Stourbridge Bus Information Blogspot

2012 - Day Out 3: Nottingham

2012-02-12T20:11:00.000Z

Date: Saturday 11 February 2012

It is time for the third trip of 2012, and we decide that we try out a new location, Nottingham, a place where we can search for a couple of TV locations and explore a new city.

I make my wait out into the winter weather all wrapped up to cope with the low temperatures that we are experiencing at the moment, I arrive in Wollaston at 07.30, where I have a few minutes to wait for my first bus of the day to arrive, National Express West Midlands Service 276. I board and duly make my way to the back and sit right next to a heater to get some feeling back in my fingers quickly so that I can send the customary text to let Mr UK Buses know that the bus is on its way. Just under ten minutes have passed on the journey where Mr UK Buses boards and joins me at the back of the bus, which will take us straight to Stourbridge Junction via Stourbridge. Before we get to Stourbridge Junction, we pass the new Stourbridge Interchange which is now looking more complete. We arrive in Brook Road, where we alight and have a short walk up to Stourbridge Junction, Mr UK Buses leads the way and we head up the steps to Platform 2 for Birmingham bound trains, that is until Mr UK Buses spots the station information and quickly turns around where we then make our way to Platform 3 which is where our train will be departing from today. As we make our way onto the platform, our train is already waiting and we board onto the recently unveiled Class 172 train and quickly take a seat and start to thaw out. We pass through Cradley Heath and Rowley Regis and just as we are thawing out, we arrive at Smethwick Galton Bridge station where we have to alight and change to Platform 4 where we have a little wait for a Birmingham bound train. We decide to have a little warm in the waiting room, but there seems to be little heating in the room. Our train arrives and we board for the short journey which takes us to Birmingham New Street.

We have a bit of time to kill upon arrival at New Street, so we head to the main concourse where we decide to have some breakfast and sample a bacon roll from Burger King, we don't have to wait long after ordering, and we quickly devour our food before I pop outside for some "fresh air" and then head back indoors to W H Smiths to get some refreshments for our train journey ahead, we take advantage of the offers and get two bottles for £2.50, Mr UK Buses opts for a Cherry Coke and I opt for my usual Doctor Pepper, chocolate is also purchased for consumption on the train. We look at the screens and find out that we have to board at Platform 9A and we make our way down to the platform to find that the Arriva CrossCountry train is already waiting to depart. We board and find that a table seat is available, which gives us more room to get comfortable for the journey. The train leaves the station and we are on our way to Nottingham where we will pass through Tamworth, Burton-Upon-Trent and Derby. The train journey will take just over one hour and ten minutes, but this time is increased as disaster strikes just before we arrive at Derby Station. A train has broken down on the points ahead of us, which means that we cannot move forward as the train is blocking our line. Fortunately, Network Rail are quick on the scene and after twenty minutes the train has been moved and we are on our way again, the train stops at Derby and we pass through Beeston before we finally arrive at Nottingham Railway Station.

We alight and make our way into the streets of Nottingham, we manage to exit by the side of the station, and we only have a short walk down to the first destination of the day, so I opt for a quick bit of "fresh air", whilst Mr UK Buses has already got his camera out taking pictures of the Nottingham City Transport and Trent Barton buses in service. We make our way down Carrington Street to the Broadmarsh Bus Station which is an undercover bus station attached to the Westfield Broadmarsh Shopping Centre. After a few photographs have been taken, we head indoors to the Travel Centre to purchase our ticket for the day, Mr UK Buses is ahead in the queue and the woman behind the counter looks at Mr UK Buses with a confused look (something that happens quite often) when he asks for a Kangaroo day ticket. The woman tells him to "hop it" and that he has to purchase it from the driver on the bus. We make our way out of the bus station back into Carrington Street, on our way out we spot that they have catered for Mr D9 with a big "pay-to-use" toilet placed in the corner of the bus station. After we get to the end of Carrington Street, we turn into Collin Street, where we wait and wait until our first bus pulls up, CityLink C2 which is operated by Nottingham City Transport and is a "park and ride" route. We board and purchase our Kangaroo Day Tickets, priced at £3.70, and the C2 takes us to the first location of the day.

After a five minute journey we alight in Daleside Road, we opt for the next stop rather than the original stop that was on the plan, this was due to Mr UK Buses being half asleep and spots the stop just as we pass the stop. After we get off the bus, we make our way back down Daleside Road and turn left into Trent Lane which will take us to the Meadow Lane Industrial Estate. As we head down Trent Lane, Mr UK Buses is again haunted as a National Express Coach passes us. This coach is not in service due to the location of where it is going, but Mr UK Buses spots where it has gone. Meanwhile we arrive at the end of Trent Lane and spot our first location just past the entrance to Meadow Lane Industrial Estate. A few years ago, we went around Birmingham to visit a few filming locations that were used in the ITV series titled "Boon", which starred David Daker and Michael Elphick and also introduced Neil Morrissey to our screens. From the fourth series onwards, the series moved to Nottingham, so whilst we were in the area we thought that we would seek out another location, and located in Meadow Lane Industrial Estate is a building, pictured right, which was used as the office for Crawford-Boon Security (CBS) a joint business venture between the main characters of Harry (David Daker) and Ken (Micheal Elphick). A couple of photographs are taken and with no sign of Harry or Ken, we make our way back to Daleside Road, before we reach the end of the road, Mr UK Buses takes a detour and finds where the National Express coach went, Silverdale Coaches, a local day tour coach operator and also looks as if the company undertakes a few school bus services if the yellow double deckers are anything to go by. A few photographs are taken, and we get back on course and reach the bus stop at Daleside Road, just as we arrive, so does our Nottingham City Transport Citylink Service C2, which takes us back to Nottingham. We alight just before the city centre, and we walk to Pettyfoot Street where we stop at the Trent Barton Bus Depot and take a few photographs. We literally walk around the corner and we once again stop to take pictures of the Nottingham City Transport bus depot. After the depot pictures have been taken we have a short walk up Lower Parliament Street to Southwell Road, where a number of bus services serve the stop which will take us back to the city centre. A Nottingham City Transport Service 43 turns up and we are only on the bus for about seven minutes before we alight again at King Street.

It has now been decided that we are getting a bit peckish so we shall now have dinner, we have a short walk from King Street and end up outside of the City Council House and the magnificent Old Market Square, a pedestrianised area of Nottingham, where the Nottingham Express Transit tramway is the only traffic that is allowed in the square. We take a few pictures at the tram stop located near the Nottingham City Council House, and after we have finished taking some photographs, we take a couple of steps behind the tram stop and enter a J D Wetherspoons public house, "The Joseph Else", a clean looking establishment. I stand at the bar and order our drinks whilst Mr UK Buses tries to find a seat. It looks like we may be standing, but as I get served, Mr UK Buses spots that there is another area upstairs, so when I have been served, I take our drinks upstairs and Mr UK Buses has found a table and it is a lovely view as we can see across the huge Old Market Square watching people get on with their everyday lives whilst keeping warm. After looking at the menu, Mr UK Buses opts for the BBQ Chicken Melt but without the "Melt" and I opt for my usual beer and burger. It only takes about ten minutes for our food to arrive and after devouring our grub and letting it settle for a few minutes, we head back outside into the winter weather.

We make our way from the Old Market Square and up Friar Lane to Standard Hill, and just after we enter Standard Hill, I get a bit distracted by a lorry that is parked up outside of the Nottingham Castle museum, I have a close look and on the back are two Daleks and a police box otherwise known as the TARDIS, I cannot see the Doctor and whilst I have been investigating, Mr UK Buses has carried on up Standard Hill. I chase after him and as I look right I see our next location, and yell up the street to get Mr UK Buses attention. We take a few photographs, one of them pictured left, which is another location used by ITV for the series "Boon", and this was the office of Boon Investigations used by Ken Boon in series four. After we have taken the photographs we head back down Standard Hill and back to Friar Lane where we wait for our next bus. Whilst we wait a text has been sent to me by Mr D9 - "Mrs D9 has given birth to our baby daughter 8.10", I later find out that the baby was 8lb 10ounces and not delivered at 08.10am. I send a reply congratulating the happy couple (Congratulations on the birth of Harmony Grace). We see our bus turn around the corner and I put my hand out to stop the bus and the bus flies past us, it seems that Mr UK Buses has put down the wrong stop on the plan. Mr UK Buses runs down the road after it (does he want to take part in my run in a couple of weeks?), and we finally end up around the corner in Beast Market Hill where the bus has left its stop, so Mr UK Buses locates the stop and we wait, another bus turns up and it seems that it is going in the opposite direction of where we need to go, we are at the wrong stop again, our stop being a bit further up the road. We make our way to the correct stop for the second time and after a couple of minutes the correct Free CentreLink bus turns up and we board for the seven minute journey arriving at Victoria Bus Station.

We alight the bus and take a few photographs around the bus station. This is not a photograph friendly station as it is a "pull in - pull out" layout so photographs are hard to take unless you like to take a picture of the back end of the bus. We wait for our next CentreLink bus to turn up and it is not long as the Trent Barton buses operate to a ten minute frequency and we board our bus, which takes us ten minutes to get across the City of Nottingham and drops us off at the Broadmarsh Bus Station. A few more photographs are taken to add to the photographs taken this morning, we have about fifteen minutes to wait and they soon pass and our next bus arrives, Trent Barton's "Rainbow 4" route which will take us to our second City of the day. Our journey takes one hour and ten minutes, costing a fiver for a return ticket and we pass through Sandiacre and Stapleford along the way. As we make our way along the route on-board announcements are made, similar to the buses in London and these announcements are also voiced by the same woman used in the London version. Whilst on route, Mr UK Buses decides it is time for a nap, and as he is snoring away, the announcer has decided to be quiet, only speaking again when Mr UK Buses has awoken. It is my turn for a nap as I get a bit sleepy, but as I start to nod off I get awoken by the woman announcing the stops, does Mr UK Buses have a button to keep her quiet?

We arrive in Derby, and we alight at the bus station, the second station today with the "pull-in pull out" layout which I don't like. The bus station, which was opened in 2010, is situated under a newly built "Holiday Inn" hotel, and opposite the main bus station is a lay over area, which we investigate and are able to get some pictures at this location of the vehicles as they rest between duties. We have just under an hour in Derby, so we decide to have a warm and after a short walk from the bus station, we find a public house, "The White Horse", a traditional feeling pub and also the place of today's dearest round (£6 in total) paid for by Mr UK Buses, so he deserves a seat to recover and he does look a bit pale in the picture seen right. As Mr UK Buses is recovering and I am getting a warm we have a selection of 1960's and 1970's music playing loudly from the jukebox, and I resist the challenge laid down by Mr UK Buses to select some Metallica to play, I don't want to upset the locals. After finishing our drinks and Mr UK Buses makes sure he drinks every last drop to make sure he gets his moneys worth, we visit the toilet before our journey back. We make our way back to the bus station and Mr UK Buses seems to like his walking today as he walks right to the other end of the bus station before realising we have to catch our Rainbow 4 from bay 6 which is back at the other end of the station.

