Weald and Downland Museum

Two things went wrong with today’s blip. It’s the wrong day and I lost all today’s text trying to pinpoint the location of the museum.

I didn’t notice that yesterday’s wedding journal entry was posted for today. This was because we didn’t get back to the hotel until the small hours.

Today we visited the Weald and Downland Museum at Singleton home of the Repair Shop programme. We saw the barn and outdoor workshop used in the programme and also saw Kirsten and Will around the place so they must have been filming. Visitors were asked not to take photos.

The only other occasion I’d been here was 40 years ago, so little seemed familiar. The introductory gallery was first class, very informative with excellent displays.

The weather sort of spoilt the day. Grey, cool and ultimately very wet. The old houses dark, cold and damp. Visiting the houses and other buildings could have been improved with a fire or two in the hearths, better lighting and a sense of homeliness rather than bare rooms.

We called it a day early and retired to the hotel, quickly finding ourselves fast asleep for an hour, probably as a result of the long day yesterday (or tomorrow which ever way you want to look at it)

Suitably refreshed we walked to the Thyme and Chilli Indian Restaurant in Chichester which turned out to be an excellent choice - once we moved away from a loud birthday party.

The main blip is , obviously, a carpenter’s shop. The extra a rather forbidding set of stairs to an equally dour bedroom of Poplar Cottage. Compared to a modern home these were dark, damp and dank, with the bedroom ceiling exposed thatch. Mind you, during the daylight hours most of the occupants would be outside working in the fields only coming home in the dark to sleep.