Room with a view

Spent an enjoyable day in Bristol today. Ater the excitement this morning of buying gear for my forthcoming fitness campaign, I strolled across the city with Mrs Dailykeith to take a look at the Clifton Observatory and camera obscura.

It's a delightfully quirky place right next to Clifton Suspension Bridge. It was built as a windmill in 1766, grinding corn and, later, snuff, before catching fire.

It was then derelict for half a century, but was rented by an artist called William West in 1828.

He used it as a studio and installed telescopes and a camera obscura in which mirrors project a panoramic view of the outside world onto a circular table in a darkened room.

It's an amazing experience to be inside this old relic of a building looking at the suspension bridge, people playing with dogs, cars passing by - all on a table in front of you.

Anyway, the view from the obervatory, with or without the camera obscura, is fantastic.

We wandered about Downs afterwards, admiring the spectacular bridge, but the sheer drop was absolutely terrifying. How they built the bridge Isambard Kingdom Brunel only knows.