Our bus arrives on time and we board and take our seats at the back of the bus where we hope that the heat from the engine beneath us will keep us warm on the return journey. The journey is going great and the driver has got a speed on, he has to slam the brakes on when he flies past a passenger waiting at the bus stop, and finally pulls up a few hundred yards down the road, after a couple of minutes wait for the passenger reaches us, she boards and doesn't look to happy, and she isn't on the bus for long as she soon gets off in the next village, she should have only been charged half the fare as she had already walked half the distance. We arrive back in Nottingham just before half past five, arriving back in Broadmarsh Bus Station, the first port of call is in the shopping centre attached to the bus station and after walking half a mile around the shopping centre we arrive at the toilets for a much needed bladder stop. Luckily we arrive five minutes before they are due to shut. After we are relieved, we make our way back to the bus station, where it is now to dark to take any more photographs today, so we decide to take the short walk to the railway station, this time entering the station from the lovely looking front. We notice that a train is due to depart, so earlier than planned, we make our way to the platform and onto the filled train to take us back to Birmingham.

We take our seats and as soon as we sit down, the train leaves the station and we are now on our return journey back to Birmingham, passing through Derby Station, Burton-Upon-Trent and Tamworth along the way, with an escaped Chelsea Pensioner announcing the upcoming stations when we are near them. We are nearly back in Birmingham, and we cannot tell as it is dark outside, but we then spot the lit up Selfridges building at the Bull Ring. We arrive back in Birmingham New Street just after 19.00, and we spot the local train is about to depart to Smethwick Galton Bridge, so we make our way to the platform where our train is waiting for us. We depart on time at 19.08 and we soon arrive at Smethwick Galton Bridge and change platforms, and notice that we have a while to wait, so we pop out the front of the station for some "fresh air", before returning to our platform to find out that our train will be delayed by a couple of minutes. Our Class 172 train eventually arrives and we manage to find a seat on our train made up of two carriages, which then takes us to Stourbridge Junction, stopping off at all the stations in between. When we arrive at Stourbridge Junction, we change platforms and decide to wait in the warm waiting room before the "Stourbridge Dodger" arrives to take us down the small Stourbridge branch line into Stourbridge Town. We have a while to wait for our last bus of the day, so we decide to have a walk around the new interchange to see what is left to complete, the new interchange is due to be open at the beginning of April, so it looks like the works will be completed on time. After our brief tour, we head down to Birmingham Street, where we wait for our Black Diamond Service 276A which takes us back home. I alight first in Wollaston saying my goodbyes to Mr UK Buses before calling into Lucky House for my now traditional Chinese takeaway meal after a good day out.

Overall it has been a brilliant day out, and this is due to the excellent planning carried out by Mr UK Buses (Thanks) both for the Boon locations and timing of the public transport. Nottingham is a wonderful city and I can say without doubt that we will be back, hopefully it will be warmer on our return visit.

2012 - Day Out 02: Wolverhampton

2012-01-29T19:46:00.000Z

Date: Saturday 28 January 2012

It is the second day out of 2012, and we decide to do a local trip in the West Midlands, it means that we have a later start and an earlier finish, which is okay by me as it is a cold winters day.

First of all, I make my way to Wollaston and have a few minutes wait for the 09:16 journey of Service 276, operated by National Express West Midlands. As I wait I have to put up with an old woman moaning about bus drivers, why they should let her on because it is cold and that Hanson's drivers are the friendliest. I put up with this for a few minutes and I see a welcome sight, Service 276 coming from Wollaston Island, I get on board using my NBus travel card and promptly make my way to the back of the bus where I can give my ears a rest. I send the usual text message, and after five minutes, we are in Norton, where Mr UK Buses boards our first bus of the day, we now make our way into Stourbridge, on a day where there are no plans, and as we come to the bus stop on the Stourbridge Ring Road, we alight, where Mr UK Buses gets his camera out for the first time today and decides to take a few photographs of the Bell Street Multi Story Car Park, and we also have a walk inside and around the outside of The Crown Centre, which is now being prepared by contractors. Tesco have just acquired the land from Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council, and within the next few months will demolish the shopping centre and car park to make way for a new Tesco store, this will also change the landscape on this side of the town and will also rejuvenate the town as a whole. Photographs have been taken and we make our way back to the bus stop on the ring road.

We wait a few minutes and we decide to board the National Express West Midlands Service 246, as we board I am told by the driver (he organised the last 246 charity walk that we helped with marshaling), that I have to walk the route, I don't think I will today, as it is a bit nippy. We make our way through Brierley Hill and Russell's Hall Hospital before arriving at Dudley Bus Station, as we alight I get my own back on the driver and tell him that "I could have walked it here faster." He seemed to take it in good spirit's, like I did when I got on the bus at Stourbridge. We decide where to go now, and Mr UK Buses is already on the case as he darts to catch the National Express West Midlands Service 313 which will take us to Walsall. Along the way we head past The Black Country Living Museum, and through Princes End. We arrive at Wednesbury and considering that Wednesbury bus station here is already a few years old, I just hope that the new Stourbridge Interchange will not have the same dreary character to this station, not one of CENTRO's best efforts of bus station renewal. We soon depart Wednesbury bus station, and make our way once again towards Walsall. We are soon near our destination and as we arrive at Bradford Place terminus we reluctantly alight, we were comfortable and warm on the bus, now we are in the cold literally and after a few photographs taken whilst in the Bradford Place vicinity, we make our way to Walsall Bus Station located next to St Paul's. Along the way, we pop into WH Smiths, where Mr UK Buses and myself buy the latest edition of Buses Magazine (and I also get my monthly edition of F1 Racing), Mr UK Buses gets served first and after he is served he waits for me close by. I get served and pay my one penny for a WH Smiths carrier and find out why Mr UK Buses is lurking about so close, as I wait for my change, Mr UK Buses is in penny saving mode and as swooshed into action by putting his magazine in my bag, considering the speed of this deed, Mr UK Buses could be one of these magicians which show off the "close at hand" tricks. After deciding not to charge Mr UK Buses two shiny penny's for the rent on my WH Smiths bag, we make our way to Walsall St Paul's.

We take a few shots whilst in the area and after the photographs have been taken, we decide to rest our feet and get a little warmth by visiting our first J D Wetherspoons of the day and enter "The Imperial", which is located virtually opposite the entrance to the bus station. Last time we were in Walsall, this place was undergoing a refurbishment, and we can tell, it has improved the look inside of the public house, and as we make our way to the bar, I am informed by Mr UK Buses that it is my round. We opt for a coke and we decide that we are cold enough already and skip the ice. Mr UK Buses finds a seat, and after being served I take the drinks across. I inform Mr UK Buses that where we were seated was once a place of a big model of a dinosaur when this Wetherspoons first opened here years ago, I think he was a bit confused when he replied that "Mr D9 is not with us today". After a rest and finishing our drinks, we decide to make our way back to the bus station and we opt to use the new disabled entrance / exit to the pub. We decide to make our way across to Wolverhampton, but after finding out a couple of long services that will take us there, we also find out that both services have just left a few minutes prior and there would not be another for at least twenty minutes. Mr UK Buses bus radar is on form today, and he spots a service that will get us to Wolverhampton, so after quickly making our way to the stand, we have to move to the next stand as another bus is blocking its stand, and we soon board National Express West Midlands Service 89. This service will get us to Wolverhampton in just over an hour and along the way we head through Pelsall, a place I have visited before and the chip shop confirms the location as I remember having chips there and eating them outside in the freezing cold. We also head through Bloxwich and Wednesfield. We eventually arrive in Wolverhampton and as we make our way through Broad Street, Mr UK Buses makes a note of a few specialist shops that he may want to visit on future trips to Wolverhampton. Again we reluctantly alight from the warm bus just around the corner from Lichfield Street and we make our way to our second Wetherspoons of the day, "The Moon Under Water", and we decide to have lunch here.

I get my own back on Mr UK Buses and inform him that it is his round, and after the drinks are ordered we look for a table. Instead of hiding out at the back half of the pub, we decide to get a table in the corner at the front and also a place where it is warm, see picture right. We scan the menu before ordering and Mr UK Buses opts for his now standard BBQ Chicken Melt with out the "Melt", and I opt for something different, A gammon and chips without the egg. We also feel a bit peckish and opt for an extra bowl of chips as on the last few occasions, a Wetherspoons portion of chips have been the "Chester" standard. We wait about ten minutes and our food arrives, we now think that bowl of chips may have been a bad idea as the portion of chips today has been a greater portion. We eat our lunch and also force the extra chips into our stomachs, which means that we are full and it is nearly time to move to our next location, so we opt for a few more minutes rest to let our extra food settle.

We decide to go out in the cold, but only for a few minutes as we descend on another Wolverhampton regular, "The Wheatsheaf", situated on the corner of Market Street and Castle Street, we get back in the warmth and take our usual seat in the lounge at the back of the pub, see picture left. We spend a little time here to let our big dinner have more time to settle in our stomachs. Today, we don't have the bar maid that served us on our last visit to this establishment and Mr UK Buses seems a little disappointed, but at least we are in the company of a lot of friendly regulars who make our visits to this establishment worthwhile and always make us want to return. We finish our drinks and we could stay here for the rest of the trip as we are warm and comfortable, but we do have other places to visit, and we sluggishly make our way from the pub. It is now 14:15, so we decide to have a walk past the Wolverhampton Central Library and then down Cleveland Street where we wait and decide which bus to catch next.

At 14:25 a National Express West Midlands Service 3 turns up which we duly board, I think I know a pub that I have visited a couple of times which is towards the end of this route so we decide that we will alight when we see it. After passing the Molineux, home to the Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club, we make our way back to Stafford Road and make our way along this long road, making a slight detour around Fordhouses before making our way back along the Stafford Road, where I recognise the area and keep an eye out for the stop that we need to alight. We don't move a lot further up the road where I spot our next destination and we alight and cross the road to our next place of warmth, "The Moreton Arms", see picture right, a public house that I have visited a couple of times before and was impressed with, so I decide that today it is Mr UK Buses turn to be introduced to this establishment.

Mr UK Buses is eager to get indoors and decides to enter the lounge, a room in this pub that I have never visited as I usually frequent the bar, the drinks are ordered and we take our seats and decide to move, we take another seat and decide to find our way to the bar, as we seem that the regulars in the lounge don't like to have outsiders sitting in there establishment, we make our way through the double doors and I find that my usual seat is vacant and we decide to rest in the more friendlier company of the regulars in the bar, we find a spot to perch our cameras and take a cheers photo, see photo left. We finish our drinks and we can't seem to time it right today as when we get to the end of our drinks we find that we are comfortable and warm and we have to reluctantly get up and go back out into the January chill. We investigate the bus stop in Springfield Lane and find out that it is no good for us, so we head back round the corner and stand in the shelter located outside, and after an Arriva bus has passed us, we signal to the National Express West Midlands driver and we board another Service 3 which takes us back into Wolverhampton. We alight outside The Varsity and make our way back down Lichfield Street and into Wolverhampton bus station.

