Saturday 4 August 2007

More monkey magic (but with fewer monkeys)

So, to Bath on Thursday for a day of tourist activities. The weather was less than perfect, in fact it started to piss down with rain 15 minutes into the journey, and kept going for the next three hours solid.

Thanks a lot, weather deities.

Bastards.

So, we went straight to the tourist bus stop and got tickets to do the Skyline tour (I think) which takes you all around the outskirts of the city, up to the top of some of the hills. It was quite good, except the guide kept saying "Ooh, it's much better in the winter when the leaves are off the trees".

Great. We'll wait 5 months and come back then, shall we?

Anyway, that aside it was most enjoyable. We did the traditional Tea At Sally Lunn's (no buns though), then the other half of the bus trip all round the city itself, and then it was lunchtime.

All Bar One. Tapas. Bloody great.

We ate like kings for about 20 quid for the three of us, then wandered round town a while. We were going to do the tour of the Pump Rooms but there was a queue of about 150 foreign students, so we decided to sack it and come home.

I paid the traditional visit to Long Tall Sally first, of course.

One thing I particularly liked was the West Indian busker who was making the huge long queue of people outside the Pump Room join in with his rendition of "Don't Worry, Be Happy".

Another little siesta when we got home, then to the pub for supper, and afterwards watched Casino Royale on DVD, mostly to settle an ongoing debate about who was the best James Bond. Mum and the lovely Spanish student both voted for Sean Connery, I still hold my view that Daniel Craig is pretty superb in the role.

Friday morning I drove them back to Sussex, then more or less came straight home to try and avoid the nightmare that is the English road system on a sunny Friday. I failed, but at least I was able to detour away from the worst of it.

Sadly all the driving (about 500 miles over the week) has not helped my back, which is playing up again. Fuck it.

Mr WithaY arrived home safe and sound on Friday after what sounds like a highly entertaining week away. He said that the floods in the West are still pretty horrendous. I can't imagine what it must be like for those poor bastards who've had everything washed away and ruined.

Still, it's been nice and sunny here all day.

I now have a great recurring fantasy, though. The naughty monkeys at Longleat are not trashing cars at random.

No.

They are scavenging for parts. And one day soon they will complete their ownw Mad Max stylee vehicle, made from stolen bits, and escape to a life beyond the fences.

They'll have to get through the lion enclosure first, mind, so they'd better get some decent bodywork sorted.

2 comments:

badgerdaddy said...

It's a good plan for the monkeys.

And I agree about Craig. He's superb in the role - I guess film number two should tell us a lot more, but Casino Royale is certainly the best Bond made in my lifetime. I think it's a stunner, excepting the last 20 minutes.

Oh, you know the bit when he's recovering by the lake? That's where I was in Italy. Niiiiice.

livesbythewoods said...

It does kind of tail off at the end, I felt.

I was told that Ford paid more for the extensive product placement of their Mondeo in that film than Mr Craig was paid as the star.

Would love to know if that's true or just one of those plausible urban myths.