Our itinerary today originally had us doing a scenic drive through the Cotswolds, but we called it off yesterday after we’d had enough driving. Nick read about the closest city to us, Bristol, and learned a few things. It is where Blackbeard and Bansky are from, it is home to Aardman Animation Studio that made Wallace and Gromit, and it has a good kids’ science museum. This was all we needed to know to change our plans.

We all woke up a bit grumpy for some reason, and Millie and I had a standoff between me reading her a book and her sucking her thumb. If anyone knows how to get a kid to stop sucking their thumb without psychological warfare and trauma please comment below.

We did some laundry and hung it to dry outside, like real British people.

Eventually we drove into Bristol and made our way to the museum. It is called “We the Curious” and the concept is that it answers the deep questions of children. And maybe the high college students who all work there.

This one made me laugh:

We saw our old friend Cheddar Man.

We spent a good few hours here, most of the time in the animation area. Millie and Nick made a stop motion animation. One of them was more invested than the other (the older one).

The Wallace and Gromit influence was all throughout, which I loved.

We got Millie out by promising her something she has been wanting to do for a while now: riding the ferris wheel.

Once that was done we set off on our self-guided street art walking tour. We saw some Banksys and some Wannabebanskys. We tried to keep Millie engaged by telling her it was her job to take a picture of each piece of art we saw. This kind of worked but she did plenty of complaining and riding on Nick’s shoulders. I bribed her with mints, which are just close enough to candy to work.

At one point while we were walking there was a massive bike parade. Hundreds and hundreds of people on bikes stopped traffic for many minutes. They had speakers and flags and costumes and people were whizzing around us to join the commotion. We walked past two giant street festivals with loud music pumping. The city felt young, progressive, energetic, gritty, and lawless. It reminded us a lot of Portland, and a bit of Brooklyn. We loved it.

We drove back to our little cottage in the country and brought in our laundry which is dry but now all smells like the cow manure from the farm next door.

It feels only right to end the day with dinner and an Aardman Animation movie night.