We find ourselves at the entrance and looking at the live destination boards we find it hard to see what bus we can catch as the screens display keeps going off and comes up with an information screen informing us that the stands will be changing tomorrow for certain services. Amidst all this, Mr UK Buses finds a service that we can catch. We also try out the touch screen information points and we find a big error in the way it works as when we put in our next service we want to catch, Service 81, it won't display information as the route number needs to be three digits, lets hope that these points won't make their way to the new Stourbridge Interchange when it opens in a couple of months. We track down our stand and after a couple of minutes wait we board National Express West Midlands Service 81 which will take us to the Merry Hill Centre passing through Coseley and Dudley along the way. As we leave Wolverhampton, the bus takes us for a tour around the old Cleveland Road depot which is still standing and currently being used as a covered car park.

After we pass through Dudley, we head through Netherton, where I inform Mr UK Buses that there is a picture of his bus that he drove in his past life on the wall in The Old Swan. We make our way through some back streets before finally arriving at the bus station in Merry Hill, where it seems that the current station is in need of a change as there are now too many routes serving the shopping centre, which means that the bus station is normally a congested place. The light has gone now so we cannot take any more transport pictures today, and after a few minutes of seeing what is due, we decide that we will wait a little longer and catch a National Express West Midlands Service 276. This gives me time for a "fresh air" break and after I finish, we make our way to the stand where we only have a short wait before our service 276 bus pulls up. We pass through Lye and Pedmore Fields before arriving at Stourbridge, Mr UK Buses has had a good idea for once as we will not have to alight at Stourbridge in the cold as we can stay on board and go through to Norton and Wollaston, it is at this point that I inform Mr UK Buses that I may end up in Dudley later as I am too warm and comfortable and dread getting off into the cold at Wollaston. As we pass the Stourbridge Interchange, we notice that the destination screens and stand points have been installed in the main building, and it is currently working as I can see Stourbridge services information on the screens. We make our way back onto the ring road, before heading up Worcester Street and past Mary Stevens Park, where after a few more minutes we are in Norton, where Mr UK Buses says his goodbyes (also grabbing his magazine after a rent free day in my bag) and I stay on board for a further few minutes before alighting at Wollaston and having a little warm in the Chinese takeaway for my now customary end of the trip meal to take home and devour.

Another good day out has been had despite the cool temperatures of the day, and the snow has been kept at bay for another trip. One month down, two trips in, and we still have the rest of the year to look forward too. We will be back out in a couple of weeks time and hopefully the trip will be a warmer experience. All in all it has been a good start of 2012 with the accommodation sorted out already for our weekends away to Weymouth and Torquay this year in June and September respectively. A big thank you goes to Mr UK Buses for the excellent company today.

2012 - Day Out 01: London

2012-01-08T21:20:00.000Z

Date: 07 January 2012

It is a new year and we start it off with a visit to one of our favourite locations, the City of London, and we also start the year as proper Londoners when we use our Oyster Cards for the first time.

It is an early start on the first trip of the year, and I make my way to Wollaston in time to catch the first bus of the day at 06:42 or so I thought, as I am walking up Cobden Street, it is just after 06:30, and at the end of the road, I see a National Express West Midlands bus drive past, I presume that this is Service 276, the one I need to catch, so I sprint the rest of Cobden Street to Wollaston and as I turn the corner, the bus is pulled up at the bus stop, after looking at the timetable on the stop, I find out that the bus departs Wollaston at 06:36 and quickly board and take a seat whilst I get my breath back, looking at the plan I discover that I didn't read it properly and it was due to leave at 06:36. The bus departs and we head to Norton where Mr UK Buses boards and we start the first trip of 2012, after passing through Stourbridge going past the nearly constructed Stourbridge Interchange, we end up in Brook Road where we alight and walk up to Stourbridge Junction to get our first train of 2012. We only have to wait about twenty minutes before our train turns up. Normally when we go to London we go via Birmingham New Street and catch a Virgin train to London Euston, today we are not doing that, we decide that we will catch a Chiltern Train and go via Birmingham Snow Hill to London Marylebone. We board our train which will take us straight to London without the usual change from Birmingham Snow Hill to Birmingham New Street, so we get a seat, get comfy and for the next couple of hours we just relax, something that Mr UK Buses does quite literally for half of the journey and nods off, luckily he doesn't snore which is a good thing seeing as we are in the quiet zone. I keep myself occupied on the journey whilst Mr UK Buses is asleep and have a play with my new toy, a BlackBerry Playbook, and with the help of the free Wi-fi on the Chiltern trains, I get to keep in touch with the outside world. At 09:37, we arrive and it is a welcome return to the glorious station that is London Marylebone.

With no change at Birmingham, Mr UK Buses has catered for me in today's plan, by giving me time to pop out the front of the station to have a "fresh air" break, it also gives me a chance to look at the outstanding station building, whilst I'm doing this, Mr UK Buses is halfway down Great Central Street after he has spotted a few buses to take a few photographs of. "Fresh air" break over, we make our way inside, and we go for our first trip of 2012 on the London Underground, and we get our Oyster Cards out ready to scan on the barriers in the enter the Marylebone Underground Station. Well it looks like they are working as it has let us in and we board our first tube train of the day which is on the Bakerloo line, but it is a short first journey as we alight at the next station which is Baker Street where we change platforms for our next journey. We are now on the Jubilee Line, which takes us from Baker Street to Finchley Road, where we alight and we are let out of the station as the barriers let us through after showing our Oyster Card. Before we made our way to London today we topped up our Osyter Cards which was supposed to have been credited when we scanned them in at the Underground station at Marylebone, as we leave Finchley Road Underground Station, we spot a topping up machine and we decide to check that everything is in working order by scanning our cards where it shows that the top has been added successfully and also we get to see how much the balance is on our cards. We leave the station and we have a few steps along Finchley Road to get to our bus stop where we will catch our first bus in London using the Oyster Card.

We have a short wait for our bus, and on time a London Metroline Service 82 bus turns up which will take us to a place called Henlys Corner. The journey takes just under half an hour and we alight opposite a Holiday Inn hotel, London Golders Green to be exact, which will be the accommodation that Mr UK Buses will be using when he comes back to London in just over a weeks time to watch the Snooker. With the hotel found, we stand outside which is also where the bus stop is located and after a couple of minutes, another London Metroline pulls up which we board to take us back to Finchley Road Underground station, as we leave the hotel we spot a bus station at Golders Green which may be worth a visit on future trips to London. We arrive back at Finchley Road Underground Station, where we make our way back inside and back onto the Jubilee Line to take us back to Baker Street, upon arrival we stay in the station and change onto the Circle Line where we have a long journey and we make our way to a new Underground station that we haven't visited before, Wood Lane Underground Station, a relatively new station as this was opened in 2008, if Mr UK Buses had his way, we would have still been sitting on a tube train in Baker Street as he originally boarded a train that was laying over. As we make our way outside on to Wood Lane we scan the Oyster Card onto the barriers and we both see that on the scanner that the balance on the card is shown with the price shown for the journey in brackets (Finchley Road to Wood Lane is £2).

We leave the station and virtually opposite is the BBC Television Centre and I get my camera out ready to take a few photographs of the the Television Centre, but Mr UK Buses has other ideas, and we walk underneath the railway bridge and into Ariel Way and there is a bus station, the White City Bus Station, which opened the same time as the Wood Lane Underground Station in 2008, this bus station serves the nearby Television Centre and also the Westfield London Shopping Centre. With the camera in hand already, we get to take a few shots of the buses laying over. As we nearly finish taking photographs, a bus driver makes his way towards us asking what we are taking pictures of, thinking that we were taking pictures of him and not the buses. This is the first time on trips to London that we have ever been approached by an inquisitive bus driver, but luckily he calms down after we tell him that we are only taking pictures of the buses. After finishing with the photographs, we head back around the corner back to the Television Centre to take some pictures of the most famous television building in the United Kingdom. After looking around to see if we can see any celebrity's we come away disappointed as we see none, and we make our way to the White City Underground Station, which is located virtually opposite the Television Centre and a stone throws away from the Wood Lane Underground Station. We make our way onto the Central Line, where upon arrival at Bond Street Underground Station, we change lines and get onto the Jubilee Line which will take us to our next destination, which is Westminster.

We make our way out of the Westminster Underground Station and we head to Parliament Street, and stop by the Cenotaph to take a few photographs, the last time we was here, the police stopped me to search me before we saw the Remembrance Day Parade along this street. We make our way up Parliament Street and into Whitehall walking past the tourists taking pictures of the guards outside of the Horse Guards Palace, we walk a little bit further where we enter J D Wetherspoons, "The Lord Moon of the Mall" and we rest our feet whilst we have lunch. Mr UK Buses opts for his usual BBQ Chicken melt without the cheese, myself opting for the beer and burger having the chicken variety. I do try and get on the PlayBook, but the free Wi-fi inside this Wetherspoons does not want to communicate with my new toy so I put it back into my pocket. After we have finished lunch, we head out of the pub and around the corner to Charing Cross, where we wait for our next bus, Stagecoach London's Heritage route 15, we don't have to scan our Oyster Cards upon boarding as there are no scanners on Routemasters and we take a seat on the top deck with a pleasant view of London as we are sat at the front. Whilst en route, the conductor comes up with his Oyster Card terminal, but my card doesn't want to scan, so the conductor takes it off me and after a few attempts it does scan, Mr UK Buses has no problems with his card. After a journey time of twenty minutes and nearly a collision with a black cab, we arrive at the Tower of London. We are ahead of schedule, so we catch an earlier First London RV1 which is an hydrogen bus. We make our way and we have a pleasant journey on this "green" bus and a different sound as the bus has no engine. After fifteen minutes we arrive close to London Bridge Bus Station which after a little walk, passing the London Dungeons, we arrive at the bus station. No photographs will be taken here today as the station is currently being redeveloped, so we make our way to the temporary stop around the corner where we wait for a Service 48 bus. We have a good view whilst waiting for the bus as we are outside of a Fitness First gym and we are able to see the treadmills and bikes, the girl in the green t-shirt supplies the entertainment, with a girl in a pink t-shirt arriving just before we leave to have a ride on the exercise bike, unfortunately our Stagecoach London service 48 bus turns up.

