Art, gorillas

Saturday saw the street party for the Westbury Park Festival, and I was there with a stall full of pictures and cards. Which was fun, but meant I didn't get to wander around. At least I was next to the band, anyway.

There is always a collection of classic cars at the street party, so since I was going anyway, I added the Trav to the line-up. It looked a bit different to the immaculately-turned-out other cars, not least because mine was the only one with a gorilla in it. Here he is, look. His name's Barry. We adopted him a while back.

It's quite fun having a gorilla as a passenger, so he stayed on board for Sunday, when I went down to the harbour to see the Festival of Nature. If I'm in a hurry, I take the bike down on the roof, and park up in Hotwells, then cycle around the Harbour into town. It avoids the ride up a long, steep hill afterwards.

Taking the bike off the carrier, I noticed that one of the roof bars was sagging; it had rusted right through, in a place where it was damaged a few years back (the time I tried to drive into a multistorey car park with the bike on the car roof.... v dramatic it was too, let me tell you). I gave it an exploratory jiggle, and... it gave way. So I had to make a splint to get me home again, using the handle from the hydraulic jack.

And then it was down to Easton, for the Arts Trail; or at least, to Hazel Hammond's house, where Alison Wills' paintings were on display, and Hazel read her poetry. Alison has a striking way of portraiture, using tones and sparse lines to capture much more of the subject than you'd think possible . I wish I could do that. My drawings are nothing if not solid....

Hazel and Alison, with one of Alison's portraits

Fallen Women, by Andi Langford-Woods