anything like that, safety equipment or not.

We spent a couple of hours on board before returning by river to the station and saying goodbye to Sheila. As often happens, a couple of flying birds found their way into my photos.

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After we had left Sheila, back row, left, in the photo, we set off to have dinner in a lovely pub just outside Bristol and met up with my elder sister, her son, his wife, their daughter, her boyfriend and possibly the cook, the wife, the thief and her lover. It ws a lovely meal, a nice chat and a superb end to the day.

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