We board and we haven't got far to go, Mr UK Buses must have been mesmerised by the girl in the pink top as he fails to spot where we have to get off and luckily I spot the bus stop which displays Dukes Place and we run off the bus before it pulls off. According to the plan, we now have a short walk to Aldgate Bus Station, but somehow we don't follow Mr UK Buses directions and end up lost, luckily though for us we head up a street and arrive at Liverpool Street Railway Station. Alongside the railway station is Liverpool Street Bus Station, so we make up for not visiting the bus station at Aldgate by taking some photographs at this bus station. Photographs taken, we are now off the plan, and we catch an Arriva London service 133 which takes us back to where we have come from and we end up at Borough Underground Station. After scanning in, we head onto the Northern Line and travel to Moorgate Underground Station where we swap lines and head onto the Metropolitan Line to take us to Aldgate Underground Station, or so we thought. Mr UK Buses boards a Hammersmith and City Line train and we arrive at Aldgate East Underground Station instead, after this little snag, we decide to stay on the train and we arrive at the next Underground station, Whitechapel, where we alight and scan our Oyster Card to get us on to Whitechapel Road, as we scan our cards we find out that we have reached the daily cap for the zones that we have travelled in today, we will not have any more money taken off our cards today. We make our way through the market and we arrive at our City of London regular, "The Blind Beggar", see picture right, where we have a well deserved break, whilst in the pub, I am treated to a drink served in a Blind Beggar badged glass, Mr UK Buses has a standard blank glass to drink from.

We leave the Blind Beggar, and walk across the road to our stop, where we will scan our Oyster Cards for the last time today and after a few minutes wait, a Stagecoach London Service 205 pulls up. We board and tap our cards on the scanner and take our seats. This route takes us across from the East End of London to our final destination of the day, passing Kings Cross, our normal railway station of London Euston before arriving at London Marylebone. I have a "fresh air break" whilst walking up Great Central Street to the main station building, this will be my last fresh air break before we get to board our train. We walk inside the station and decide to have a bite to eat at the Burger King which is located inside the station. After our food we quickly pop into Marks and Spencer's to get us a drink for the journey ahead and we then get onto Platform 3 to board our waiting Chiltern Train which will take us back to the second city, we walk through the carriages where we find the last table seat available and get comfy for the journey ahead. It is 17:00 and our train pulls out from the station on time and as we make our way it is getting dark outside, so to pass the time we turn on the PlayBook where I log onto the Chiltern Trains on board Wi-fi and we both have a look at the Internet for the rest of the journey. We cannot complain about the connection, offering top speeds enabling the quick loading of the web pages we look at, whilst on the move, there were a couple of signal drop-outs along the way, but this didn't stop us from searching the web. After a journey time of just over two hours (due to stopping off at more stations than we did on the morning journey), we arrive back at Birmingham Snow Hill at 19:03. We have just under half an hour to wait for our next train to take us back to Stourbridge, so we head out to Colmore Row where I can have a "fresh air" break and we make our way back to Platform 1, where at 19:28, our London Midland train arrives and takes us back to Stourbridge Junction, stopping at all the stations on the journey. We arrive back at Stourbridge Junction where we promptly make our way from Platform 3 to Platform 1 where the 19:59 "Dodger" to Stourbridge Town is waiting, leaving the station on time, we arrive at Stourbridge Town station at 20:02, which gives us three minutes to walk to Stand F along Birmingham Street to catch our final bus to take us back home. Luckily, the driver of the bus is on the phone so we are able to get to our stand at a normal walking pace before Black Diamond's Service 276C arrives to take us back home to rest our feet after a long day out.

The first trip of 2012 is a successful trip, where we have taken heed of the latest technology and used our Oyster Cards for the first time, with everything working as it should be and we weren't disappointed with how it works. The company on this trip was good and we had a stress free and sulk free day out, with only a couple of hiccups which did not affect the day. If the trips for the rest of the year are like this, it looks like it will be a good 2012.

2012 - Website 01: Redevelopment Update

2012-01-01T20:44:00.001Z

First of all I will take this opportunity to wish you all a Happy New Year and hope that you have a great 2012. This is the first blog post of 2012 and hopefully there will be plenty more for this year.

In 2011, I decided that I would create a new Stourbridge Bus Information website from scratch, this meant that I would redesign and create brand new web pages for the main section of Stourbridge Bus Information, SBI Timetables and SBI Past, including the management area, an important part of the website as this lets me update the information that is held in the database in seconds rather than having to update the information in a web page and uploading the individual web page(s). After nine months since I started the project, I have made progress with some pages being added to the main site today. I did not set myself a time limit as I wanted to take my time and get everything right and develop the management system so that it would be even easier to update the website than I did previously with the old management system. As I have created the new web pages that appear on the site, I have also had to create quite a few pages extra for the management system at the same time, and this has been the reason why it has taken so long, previous redesigns of the website have been quick as I have not had to update the management system. It has taken a while for the redevelopment to take place as I also have limited spare time when I am not doing my day (paid) job. I originally wanted the SBI Timetables and main Stourbridge Bus Information website to be complete by the end of 2011, but due to limited time and finding new techniques of how the web page code is applied to make features work more interactively, this has sadly been passed, but I am not too far of from completing the website.

Phase 1 - SBI Timetables

Phase 1 of the redevelopment was to complete SBI Timetables (Management system and website), this was an easy phase to complete and did not take too long to do, this was because most of the pages are shared with the main Stourbridge Bus Information Website, so there was only a handful of web pages to complete. The management system for this part of the website was greatly improved which means that you only have to update one set of information on the database instead of two or three as the data is interlinked with each other. Another part of the SBI Timetables that has been improved is that I have gone from the old PDF way of showing the timetables to including the timetable data in the actual web page, which also means it is easier to print and also for me to update once any service changes are upcoming with the timetables.

Phase 2 - Stourbridge Bus Information Website

Phase 2 of the redevelopment is to complete the main part of the Stourbridge Bus Information website, the main bulk of pages have been uploaded today and apart from a handful of pages, this phase is near completion.

A quick summary of what has been changed today:

News - The news section has been improved especially with the management system side of things. Before, you would have to write the news story in a separate text file and upload it to the web server. Now, the whole story, including HTML coding, is actually stored within the database. This makes it easier and quicker to create a new news item or update information on an existing news story.

Gallery - This was a section which was created and uploaded to the website early on in the redevelopment of the site, this was partly due to the fact that there is no management system I had to rewrite for this section of the website, and also these pages are created using a flash application, so apart from creating an XML file for the information of where the pictures are situated on the server and any commentary on the photographs, this section was basically written for me from the flash application which I used. A new collection of the gallery appeared this year with pictures taken throughout the year of the works taking place on construction of the new Stourbridge Interchange, this added to the existing collections of Black and White, Double Deck, Minibuses and Single Deck photographs, these collection also having new photographs added to them.

Fares and Tickets - This section was completed within the last couple of weeks and made live today, just in time to coincide with the fare increases coming into force on 2nd January 2012. These pages have been made more cleaner with the way the data is shown. There are still three parts to this section, Cash Fares, Day Tickets and Travel Cards.

There is only one section to complete on the main part of the website, the Bus Information section, which is currently two-thirds completed after the pages which have been made live today:

Service Changes - This has been moved from the news section as I think it is more fitting to be in the Bus Information section as it is more of an information page that is always being changed as Stourbridge bus services change throughout the year.
Places Served - This has been renamed from the Where to? page to Places Served. The layout is more cleaner and text size has been increased (the same size is being used throughout on all the new web pages) making it easier for people to read, this has been accomplished by making all new pages on the site wider than the original 800 pixel wide layout - I have chosen to go larger after looking at the visitor statistics which showed that the majority of visitors have a screen size of 1024 pixels or wider.
Passenger Information - This page is shared by SBI Timetables, and was one of the earliest pages in the new layout to be completed.
Holiday Operations - This page has been made cleaner in the way it is laid out and it is also a page which is more interactive in how it displays information. In the past I have forgot to update this page and have been guilty of not showing information for an upcoming holiday or showing information for the previous holiday. This will not happen now as at the beginning of each year I input all of the data for all the public holidays in the coming year and the page will automatically display the data for the upcoming holiday three weeks in advance and then stop displaying it two weeks after the holiday has passed. I will also be using this technique on the relevant timetables in SBI Timetables for service changes and diversions in force for each individual service.
Frequency Guide - This is another page that was completed early on in the progress of redevelopment as this is another page which is also shared with SBI Timetables and the data that is used in this page is also shared with the timetable data, so any timetable description changes or operator changes will be updated automatically on this page when I make changes to the SBI Timetables data.

I have also completed the links section, but have not currently made this live as I am having a problem with one of the pages which is used to submit a link. When a link is submitted it sends me an email to inform me that a new link has been submitted, enabling me to log on and approve the link to display, it is this part of the code in the page that I am having problems with, which is confusing me as the contact form uses the same system and works. I will be contacting my web hosts to find an answer and hopefully making this section live in the near future.

That brings me up to date with the current state of the redevelopment of the website(s). I do have a little bit more work to do on the main part of the website, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and will be glad once the main section is complete. Once the main section is complete there are still a few housekeeping tasks to do, one is to replace pictures that are currently being used on the web pages. I hope to replace them with newer images with new images taken of the new interchange, and I will also have to do a little housekeeping of the management system to tie up a few loose ends with how the data is stored and collated with other web pages. The main layout of the website was actually created from the way I laid out this blog spot part of the website. Once I created the layout of the blog spot, I transferred this design into the layout of the main website, so that all parts of my website, internally produced (Stourbridge Bus Information, SBI Timetables) and externally (SBI Blogspot) look virtually the same.

Once that is complete, I will then start Phase Three, which is to redevelop the SBI Past part of the website, so I wont be taking it easy for a while to come, the first page which will be created is the current events guide which I did create during the early part of the redevelopment, but now I know how to store the data, I can redevelop the redeveloped page to make the data easier to store and display, especially data wise. Phase Four will involve sourcing a photographic sharing website to resurrect the Webmaster's images collection which died early last year when the image hosting website, Fotopic, disappeared from the Internet.

Also, last year I started to use the social media websites Facebook and Twitter which I use to inform website visitors about events taking place whilst out on the move and have no way of updating the main website until I get back to a laptop or PC. This has also been made easier after tying my Twitter account to the Facebook page which meant that I could tweet from my phone and the tweet would also update the status on the Facebook page, this has become a popular tool and both have been subscribed by a number of people, with numbers increasing as time goes on - tweets made by myself have also been retweeted on other twitter accounts which promote the local area.

All this will be taking place whilst I will be adding more blog posts to the blogspot with the tales of the days out with the ARM (Andy, Rog and Mark) team throughout the year, and this will be starting straight away as I will be updating the blog quite soon with the goings on of our first day out of 2012 next week and our first trip of the year to London. The new year has begun and I will still be working hard to make my goals complete, here is to a good and productive 2012.

2011 - Day Out 34: Worcestershire - The Christmas Trip

2011-12-04T16:46:00.000Z

Date: Saturday 03 December 2011

It is time for the last trip of 2011, and it has been decided to mark the event with an ARMS trip around Worcestershire and that can only mean one thing too - it is the Christmas trip!

