Not strictly part of my week off, this was the preceding weekend - a land rover was parked outside sainsburys in taunton FULL of balloons!

I think there was some sort of competition along the lines of "guess the number of balloons"

This seems a bit an annual event - the sidmouth regatta - with the culprits playing at the sailing club with a spectacular firework display afterwards

Moving onto the bank holiday monday - there was a "tower tour" at st mary's church in taunton - the visibility was quite good and for £3 i could climb all the way to the top and there was a £5 option where you could also ring bells but I have rung bells before so just did the tower tour.

There was a group of only 3 doing the tour being the last tour of the day - some earlier tours had 15 people!

On to the actual week off now - actually 9 days off including the weekends - day 1 was just spent locally rather than going on any trips

a view of the road building works at 40 steps - they seem to have been building this bit of road (nidr) very slowly over the last 2 and a half years and it now has a layer of tarmac on it - it was just gravel a few weeks ago

i think it was originally planned to be finished 6 months ago

sunday was a trip to the turf pub near exeter on the brompton bikes but did not take my camera so no pictures

monday was a good trip to weston to see some friends who live there - we started the day near dismaland

then moved onto a sand sculpture place - there was an area where people could build mini sculptures

our local experts knew the best places to eat and we got fish n chips at this very traditional chip shop called "papas fish & chips" - far better than the awful places on the sea front near the pier!

after lunch we went to the marine lake and saw fish swimming in it

the walkway between the lake and the sea

throwing a ball near the pier

wednesday was a trip to lyme - luckily the school holidays are over and lyme once again becomes bearable to visit

walking on the cobb at lyme

the huts on the cobb with signs for fishing trips, susie b etc

the building on the seafront had a window with lots of ducks inside

on friday we had a trip to hestercombe - have not been inside the house itself before, but it now has various exhibitions and there - the was called "double take"

the wild part of the gardens

a cat painting in one of the follies

the water mill building

clay owls in the gift shop

on saturday i took the train to bristol - luckily the ferry was waiting at temple meads quay and it's only £2 for a one way ticket to the city centre

the ferry passed quite a few rowing boats on the floating harbour

i got off the ferry near the watershed and walked round the historic welsh back area - the entrance to this building looked very colourful

some graffiti near the llandoger trow pub - not quite up to banksy standards though!

i saw this rather colourful character with doing a guided tour a few times - it seems he is a banksy expert from his website

the arnolfini gallery - they had an interesting exhibition - time and space by richard long - this was created using mud from the river avon

i like the design of the building - has quite an industrial minimal look to it

some new flats near the m shed - called wapping wharf - i'd imagine the views from the flats would be good!

inside the m shed - a display of balloons with a huge satellite image of bristol below

a 1960's apartment block at redcliffe - the design is quite interesting - looks council owned but probably sold off by now

there was an "open doors" day in bristol and redcliffe caves were open - it was so dark in the caves and i was trying to navigate using light from the screen on my phone, but then i remembered the "torch" feature which helped me find my way round - this plan shows that they caves go quite a way under the streets of redcliffe