bristol library & castle

now it's wednesday & i am getting short on ideas on what to do to keep these kids entertained and from annihilating each other at every turn.

then i remember passing a library on our very first day out & about.

despite much crying, meltdowns & various trips to the bathroom as well as a fight as to who will ride in the stroller on the way to the library, we finally make it to bristol library.

and, lucky for us, wednesday 11.15am is story time. yay! the kids will be entertained by someone else for a short period so my brain can shut down & maybe even reboot.

i have mentioned that my kids have some sort of short attention span thing, right? not like ADD or anything, they just will not sit and listen/watch/pay attention to anything unless buttered popcorn is somehow involved. and despite hoping and praying, it becomes quite evident that liz the librarian does not have a stash of popcorn hidden somewhere in the depths of the kids section. so diggy & gemma are so outta there.

the bristol library does have a beautiful "ship" reading area in the kids' section. there are books & pillows so it's a cozy little nook for catching up on your oh no david stories or angelina ballerina.

after the library, we passed the bristol cathedral. or castle as dignan & gemma refer to it. diggy actually calls it a cafedral, so he perhaps thinks it's a church AND a cafe in one. that would be a good marketing ploy and in fact, the bristol cathedral does have a cafe with coffee, tea & biscuits as well as some light lunch fare.

anyways, they are always, always, always correcting me as they think it's a castle. today, we were actually invited inside by a very nice docent who despite my worries that my children would yap it up once we were inside, still welcomed us.

it is truly a beautiful cathedral, filled with history and has been around since 1140 A.D., when it was known as St. Augustine's Abbey. (p.s. - i was smart this time & grabbed a guide on our way out). the bristol cathedral is a major example of the hall church & apparently, one of the finest examples in it's class. it's been demolished & rebuilt several times with the last additions being completed sometime in 1905 - after almost 40 years of construction.

it's getting late, so that's all the history you're getting this evening people.

cheers!