First off, I have to meet up with Mr UKBuses, so I head out from home and luckily this year the sun is starting to shine and there is no sign of snow this year and hopefully no chance of getting stranded as we nearly did on last year's Christmas outing. I make my way across Swan Pool Park and up The Broadway in Norton, where just after 0805am I meet up with Mr UKBuses by The Broadway Shops. We take a short walk up to Norton Round by the junction of Norton Road and Osmaston Road and wait for our first bus of the day. It is 0820am and our bus arrives which is Whittle's service 125 which will take us to Kidderminster. Mr UKBuses lets a couple of people on first and as he hears how much a return ticket will cost, he opts for it which means that he will save 70p when we catch the bus back later on in the day. Mr UKBuses is now happy as he has saved some money, he is always happy even when he saves a few pence. We take our seats and we make our way down Norton Road, passing through Iverley and Broadwaters near Kidderminster on a bus that is carrying quite a few passengers for the time of the journey on a Saturday morning. We pass the Kidderminster railway station, keeping an eye out for Mr D9 along the way. We arrive at the bus station in Kidderminster at 0840am, and I have my first "fresh air" break of the day whilst we wait for the arrival of Mr D9. He hasn't shown up, so to save waiting in the cold we make our way to the Cafe Nero nearby where Mr UKBuses has a cup of coffee to wake him up and seeing as Mr UKBuses doesn't like my Blackberry phone, he opts for a Blackberry Muffin for his breakfast, I opt for the diet Pepsi and Lemon Cupcake to keep me going. We get a seat by the window so that we may be able to spot Mr D9 in the bus station, but as we get comfortable, Mr D9 rings Mr UKBuses asking where we are, he has decided to go to the J D Wetherspoons, "The Penny Black" in Kidderminster for his coffee and bacon roll, he was expecting us to get off the bus at The Swan Centre stop. We all finish our breakfasts off in both locations and as we head outside of the Cafe Nero, Mr D9 can be spotted at the end of the alley from us.

The ARMs team is now complete ready for our traditional Worcestershire Christmas trip and we make our way around to the bus station where we will catch our first First Worcestershire bus of the day. We have a few minutes to wait before our bus is due, so we spend a bit of time to take a few photographs around the bus station, mainly Whittles buses as they seem to be the main operator around Kidderminster nowadays. Our first First bus of the day arrives and we board the 0915am First Worcestershire 303 service purchasing our FirstWyvern day ticket to use on the buses we catch throughout the day. We make our way from Kidderminster, passing through Hartlebury and Ombersley before we arrive at Worcester alighting at the bus station dead on 1000am. I am the first person to make a toilet stop and I dash to the toilets located in the station whilst Mr D9 and Mr UKBuses take a few photographs around the station. We then make our way through the city of Worcester, with Mr UKBuses leading the way, and we get confused when he stops ahead of us outside a "Private Shop", is he waiting for us or was he going to go in, it turns out that he was waiting for us to catch him up but I did have the phone ready to pre-order an ambulance if he stepped inside. We carry on and arrive at First Worcestershire's depot at Worcester which is located in Padmore Street. When we arrive the yard is empty except for a couple of School buses and one service bus, Mr D9 has a sneaky look inside the engineering bays from the pavement. After our brief tour looking around the depot, we head around the corner where we wait at a bus stop and we don't wait long as a bus arrives and takes us back to the bus station in Worcester. Time for a few more photographs and we head to our stand where our bus is waiting and we wait for the driver to come from the canteen where he has been keeping himself warm whilst we wait in the cold. The bus driver eventually turns up and we are ready to get out of the cold and catch our next bus.

We board First Worcestershire's service 144 where after getting out of the Christmas traffic in Worcester we pass through Droitwich Spa and Wychbold before arriving at Bromsgrove bus station after a journey time of forty minutes. Bromsgrove bus station will be our "hub" of the day as we will be visiting this place the most times today as it seems to link all the destinations that we visit today. We have a bit of time to kill in Bromsgrove before our next bus arrives so we decide to get out of the cold and visit our first pub of the day. We use the tradesman's entrance and visit The Red Lion where Mr D9 and myself are shocked as Mr UKBuses buys the first round of the day. After Mr D9 and myself come around from the shock, we pick ourselves up off the floor and find a table to rest and get warm whilst listening to some Christmas music in a packed pub which is filling up with some more Christmas shoppers from the High Street entrance. Mr UKBuses nearly downs his drink on his first sip, which means one of two things, he was either thirsty or he was in shock of having to buy the first round of the day. After finishing our drinks we make our way back out into the cold to get our next bus. We are back in Bromsgrove bus station and our next bus arrives and we board the First Worcestershire service X3 which will take us to our now traditional Christmas trip location of Redditch.

It only takes us about fifteen to twenty minutes before we arrive in Redditch, and we alight in the bus station. It is now time for lunch, so we head to J D Wetherspoons "The Royal Enfield", this was previously the Chicago Rock Cafe which were taken over by J D Wetherspoons when the Chicago Rock Cafe company fell into administration, so this means that like Stourbridge, Redditch now has two Wetherspoons in the town. The Royal Enfield is an old cinema / bingo hall which is located a couple of minutes walk from the bus station, and seeing as it is an ex-Chicago Rock Cafe, we thought we may get the same treatment as we did two weeks previously when we visited the ex-Chicago Rock Cafe Wetherspoons in Tamworth, it was totally the opposite, we were served quickly after we arrived and politely by the Assistant Manageress. Mr D9 and myself set up a little bet between us regarding Mr UKBuses choice of dinner, Mr D9 opted for the BBQ Chicken Melt and I was left with the Chicken Tikka option. We take our seats to have a little rest before we choose what we eat, and Mr UKBuses seems to have got us a table which is in the middle of the dance floor, as can be seen right. It was time to look at the menu and I opted for the Beer and Burger deal, with Mr D9 opting for the simple steak, but he wouldn't be getting the eggs of me this week as I'm not having the gammon. It was now time for Mr UKBuses choice and he was undecided, but I think he knew that Mr D9 and myself had a bet going between us when I was trying to steer him towards the Chicken Tikka Masala. He did, in then end, opt for the BBQ Chicken Melt without the cheese which obviously means it was simply a BBQ Chicken!, I gave my pound stake to Mr D9. After about ten minutes, our meals arrive and we tuck in, we had a good portion of chips on the plate, and as the meal arrived whilst Mr D9 was taking a toilet break, we teased him about the chips, especially considering I had a few more than him, which bought back memories from our trip to Chester a few years ago. After finishing lunch we decide to have a walk around to Diamond bus depot located in Church Road which is only a couple of minutes away from The Royal Enfield, the bus depot was originally the Midland Red built depot. After walking back down Adelaide Street, we find a path that brings us out in front of The Royal Enfield, thus saving some shoe leather if we had used this path to get there. We make our way past the bus station which is located under The Kingfisher shopping centre, and just around the corner from the bus station is First Worcestershire's Redditch bus depot located just off Plymouth Road, which had a few vehicles parked up at the back of the depot. After a few photographs, we head back around the corner to the bus station and we have time to visit the toilets, or should that be toilet, located inside the entrance to the main shopping centre. There is still the problem that you have to queue for the toilets. Mr UKBuses pushes his way to the front of the queue and with himself standing outside the gents, and a lady outside the ladies, we wait a few minutes before the gent's becomes free, when a woman comes out stating that "it stinks in there as a bloke must have had a good dump in there before I went in", little did she realise that we must have been waiting outside for five minutes. As Mr UKBuses went in, the smell from the woman wafted outside and we could hear a few coughs from Mr UKBuses inside. Mr D9 was next to go in and I opted out of using the toilet as I think I can hold on until we get to the next location and also avoided the smell.

We board First Worcestershire's service 143 which takes us back to our hub, Bromsgrove bus station taking us through the dreaded Aston Fields, located a couple of miles from Bromsgrove, this is where the railway station for Bromsgrove is situated as I found out with aching feet a few years ago. We also pass through Charford an estate on the edge of Bromsgrove before we finally arrive at the bus station. Whilst en route, Mr D9 and Mr UKBuses are keeping there eyes out for clay bus stops, they spot quite a few despite us being on a bus which has an all over advert and hampers our view to the outside world. As we alight in Bromsgrove, the first thing we do is visit the toilets as the drinks we had in Redditch are getting through our systems. Mr D9 and myself wait outside for Mr UKBuses who is nearly wiped out as he exits the toilets when Mr D9 decides to do a little mopping right by his feet after he finds the cleaners mop in the entrance to the toilets. We have a few minutes before our bus is due and so we have time for a few photographs, with Mr D9 doing his now standard pose outside of the 24 hour emergency toilet in Bromsgrove bus station, I decide to get in the shot this time as I pretend to be doing some business against the wall. We make our way down to our stand and as our bus is due, a Central Buses vehicle turns up at our stop ready to take the Aston Villa fans to the match being played at home today at Villa Park. Our bus has to pull up behind and after nearly tripping over an old lady who is picking up her bags to get onto the bus even though she is getting the one that goes the other way, we board First Worcestershire's service X3.

We take our seats on the X3 and we are off to Areley Kings, a place located near to Stourport and also a place that I have never visited before. On the way we pass through Chaddersley Corbett where Mr UKBuses informs us that there is a farm nearby where he is having his Christmas Day chicken from and he has hand picked it, so if you see a chicken wandering around the area of Chaddersley Corbett with the initials MW painted on it, please return it so that Mr UKBuses does not go without on Christmas Day. After Chaddersley Corbett we pass through Kidderminster, pointing out to Mr D9 the location of the now demolished Midland Red garage, and we then pass through Birchen Coppice before we get to our destination, Areley Kings. After riding around the estate, we finally alight at the bus stop just outside of The Kings Arms, the pub looks okay from the outside, Mr D9 and Mr UKBuses head in before me so that I can finish off my "fresh air" break. I finally get inside and Mr D9 and Mr UKBuses are already at a table, see picture left. We have a rest in the pub that is nice and cosy with the regulars looking a friendly bunch. You can tell that it is near Christmas as the landlord or landlady already has the Christmas decorations up. After finishing our drinks we decide that we have to brave the cold by putting our coats on and leaving the pub. A few doors down the road is another pub that we have time for a quick visit and so we enter the Astley Cross, where I get my money out for the next round. As I write this blog entry I realise that Mr UKBuses has saved a bit of money again as it was in fact his round and he forgot to correct me as I got my wallet out, a good job that we only have time for halves. It looks as we won't be having a drink in this pub, as we are waiting in the lounge, there are a load of people waiting in the bar to be served, luckily another member of bar staff appears and we do have time for a very quick drink. We sit by the window but we hear a bus coming so we quickly finish our drinks and head outside. The bus stop is a little bit up the road opposite The Astley Cross, and the bus is actually at the side of the pub waiting to cross the road. Luckily the driver spots me trying to get to the bus stop and he signals that he will stop. We rush to get on the bus and thank the driver for waiting for us.

