Upfest 2013

Back for 2013, the 6th annual street art festival comes to Bristol once more. Started in 2008, by a group of like minded artists, this celebration of graffiti has become a corner stone of the Bristol Summer festival scene. For me it is one of the best and it is totally free. 

Upfest epitomises the free spirit nature of one of Bristol's main suburbs, Bedminster. With local, independent shops dominating the high street, owners open up their wall spaces and shutters to allow the artists to demonstrate their sills. On top of this car parks, greens and beer gardens are taken over by artists working throughout the weekend to make their mark on walls and plaster boards across the town. 

The Boxettes at The Tobacco Factory

On top of this was the music on offer with performances throughout the day at the Tobacco Factory at one end of  North Street and The Old Bookshop at the other. There was always something going on to stimulate the senses including a range of pop up BBQs serving up tasty grub on the go. 

Overall another great success served up by the organisers and artists of Upfest with some great new murals created for the year. Below are a selection of pics from the first day with more to come now they are fully complete.  

Zider me up bar keep

So it's supposedly been summer now for a couple of weeks and the initial bank holiday sunshine has prompted a raft of companies to promote their brands of cider. The usual contenders are out to get you parting with your hard earned cash for their mass produced and smartly marketed goods and now we have a new boy in the group. Carling have released a cider and not only that but they are calling it the most refreshing cider out there. A bold claim indeed.

This is not however the point of this post. The real good news is there is already a huge variety of cider out there that you probably havent tried yet. I have featured just two recently sampled bottles.

Cider is a great drink; fruity, crisp, dry, sweet, whatever you look for you can get but those big corporations will just keep pushing sweet at you, look at what happened with Blackthorn!

Get involved in an ever growing market but dont stick to what you think you know, experiment. You might just like it.