Mid Summer in Bristol

The longest day of the year, 21th June (a Saturday) has come and gone. With summer comes many adjustments, chief of which is the prolonged daylight. While the extra hours of light is lovely, it is all too easy to be lauded into a false sense of having more time than in winter. While the sun shines longer, we tend to think the days are young, while in reality, winter has no more or less of the 24 hours we are given each day. In this respect, I do appreciate the shorter daylight of winter that certainly helped me to use my time more wisely, 'to number our days aright' as they say. With summer, it calls for time management adjustments if it is your habit to plan your time according to the sun rather than the clock.

This photo is taken above the Avon Gorge, near the suspension bridge. This is close to 10 o'clock in the evening. On a fair day, you can still catch glimmer of light near the horizon after 11.

One 'problem' of summer for sunset suckers like me is that it is nearly impossible to wait for it. In winter, you get everything in 'fast motion', now, the palette in the sky turns at snail pace. I actually wanted to take a picture of the bridge with its greenish light on upon a blue backdrop, but it didn't happen. By 10pm, the sky is still slightly tinted with pink and the lights on the bridge is not yet on.

Remember the tree of shoes outside the Bristol Cathedral? It is a lot harder to spot the dangling footwear now, with all the dense foliage around.

Peter Pan's golden ship sails the sky above Watershed. I have seen a few 'weathership', a 'weather serpent/dragon' and many weather cocks in Bristol alone. On a nice day, summer is a time of green and blue. The sky here can be vibrantly blue on a cloudless day and now I understand what is so special about 'summer green grass'.

Here, the 2 youths cycle across a field in Horfield. As much as the sun is warm and lovely, it is not hard to get sunburn or sunstroke if you stay out too long, wearing too little, and without UV protection.

One of the other summer adjustment is the transportation to church. Since Ulink stopped running on weekends, I have to use the train to get to church instead. Fortunately, Temple Meads to Filton Abbey Wood is a short 6 minute trip on the tracks.

In marked contrast to the almost monotone railway tracks, the ceiling right above it are more colorful. Coincidently, this large interchange hub of the Southwest was opened in 1840, on the 31th of August, just 117 years before our first 'Merdeka Day' in Malaysia.

You can count these flapping uninvited guests in almost everywhere in the train station.

Lastly, summertime in Bristol is special, because of these,

On both Mondays when I went to church to help paint the community hall, I saw these balloons.

There were about 5 to 7 of them on both evening, passing through roughly the same area around 8pm.

A pumpkin in the sky. As they pass almost directly above your head, you can hear the sound of hot air bursting through the flame, lifting the contraption higher.

Having seen this, I really look forward to the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta coming soon!