The Christmas trip is nearly over and our First Worcestershire service 3 bus is the last journey that we will use our FirstWyvern day ticket on. It has gone dark now and as we pass through Stourport, we spot The Treasure Island arcade on the riverside still operating and quite colourful it is too as the lights blare out onto the winter sky. It takes us just under half an hour to get back into Kidderminster from Areley Kings and we pass through the Birchen Coppice Estate before passing the First Worcestershire depot in Kidderminster, which is now located in the middle of a big roundabout. We arrive at Kidderminster at 1745pm, but Mr UKBuses and myself both need the toilet desperately, luckily I know where there are some public toilets nearby. We make our way to the entrance of the Rowland Hill shopping centre in Vicar Street and located under the escalators are public toilets. Mr UKBuses and myself make use of them, and as we make our way back onto Vicar Street, we cannot see Mr D9, we were too quick for him and after he contacted us by phone, he actually went up the escalators into the main shopping centre. We are all reunited, and we make our way back to Kidderminster bus station. This is where we say goodbye to Mr D9 as he has brought a return train ticket this morning, so he gets one last use of his FirstWyvern day ticket to get a bus to the railway station. He boards the bus and it seems an eternity for his bus to depart and Mr D9 says goodbye to us by him frantically waving to us through the back window - See you in 2012 Mr D9. Mr UKBuses and myself have a further ten minutes to wait, and thankfully our bus turns up on time, even though a passenger nearly gets on the wrong bus as both Whittles service 125 buses use this stand in either direction of the route, which confuses passengers more as they turn up within a minute of each other in either direction to Stourbridge and Bridgnorth. Our bus is behind the Bridgnorth bound bus, and we board and make use of the heaters to get some warmth back into our bodies. We make our last journey of the day by showing our return tickets purchased this morning to the driver, and after passing through Broadwaters, where there seems to be some kind of Christmas Fayre taking place, we head up a very dark Stourbridge Road before we arrive in Norton and alight at our stop in Norton Road. We make a short walk down Whittington Road back down to The Broadway shops. I can now barely walk now as I desperately need to use the toilet, but as there are none nearby, I have to go behind the back of some garages opposite the shops to have an unplanned toilet break. Whilst I am emptying my bladder, Mr UKBuses pops into "The Broadway Chippy" to get his tea, I walk with him back past his house where I say my goodbyes to him and walk just around the corner where I get my final bus of the day, National Express West Midlands service 276 to Wollaston, where I get my tea from the "Lucky House" Chinese takeaway, before getting back home where I eat my takeaway and rest my feet for the rest of the evening enjoying the heating to get my blood back to temperature again.

Another fantastic day out was had, and what a trip to end the year on, this was due to the good company, good weather and good planning from Mr UKBuses, if it wasn't for the effort put in by Mr UKBuses with his plans, there wouldn't be no trips making an appearance on this blog, so a special big thanks go out to him for his spotless (well most of the time) planning throughout the year, it is very much appreciated..

I've enjoyed all the days out this year, but I think that the trips in the last quarter of the year have been better than those earlier on in the year, a few new locations have been visited this year. We have also ventured out for a few weekends this year, out of the three weekend trips, I think London in November ranked at the top, with Torquay second, and Weymouth third. London and Torquay fared better due to not stopping over at London on our visits before and not having visited Torquay before, and I can definitely say that I have not "tossed it all away" this year.

Andy's Bald Cranium (ABC)

Bald Spot One: This was taken outside the First bus depot at Worcester, I managed to get this whilst Mr D9 was having a look inside the garage from the pavement opposite.

Bald Spot Two: This was taken in the glorious winter sunshine whilst waiting for a bus at Bromsgrove Bus Station.

Bald Spot Three: This was taken whilst in Redditch Bus Station. I think Mr D9's mind was on other things as he needed to go for a toilet break, enabling me to get this shot.

2011 - Day Out 33: 246 Charity Walk - The Hard Way

2011-12-01T13:32:00.000Z

Date: Sunday 27 November

Pensnett Garage Driver Daniel Meanock has organised a Charity Walk along the 246 route in honour of two year old Louie Pumphrey who has Cerebral Palsy. Because of his condition Louie is unable to walk, so the walk that has been planned for today will raise money that will go towards a £19,000 adapted wheelchair and standing frame, which his family will hope will give Louie the same independence as other children his age.

Following on from a charity walk, organised by Dave Gerrard in August, Mr UKBuses was approached by Daniel to see if he could help with the marshaling along the route as we did previously for this walk today. Mr UKBuses asked me to help, and I duly agreed. With the last walk being from Dudley Bus Station to Stourbridge Birmingham Street, it was decided that this walk will go "The Hard Way", from Stourbridge Birmingham Street to Dudley Bus Station, what makes it harder is that the fact that this will be walking uphill to get to the dizzy heights of Dudley rather than downhill toward Stourbridge.

First of all I walk up to Norton and meet up with Mr UKBuses at the shops along The Broadway at approximately 1115am, it is here that he has arranged for the support vehicle driver for the day, "Shuttle" Steve, to pick us up. We head down towards South Road / The Gigmill, and as we reach the bottom of Westwood Avenue, we see a National Express West Midlands Alexander Dennis Enviro 400 coming our way, the first time that a double decker has been this way for years. Once we are picked up, I become an honorary National Express West Midlands Employee for the day as I put on my National Express Hi-Vis and Steve heads up towards Whittington Road, before following the 276 route to Birmingham Street in Stourbridge, pulling up just before the start at Stand C. Before the walk gets under way at 1200pm, it is time for the Express and Star to take a picture, I play a cunning plan by staying on the bus and looking out of the front windscreen, I shall see how it turns out when I purchase the Express and Star when we are in it. My plan was not good in the end, I am barely visible in the windscrren, see picture below (click on it to enlarge the report). Time for a quick "fresh air break" before we head off, but everyone has already arrived and so at approximately 1150, Daniel leads the way.

Mr UKBuses and myself take a short cut to get to the first crossing point at Church Street / Hagley Road by walking across Foster Street and past the new Stourbridge Interchange, which is nearing completion. We get in front of the walkers as we see them behind us as we come out of Foster Street and we carry on along the ring road ready to do some crossing. I start the crossing off as I get the walkers safely across Church Street, whilst Mr UKBuses does the honours as he gets them safely across Hagley Road, with me following behind. As the walkers are back walking alongside the ring road, I run ahead to Worcester Street with Mr UKBuses not far behind. He leads the walkers as they come towards Worcester Street, and I get in place to stop the traffic coming off the ring road, whilst Mr UKBuses stops the traffic coming down towards the ring road. Greenfield Avenue next, and it is not a busy road so the walkers get across safely. Next up is the split junctions of Enville Street, I keep an eye out on the ring road, slowing the traffic down whilst Mr UKBuses crosses them, and it is easy for the second part of Enville Street as we have the traffic lights helping us. The first crossing points are over, so Mr UKBuses and myself walk back to the bus stop located on the ring road and back onto the support bus, where "Shuttle" Steve picks us up and takes us to the Collis Street / Wollaston Road traffic lights (otherwise known to the bus drivers as "The Fish", a timing point named after the pub which is now "The Ruby Cantonese" Restaurant). As I get off the support bus to get to the traffic lights junction, a passenger is walking down towards the bus where I tell her that this bus is not in service, but the next 246 is only six minutes away. She seemed happy about that, I make my way to the corner, Mr UKBuses is in the middle of the road, ready for the walkers to come, and it is not too long to wait, they cross as I keeps my eyes left, ahead and right all at the same time as my side of the road is where they are aiming to get to continue on to Wollaston, Mr UKBuses has the traffic lights to help him. With the Fish traffic lights completed, we make our way up Amblecote High Street where with the help of the pelican crossing, the walkers are across safely, a quick crossing over King William Street ensues and we are into Brettell Lane. Another pelican crossing gives us a helping hand to get the walkers across safely. At this point, Steve comes around the corner, and picks Mr UKBuses up to get him ahead, I carry on up Brettell Lane, getting the walkers across the small side roads safely. I catch up with Mr UKBuses as we get to the Hawbush Road junction with Brettell Lane, both of us getting the walkers across this busy estate road safely.

We both jump onto the support bus and Steve takes us the short journey to Bull Street at Silver End, Steve pulls up at the stop and gets off to get a drink from the shop, whilst we wait to keep an eye on the bus. We have a little time before the walkers get to us, so I use this time to get my breath back after the walk up Brettell Lane to Hawbush Road as taken its toll on me. The walkers are nearly here so we make our way to Bull Street, with Mr UKBuses keeping an eye out for traffic coming onto Brettell Lane, and myself keeping an eye on the traffic coming off Brettell Lane. As I'm in the middle of the road keeping an eye on traffic coming from Stourbridge and from Brierley Hill, this people carrier slows down, and dreading the worst and some abuse, it turns out not to be that bad, it is Mr D9, who shouts across the road to me, "I'm off to the pub!!!!", he drives off before I get the chance to jump in the back and join him! Back to the main object of the day and the crossing duty, the first problem of the day is about to ensue as a woman comes speeding round the corner off Brettell Lane, and she doesn't seem to want to stop, she goes straight past me, and luckily there is a gap between the walkers as she makes her way slowly through the gap. Luckily ninety-nine percent of the traffic is obeying our signals, it is just the one percent that seem to think that they own the road and it does put a downer on the events that is taking place today. I'm determined that nothing will ruin today and this crazy driver won't ruin the good things that will happen to the charity walk. Despite this ignorant driver all walkers have safely managed to get across the road, so Mr UKBuses and myself get back on the bus where we avoid walking up the hill to Brierley Hill. We arrive in Brierley Hill where Steve drops us off just before the five ways junction, we have a while for the walkers to catch us up, so I get a chance to have a fresh air break before they arrive.

The walkers eventually arrive and we attempt to get them across Moor Street, I have the task of getting them across the "inroad", keeping an eye out for traffic approaching from High Street and Mill Street, while Mr UKBuses keeps an eye on the traffic from Moor Street, this junction isn't as bad traffic wise since the by-pass road has been built and opened. We carry on up Brierley Hill High Street with the walkers, walking that little bit faster to get ahead of them and we now reach another main traffic junction, Mr UKBuses keeps an eye on the Bank Street traffic, whilst I keep an eye out on the High Street / Level Street traffic, we get the walkers across here safely despite this junction being a bit busier with all Merry Hill inbound and outbound traffic coming this way. We now needed to get onto the support vehicle to take us the short distance to get ahead to the Waterfront island, but we had to wait for someone, and I noticed that half of the walkers were nearly there, so I made a mad dash sprint from outside the bingo hall down to the island, and as the walkers were reaching John Street, I get there with about a millisecond to spare and get them safely across the road, after getting them across, Mr UKBuses was way behind and had stayed on the support vehicle as he wouldn't have managed to get down to us without having a heart attack due to the distance the walkers were ahead, I had to sprint ahead again to get the walkers across Wallows Road. After Wallows Road, it was planned that we would get ahead to Holly Hall, but the next two roads which we weren't expecting to be giving help crossing were quite busy, the road to Aldi and B&M shops near to Harts Hill Garage, which has now been sadly flattened and also Fens Pool Avenue which seems to attract the boy racers, some of them were reluctant to stop as the were racing around the corners, this junction was worse than the Bull Street junction in Silver End. Steve and the support bus was parked opposite where Harts Hill Garage was once stood, so I jumped on the bus to get my breath back after my mad sprint whilst Steve took Mr UKBuses and myself past the walkers and to Holly Hall.

