Menootery; On The Buses

A bit of research revealed that I could purchase a bundle of five Day Rider tickets with Stagecoach, which covered all of this county and some of the neighbouring ones. Unlimited travel on the activated days. Plus, any unused portion remains valid for twelve months... so if for any reason I don't fit in five days of abootery, there's still time to use it. (Yes, that means revisiting these parts - hopefully in a van.... sigh..........)

Tuesday morning, I duly loaded up the app and made the purchase, and immediately made use of the first of the five tickets. In addition, a seat was booked on The Kingfisher for a ride on the canal.

I hopped on the no. 23 down to the local bus station and swapped stands to catch the no. 700 through to Chichester. The boat trip was not until 1345h. I arrived in the city centre (right beside the cathedral) at 1100h. The cathedral was for another trip, though. I opted, instead, to fill in some time visiting the Novium Museum, which proved a good choice. A long-time Tolkien fan, it was a delight to discover the entire top floor was given over to a display on the subject of JRR and his writings. I got chatting with the attendant - who turned out to be from Edinburgh! - and he told me that everything there was on loan from one very ardent, and clearly quite affluent, collector. There were some rare pieces and heaps of collector's items. (Remember you can biggify any image to study it in detail!)

I really did enjoy this exhibit. Long-term readers here will recall that in an earlier part of my life, I was deeply involved with the Science Fiction community in Sydney. I was not so much into the sword and sorcery scene as the hard science, fact-based fiction. But the likes of Tolkien and Pratchett went much deeper than just wizards and wyrds. I also knew, through those connections, a number of folks who had been involved as extras and technics in the NZ production of the LOTR trilogy. There may or may not have been some costume and prop 'retention'... nothing to match this, though.

The museum had two other floors to view. On these, I was reminded that British astronaut, Tim Peake, was a Chichester local. That there are significant Roman remains still emerging and that there is a great deal of history besides. Such is the nature of this land!

I was finished in there by about 1215h and had the need to feed before heading down the street to the canal.

On the way to the sushi shop I had selected from an online search, indeed right beside the place, was an interesting building...

The food at Kokoro was budget-friendly and deeeeelicious! I would definitely eat there again.

I had plenty of time to saunter down the street, enjoying the glorious, properly warm (out of the wind, which had knives in it) day. I'll hold back on piccies from that and the boat trip for Me-Now-View posts, but here are a couple of teasers. 

Suffice to say that it was a delightful 75 minutes of calm and quietude. Highly recommended. It was not far to get back to the bus station and connect again with the 700 back to Havant and then the 23 home to Tigger and his castle. 

Did he miss me? I doubt he even realised I had gone! Now I have to plan where to go on my next Day Rider roam-about ticket... keep watching!