Travel Writing - Bristol

Ever wanted to go to a place where all your dreams come true? Then Bristol is the right place for you - a pulsing with life city which is based in the South West of England. Bursting with opportunities amongst your own imagination, Bristol is where it is all happening. Fancy a day of shopping with your girlfriends,? then Cabot Circus is over-flowing with a sea of both designer (for all you rich kids) and cheaper shops (like Primark) for you to take a pick from. How about a romantic evening out with the one you love? Clifton Suspension Bridge, built by Brunel in 1754 - with it's picturesque scenery and several pubs and restaurants near by is enough to put the spark back into your relationship. Musical opportunities are also big here in Bristol - Colston Hall, O2 arena, The Fleece, these raging venues are all here for your vast entertainment and bring you one step closer to having your life-long dream connection with your favourite ever band member.
Not only is there one hundred and one things to do in Bristol, you will never be short of a friend. Bristolians are known to be one of the friendliest cities in all of England. No matter where you go, shopping, on a bus, or casually walking down the street - there will be someone who will jump at the chance of being your friend.
Come to Bristol - the city of love and experience.

Pickled Onion Paradise

    theguardian

My Pickled Onion Paradise – Why the Pickled Life chose me It's time to show the world exact;y what theyre missing out on...

  Sophie Robbins
  The Guardian, Monday 8th October 2013 14:19 BST

 

 
Everybody has that one embarassing fetish that they choose to keep quiet. I am choosing now, a good enough time as ever, to go on a rampage about mine. Pickled Onions.
None of my friends, nor my family seem to understand, they seem to come to the conlusion that pickled onions taste like "crap" and "make them want to be sick" (not true). Their opinion is invalid because there is nothing nicer than the taste of a freshly bought jar of pickled onions.

There's no particular story or reason behind why I love them so much, I've often tried asking my mum when and why the obsession started, but she just explains that ever since I was around 2, I always took a strange craving to them and have been that way ever since. You're probably thinking why? Why pickled onions? Why would anybody take a liking to pickled onions? 1 - because the abnormal vinigar taste is almost impossible to handle, and 2- they make your breath smell so awful, you're almost unapproachable. The answer to that question honestly is - I don't know. I didn't choose pickled onions, pickled onions chose me.

Roughly, a new pot of pickled onions come home at least 3 times a week (not enough). Once is when my mum does the Tesco order, another is my mums regular pop to Morrison's and the third is often when I'm peckish coming home from college. Sadly, they are generally gone within the next few days, along with my happiness. As weird as it may seem, there is nothing which excites me more than peering into my kitchen cupboard and finding a jar of untouched pickled onions. Often, when I was younger I would never be able to open the jar on my own and often had to ask for my dads help, so there was often a limit of how many pickled onions I could sneak, because he would always have to often and close the jar for me (annoying). However, during the recent years, I have doubled in strength thankfully, and I can now snack on my own terms and engoulge as many silver-skinned beauties as I please.

The slimey texture, the eye/mouth watering sting which takes my breath away. I suppose you could say that my slight obsession is a tad out of hand, along with the 67% of households who also eat them, (although I doubt their love for them is as passionate as mine.)

Unreliable Monologue

Extract from Dancing in my Nuddy Pants

Once more I am beyond the Valley of the Confused and treading lightly in the Uniervse of the Huge Red Bottom. What is the matter with me? I love the Sex God and he is my only one and only, but try telling that to my lips. Dave the Laugh only has to say, “You owe me a snog,” and then they start puckering up. Well, they can go out on their own in future.

4:30p.m.

I wonder why the Sex God hasn’t phoned me? The Stiff Dylan’s got back yesterday from their recording shenanigan. Maybe he got van lag from travelling to London? Or maybe he has spoken to Tom and Tom just happened to say, “Oh Robbie, we all went to a fish party last night and when we were playing Truth, Dare, Kiss or Promise your new girlfriend Georgia accidently snogged Dave the Laugh.  You should have been there; it was a brilliant display of red-bottomosity. You would have loved it!”

Oh God. Oh Goddy God God. I am a red-bottomed minx.

4:35p.m.

On the other foot, no one saw me accidently snog Dave the Laugh, so maybe it can be a secret that I will never tell. Even in my grave.

4:45pm.

But what if Jas has accidently thought about something else besides her fringe and put two and tweo together vis-a-vis Dave the Laugh, and blabbed to her so-called boyfriend Tom. She is, after all, Radio Jas.

Once more, I am stranded in the devil’s lair, also known as the headmistress’s office. I don’t know how I end up here at least three times a week, when I don’t actually do anything wrong. It takes two to start a fight, right?? Wrong. In this case, it took one, Jade Ford the little slapper from my Drama class. So here I am, sat once again, in the piss-stained chairs plotting her death for probably the 7^th time this month and contemplating how the hell I’m going to get out of trouble this time.

4:30p.m.

Where is the teacher? I’ve been sat here for half an hour and I’m getting more and more nervous as the time goes by. I shouldn’t be nervous though, because as I said before, it’s not my fault. It’s NEVER my fault. Why it is my fault that Jade can’t seem to balance on the stage? Why is it my fault that she can’t take full care of her props? Why is it MY fault that her costume fell apart during the performance? It’s not. If she wasn’t as much of an idiot and wasn’t as clumsy, nothing like this would happen to her, has NOTHING to do with me.

N-O-T-H-I-N-G and I am confident that I am in the right.

4:35p.m.

Where the hell is this woman? Does she think I have all day to wait around? Maybe she didn’t have a life at school, but I do. There are probably about a million of my friends waiting outside this very door to find out what evil, backwards, torturing punishment she’s given me...

4:40p.m.

This is ridiculous. If she’s not here within the next 5 minutes I am leaving. She can’t expect me to wait here all day, I have people to see, pranks to plan, which may or may not involve Jade... Right, I know what you’re thinking. I’m obviously the genius criminal mastermind behind all of this? No. Just because I happened to be stood behind her during the performance when she fell off the stage (and my arms have a tendency to swing forwards when I act) doesn’t mean that I pushed her. Just because, some of her props ended up in my bag during the performance doesn’t mean I stole them. I was framed. It could have happened to anyone. FINALLY, just because I was the only one to be seen with a sewing kit when her costume fell to pieces, doesn’t mean I had anything to do with her unravelling dress. I SWEAR TO YOU - IT WASN’T ME.

4:45p.m.

I hear voices. Crap, I think she’s outside. Act calm, keep cool. Not that I have anything to worry about, because it wasn’t me.