As we approach Holly Hall junction the lights are on red as we arrive so Steve opens the doors, before his scheduled stop so that Mr UKBuses and myself can jump off and get into position early. After about five minutes the walkers arrive and even though this is one busy junction which is another exit route from the nearby Merry Hill Centre, we don't have too many problems. After this junction we get ahead to Holly Hall School, where with the help of a pelican crossing, we get the walkers over two main dual carriageways. Steve has parked up around the corner, and Mr UKBuses and myself jump on once more so we can get ahead again where we alight at Queen's Cross. A couple of the younger walkers have boarded the bus to give their legs a rest and also to avoid the hill from Holly Hall to Queen's Cross, they are forgiven as they have done well to get this far unaided. Back to Queen's Cross, where Mr UKBuses and myself have a look at the traffic lights sequence so we know how we are going to get people across. There is also a run off the main road into Wellington Road from the Brierley Hill direction, so it is decided that I stop the traffic that rushes around this corner whilst Mr UKBuses gets the walkers across the main traffic lights. We are nearly in Dudley and we are about to board the support bus and Daniel has come up with a good suggestion, that is for me to run ahead and tell Steve to go straight to Dudley Bus Station so that Mr UKBuses has to walk the final part of the route. As I run ahead, Mr UKBuses actually does something that I have never seen before, he runs after me and is actually keeping up with me, but he does get on board and I carry on up Stourbridge Road towards Dudley, Mr UKBuses decides to use a two finger wave as he passes me on the bus.

We are on the final leg of the walk now and I make my way to the next crossing destination with Mr UKBuses already in place. The next junction is Stafford Street, where Mr UKBuses and myself take a lane each whilst getting the walkers across safely, I get ahead and stop the traffic from entering Dudley High Street whilst the walkers make there way on the final corners of the route. We have one more junction to get the walkers across and that is Union Street, so we make our way to get ahead using High Street as a short cut to just get ahead of the walkers. As we reach the Union Street junction, the walkers appear so we get them across and it is just about a quarter of a mile to go before they reach Dudley Bus Station. We walk the final bit of the route with them and after 2 hours and 20 minutes, we finally reach the end, and as we all walk through the stand at where the 246 picks up the passengers, we make our way to the layover area at Dudley Bus Station where Steve is waiting to give the walkers a well deserved rest by driving them all back to Stourbridge. On the way back we do go via the 246 route to Holly Hall, and then down Pedmore Road towards Lye and back into Stourbridge, dropping off walkers along the way. For our efforts we are rewarded by Mrs Meanock with a Mars Bar to replenish the sugar we have lost in our bodies along the route. Steve finally pulls up in Birmingham Street in Stourbridge, where we all alight, with the younger walkers winding up Steve by keeping their fingers on the bell as we all get off. The walkers go back to their cars to soak their feet, but Mr UKBuses and myself decide to have a little ride around before we finally make our way back home.

We make our way to the nearest pub, so we walk up through Foster Street past the new Interchange, with Mr UKBuses stopping to take a few photographs, before we walk around the edge of the ring road to our first crossing point earlier and going into J D Wetherspoons, "The Chequers Inn" where we have a good old rest and a well deserved pint. After finishing our drinks, we head down the High Street towards the bus stop on Stourbridge ring road, and as we arrive, the bus that we intended to catch, National Express West Midlands service 256, just pulls out of the stop, so after a few minutes, we catch National Express West Midlands service 246, a route that we have already seen today on our feet, and we head to Dudley again. We arrive in Dudley and we spot an old Volvo Ailsa in WMPTE livery, so we head to the layover area where it is parked to take some photographs. We need to get to Wordsley, so our next bus is Diamond Buses service 226 which takes us past Russell's Hall Hospital where we spot Phil Tonks behind the reception desk. After passing through Bromley and Kingswinford, we alight outside of The Lawnswood. The road is busy but Mr UKBuses won't put his Hi-Vis back on to get me across the road safely. After finally crossing the road we spend an hour or so inside having a rest and well deserved drinks with Mr UKBuses parents. Mr UKBuses senior does stand up for me when I keep checking the Blackberry for the Brazilian Grand Prix results, only as he wants to know how the race is getting on. We leave The Lawnswood and after a lift back home courtesy of Mr UKBuses senior, I get back home and have a rest and a nap on the sofa.

A thoroughly good day was had by myself and the walkers who took part deserve a round of applause after completing the seven mile journey that they achieved on foot today, it was all for a good cause, and donations for Louie Pumphrey can be made on a Justgiving page that has been set up for him by clicking here.

2011 - Day Out 32: Staffordshire

2011-11-22T22:45:00.000Z

Date: Saturday 19 November

Having recovered from our fantastic London weekend, it is time for a meeting of the ARMS, where we will be invading Staffordshire.

This is the penultimate meeting of the ARMS this year, so to get the day out under way, I make my way to my nearest bus stop in Wollaston, so that I can catch the National Express West Midlands Service 276 at 0806am. The winter has definitely arrived as it is just before 0800am and it is still dark. My bus arrives on time, and I send the usual text to ensure that the first ARM member is out of bed, and by the time I get to Norton, Mr UKBuses is at the stop wide awake, the bus carries onto Stourbridge, where we just miss out on seeing how the construction of the bus station, sorry, Interchange is going as we alight at the stop on Stourbridge ring road. We are only at the bus stop for about two or three minutes when our next bus arrives, National Express West Midlands Service 246, which will take us to Dudley, I look at the side roads en route preparing myself for traffic marshaling in next weekend's 246 Charity Walk - The Hard Way. Upon arrival we have to wait about ten minutes so that we can catch our next bus, National Express West Midlands service 311, which takes us to Walsall, via Wednesbury, as we get near to Walsall Mr UKBuses gets a phone call, which means that the final ARM member has arrived in Walsall, as our bus arrives in Bradford Place, we see him, so as we alight, the group are together and its a hello to Mr D9, who points out that Mr UKBuses transport to Walsall's bus station has arrived, see picture, left. Whilst Mr UKBuses is taking some pictures in Bradford Place, Mr D9 and myself make a bet, lets hope that my wager wins. After Mr UKBuses denies that the carriage has nothing to do with him, we make our way to Walsall Bus Station, keeping an eye for Mr D9 and Mr UKBuses work colleague, Raymondo who is lurking around the town somewhere.

We arrive at Walsall Bus Station (St Paul's), and there has been no sign of Raymondo. We have to walk just opposite the bus station, and we walk to our stop in Hatherton Road, Mr D9 takes a different route to us and goes via the bus station and the station toilets before the bus journey ahead. We are all at the bus stop and before our bus arrives, Raymondo makes a surprise appearance, he is just about to go to M&S and he has his bag for life to prove it. As we are chatting to Raymondo, our bus arrives and we board Arriva Midlands service 2 to Cannock. After purchasing our Arriva Daysavers, the bus makes its way through Bloxwich and Cheslyn Hay before we arrive at our first planned destination. Mr UKBuses carries on from where he left off last week, and he presses the bell too early, about five stops too early. We have about a ten minute walk before we arrive at our first destination and as we don't fully know where we are, we are pleased to find a road sign saying "Delta Way", we cross the road and enter the Arriva Midlands Cannock garage, we have only a few minutes to take some photographs. After Mr UKBuses finishes taking his photographs, he asks how long we have left, I tell him that we have about two minutes left, so we make our way back to the correct bus stop, as we turn the corner, the bus is already there, so we have a mad dash across the grass and board Arriva Midlands service 70, despite running to get the bus, the driver stays at the bus stop for a few minutes before heading on towards our next destination. We have been on the bus for just over five minutes, and we arrive at Cannock, alighting at the bus station. We have about twenty minutes to wait, so we have a walk around the bus station taking photographs along the way. Our next bus arrives, so we catch Arriva Midlands service X60, which will take us to Lichfield, taking us through Heath Hayes and Burntwood along the way.

The journey takes approximately forty minutes and just after 12 midday, we arrive at Lichfield, and as we arrive I think I have gone back in time thanks to the old WMPTE style bus station from the seventies, I think that most of the bus shelters are still from that time period, Mr UKBuses and myself get off the bus all right, Mr D9 must have had his foot on the D9 pedal too much, as his foot has gone to sleep. As Mr UKBuses dashes around the bus station to take some photographs, Mr D9 and myself talk to our service X60 driver whilst waiting. Not long after Mr UKBuses is ready and he is also hungry so I have to dig into my memory banks so that I can get us to our planned pub to eat. Luckily I remember and we make our way out of the back of the bus station, past the theatre, and down an alley way where there are a couple of statues, Mr D9 thinks that these statues are cold, and as the sheet has fallen, he decides to help the statue lady get warm again by helping to cover her, see picture right, that's his excuse anyway but I think the woman in the shop may think it could be something different judging by her look. We carry on along the alley way where we catch up with Mr UKBuses and are in Lichfield High Street, we carry on up the street and we arrive at our first watering hole of the day, and that is J D Wetherspoons, "The Acorn Inn". We are glad to get out of the cold, and as Mr D9 makes his way to the toilets, Mr UKBuses finds a table, which means that it must be me that has to go to the bar and order the first round of the day.

The round has been brought, so now it is time to stop our stomachs from rumbling and order food. Luckily Mr UKBuses has the menu in hand, and now Mr D9 and myself have our hands rubbing together, the bet will be won by one of us in a couple of minutes, or it could be the charity box on the bar that may gain from both of us. Mr UKBuses is thinking to have something different than usual, which means the charity box on the bar could be the winner, but Mr UKBuses finally decides and he is going to opt for his usual BBQ Chicken Melt without the cheese - just what I wanted to hear, I have just won our bet and Andy gives me the pound stake after I wake the pub up with my celebrations. With my win I decide to splash out and try something different, and I opt for the gammon, whilst Mr D9 opts for the simple steak, he will gain a couple of eggs from my meal when his arrives. After about ten minutes, our food arrives, so after passing on my eggs to Mr D9, we all tuck in, and I polish the plate clean, I must have been hungry. We spend a few minutes to let our dinner go down, see picture left, and Mr D9 and Mr UKBuses talk about work, I don't feel left out though as I am an honorary member of National Express staff, as I have had my name and picture appear in the National Express newsletter even though I don't work for them. The food has gone down, and we make our way back to the bus station to catch the bus to our next destination. As we make our way back, I do have to ensure that Mr D9 doesn't feel a right tit again by standing inbetween the statues and himself so he doesn't have a grope. Mr UKBuses decides to get his own back on Mr D9 for the next journey, and he asks him if he needs to use the bus station facilities as the next journey will be for one and a half hours. We don't have to wait long as our next bus is already in the station.

