Plan B looked a good option as we got up this morning - it was raining! We'd put our names down for the easy walk (South Downs to Ditchling) which looked really interesting but the thought of getting so wet again did not sit well. Looking at where we might go the night before we whittled it down to either or both of Bignor Roman Villa and
Amberley Museum and Heritage Centre.
After breakfast and collecting our packed lunches and changed the list and opted out of the walk telling our leader why. It was still raining and while sometimes it was light rain there were periods of heavy rain. It seemed everyone else was walking that day. Being the last day of the holiday I guess those who opted out the previous day felt they should walk otherwise they would miss two of the three walks on the holiday.
We went to collect our shoes from the boot room which after several changes of newspaper had dried out. We wished our fellow walkers a good day and set off in my friend's car to Amberley Museum. The rain was pelting and the roads were just about coping. There were huge puddles at the sides of the road as we made our way towards Amberley. Firstly, we needed to get through Storrington. Finding Storrington turned out to be much harder than we anticipated. It was only a few miles down the road but for some reason it did not want us there! Using SatNav (which I distrust often, being old school) we thought it would be easy but we ended up arguing with it (why do we do that - I answer back to automated phone messages and those self-service check outs. Whatever happened to customer service and human communication?). Anyway, we seemed to be going around in circles and far from being a ten minute journey we were now lost! Did we have fun? Well, we certainly laughed! At one point we pulled over in a lay-by and my friend used her mobile to find out where we were. I was convinced Storrington was just a little further down the road and that we were going the right way. The mobile and SatNav could not agree with one another let alone me! My friend turned the car around and we set off back the way we had come.
Somewhere, after getting rather lost again we found a road sign to Storrington. I said we should just follow that. So we did. Ah....this looked familiar....we'd been here before. Wasn't that the lay-by we stopped at? Just a few hundred metres further on there was the sign that said we were in....Storrington! Now all we had to do was find Amberley and the museum! That, at least, was easier.
The good thing was that by the time we arrived it had almost stopped raining and indeed the weather cleared up. Amberley Museum and Heritage Centre turned out to be a good choice. There were lost of places to get into if it rained again. Here there were sheds of exhibitions - radio and TV, Southdown Bus Station, Railway Exhibition, old Kilns, woodwork sheds and volunteers working their crafts. We took an old double decker bus around the site and a little train back to the entrance from the Connected Earth Telecommunications Exhibition. Where the old quarry lay was the site of a James Bond film - the one with Grace Jones in it and there was also a village garage and cycle shop, fire station, nature walk and much more.
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| Lime Kiln |
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| Hobnail boots at the Cobbler shop |
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| Wood yards |
The sun came out! We sat on a bench (plastic bags came in useful here) and ate our picnic lunch and later we went into the cafe for a pot of tea just in time as the rain had started again. We had a lovely day with much laughter and as we said much of our childhood was displayed in these exhibitions. A lot of times there were cries of 'I had one of those'! The green and cream Southdown livery was a blast from the past and it was nice to see the enthusiasm of the young man on the bus giving out the tickets and dinging the bell. He was so pleased with his job!
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Southdowns Bus we travelled on
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Later that evening after dinner we began packing our cases. Tomorrow we would go home.
A few more pictures for you:
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| The Fire Station headquarters |
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| Southdown bus garage |
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| The quarry - the train passes here. |
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| The portable bath - move it to any room in the house. Comes with its own tank (right), plug it into the mains and hey presto! It even has its own towel rail but remember...switch off and unplug the mains before you get in!! |
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| Mail train |
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| Switchboard |
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| Post Office vans |
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The Station cat called Brunel!
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