Our next destination is Tamworth, and we board Arriva Midlands service 765 which takes us through Whittington. About fifteen minutes into the journey, Mr UKBuses asks Mr D9 if his bladder is holding up as we have another hour and fifteen minutes before we arrive, at this point his legs are nearly in the crossed position, another ten minutes pass, and Mr UKBuses asks the question again, but the joke is about to backfire as we all need to make a visit as soon as the bus pulls up, luckily we don't have long to go, Mr D9 thinks otherwise. Five minutes pass by and we arrive at Tamworth, and Mr D9 is releived, and we all are as he spots the nearest toilets and we all pile in to make use of the facilities. After we do our business, we make our way a couple of minutes walk up the road and we arrive outside the Arriva Midlands Tamworth garage. We all take a few shots, even though we are having dead eye looks from the local chav fraternity, and as we make our way towards the end of the garage, Mr UKBuses spots a vehicle depart from inside the station, and he quickly runs down towards the open door to take a few shots (from the pavement!) of the interior of the garage, as soon as his camera is put away, the doors also close. Time for a drink, so we go to the nearest J D Wetherspoons, "The Silk Kite", for some liquid refreshment. As we arrive, there are a lot of people waiting to be served, so Mr D9 has a walk around the other side of the bar to see what real ales are available, with a member of bar staff abruptly telling him that "You have to be served the other side!", so as he makes his way back to us, the barmaid thinks we are invisible and serves a people who have not been waiting as long as us. When it is our turn she is rude and sureley has an attitude problem, at this point we decide to leave, making this one Wetherspoons that we will not be returning to due to the rudeness of both members of bar staff on duty. We have a little time to kill, so instead of waiting in a place where the local community seem to be ignorant, we decide to get ahead of the plan and catch the 1425pm Arriva Midlands 765 service back to Lichfield. As we make our way back to Lichfield, the day must surely be taking its toll on Mr UKBuses, who decides to have a nap, see picture right, with Mr D9 and myself sitting either side of him, we could have taken a bet on whose shoulder his head would be landing on. He does wake up in time to alight the bus when it pulls back into Lichfield bus station. We have about ten minutes before we catch the earlier than planned Arriva Midland service 825 to Rugeley, enough time for Mr D9 to make use of the facilities again at Lichfield bus station.

Our service 825 turns up on time and we board for a short journey to Rugeley, a place that I visited about two or three years ago, it may have been longer as they years go by so quick, we hope that the natives, when we arrive, will be better than the Tamworth natives. After a journey of approximately thirty-five minutes, we see the big chimney stacks at Rugeley power station, or "The Cloud Machines" as Mr D9 likes to call them, and we alight at Rugeley Bus Station. Mr UKBuses is getting hungry, so he decides to go on a hunt for chips. After visiting W H Smiths where I get a couple bars of chocolate to keep me going and we get a free copy of The Sun with our magazines (where to confuse you even more, they charge you for it then take £1 off the total cost, even though the paper is only 60p), Mr UKBuses spots a chip shop that Mr WME used when we visited previously. Mr UKBuses decides not to use that one, I cannot blame him, it didn't look very clean, we make our way to the main road leading back to the bus station and he finds Henry's, a rather more clean looking chip shop. After a little wait he buys a cone of chips, even though they are in a tray, and Mr D9 helps himself to a few as we sit outside, whilst Mr UKBuses eats them, it may have been a bit warmer, not a lot, by eating them in a bus shelter. After the chips have been consumed, we take a couple of steps and we are in J D Wetherspoons, "The Plaza", and as Mr D9 buys the round, with the staff loads more friendlier than the Tamworth staff, I find a seat, and to make sure that Mr D9 is okay, the table I find is right next to the gents toilets. We rest our feet for a few minutes, see picture left, before we head back to the bus station to catch the bus to our next destination, but before we leave, we all make a visit ensuring that we will be comfortable for the journey ahead. As we are right next to the gents, Mr D9 heads into the ladies, but he is saved embarassment as Mr UKBuses points out his mistake. Feeling refreshed, we head to Rugeley bus station to catch our bus, it is just after half past four, and the photographs have been stopped for the rest of the day due to the fact that it is absolutely pitch black outside.

We only have to wait a few minutes and our bus arrives, we did see the our bus go around on a different service to a local estate and back in what seemed one minute, before morphing into our Arriva Midlands service 33 taking us back to Cannock. We rest our feet for the journey which takes us about twenty five minutes before arriving at a cold and dark Cannock Bus Station just before 1700pm. We decide to skip Cannock and board our next bus, an earlier than planned Arriva Midlands service 70, it is now 1705, and our bus departs from Cannock. Whilst on board, we are approached from a market survey official acting on behalf of Bus Users UK, and gives us a survey to fill in and post back, I have duly completed and posted it back to them giving them my say on the service caught. As we near Wolverhampton, the bus driver thinks he is the next Jenson Button, speeding and driving with out care so as we arrive in Wolverhampton, we gladly alight in Stafford Street. We have extra time in Wolverhampton, so we can visit two pubs before leaving for home. We are on the corner of Lichfield Street and we don't know which pub to go to, but the decision is made easier as Mr D9's legs are becoming crossed, so we head to the nearest, which is J D Wetherspoons "The Moon Under Water". It is Mr UKBuses round, so as Mr D9 pops to use the facilities, I find a table in a pub packed with Wolves fans. We spend a while resting our legs, but as we finish our drinks we move onto the second Wolverhampton pub, one of our favourites, "The Wheatsheaf". We head round to the lounge or is it the snug, at the back of the building, and we are presented with the barmaid who serves us our round, the view gets better when I find a mirror above the bar, this pleases Mr D9 and myself. We rest our legs again and reflect on today's proceedings, see picture right. After a nice rest, we have to leave to catch our bus home, we leave Mr D9 to finish his pint and we say goodbye.

We make our way around to the new Wolverhampton bus station, and Mr UKBuses is walking so slow that a snail and his tortoise mate overtake him on the pavement. As we turn the corner, we see National Express West Midlands service 256, pull out of its stop. To make sure we are in a chance of catching this bus, we hurry around to Cleveland Street, but as we arrive we see the service 256 ahead turning into Summer Row, so we decide to walk around to Victoria Street, where we head to two pubs in quick succession. The first one we visit is The Giffard Arms, one of my favourite Wolverhampton pubs, but we use the facilities first, and as we come back to the bar, there is quite a queue, so we head opposite and visit The Litten Tree, where we have a quick drink before catching National Express West Midlands service 255. We board service 255 when it turns up a few minutes late, and after passing through Wombourne and Wall Heath, we alight at Kingswinford cross, where we walk up the High Street and after a few minutes National Express West Midlands service 256 takes us back to Stourbridge. We alight in Birmingham Street and by the time we have walked from Stand F to Stand C, our final bus of the day arrives and it is Black Diamond's service 276C which takes us back home dropping off Mr UKBuses first and I alight in Wollaston. I get my supper from Lucky House and take my Chinese takeaway home in time to watch this year's ITV I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here.

Another good day out, good laughs with good people, there is one final ARMS day out in 2011, which means only one thing, it is the Christmas outing - Anything can happen, it did last year!

Andy's Bald Cranium (ABC)

Bald Spot One: This was captured in a cold Cannock Bus Station, whilst waiting to get our bus to Lichfield. Considering the low temperature, there is a lot of cranium showing, I was expecting the hair to be long, enabling the bald spot to be kept warm.

Bald Spot Two: This was captured in Mr D9's favourite place, Tamworth, outside of the old Midland Red garage, which is now run by Arriva Midlands. This picture was caught whilst Mr D9 was reporting in, so a big thank you goes to Mrs D9, who kept him talking, enabling me to get the shot.

Bald Spot Three: This is the first night time shot I have ever got of the cranium as you can see the reflection from the station lightning, the picture is a bit blurred as the cranium moved. The location of this picture was in Rugeley Bus Station whilst waiting to return to Cannock.

2011 - Day Out 31: London - Rememberance Day

2011-11-17T21:26:00.000Z

Date: Sunday 13 November 2011

It is the last day of our weekend visit to London. We will be visiting the Cenotaph to pay our respects and observe the main Remembrance service held at Westminster, with Her Majesty The Queen taking part.

I wake up at 0715am after a well deserved sleep following yesterday's busy day and night out. I pop out for my morning "fresh air" break. Being in the fresh air also wakens me up a bit more. I make my way back to my room where I have a refreshing shower and get ready for the day ahead. We are checking out this morning, so I ensure that I have everything packed in my bag and before I make my way down to reception, I have one final check to ensure that I have left nothing behind. I pick up my bag, and make my way down to reception where I hand in my key card for the final time. I now have to wait for Mr UKBuses now, and while I do I can smell the breakfast in the breakfast room / bar. We don't have time this morning to help ourselves to an "all we can eat" breakfast as we need to get to Westminster so that we can get a good spot to watch the Remembrance service. Mr UKBuses gets his own back on me for meeting up with him late, last night before we hit the town, as I am down in the reception area for about fifteen to twenty minutes before he turns up. He hands his key card in and we leave the hotel for the final time as we make our way round the corner to the East India DLR station to get our DLR railway replacement bus to Canning Town Interchange. We don't have to wait long before a bus turns up and after boarding, it only takes a few minutes before we are at Canning Town ready to catch the tube to Westminster. As we make our way to the tube station, we are checking in all the shops along the way as Mr UKBuses needs to get a replacement poppy. This is his third this weekend, the first one he had, he lost it somewhere in Birmingham on the way to New Street Station. He purchased a replacement one yesterday from a lady during the Lord Mayor's Parade, and lost it shortly after on the tube. He is bound to get one when we arrive at Westminster, I wonder how long he will be wearing it?

We make our way to the platform at Canning Town and we are lucky as we only have to catch this tube to get us to Westminster. A tube arrives and we make our way along the Jubilee Line to get to us to our main destination for today, Westminster. It takes us just under twenty minutes and we arrive at Westminster. We only have a short walk to get to Whitehall, and along the way, Mr UKBuses is able to get a poppy to wear from a newsagent along the street, I get one too which replaces one that I have been wearing all weekend and has been battered about a bit, at least I have a crisp looking poppy to wear just in case we make an appearance on the television coverage. We are at Whitehall, and we are passed clear plastic bags to put our personal belongings in from our pockets as we have to have our bags checked and walk through a scanner before we can take our places. Mr UKBuses gets through okay, after having my bag checked, it is my turn to walk through the scanner and it goes off, I am ordered to one side where I have to have a body scan with a portable detector. It turns out that I left my inhaler in my pocket which contains metal, but I am allowed in and I am reunited with my bag. As I get my belongings (phone, camera, keys, etc) out of my bag, I find out that my policeman has left my packed clothes in a state, Mr UKBuses gets the personal touch as the WPC who checked his bag, helped him put his clothes back into his bag by folding them for him. We now have to find a place to stand so that we can watch the service.

It looks as we arrived at the right time as the crowds are starting to gather, we make our way up towards Downing Street, and we find a spot just up from the Cenotaph and a good view as The Queen will be standing virtually in front of us. We take our places and put down our bags, it is just before 0930am so we have to wait another hour before the service starts, we get here this early so that we can ensure we get a good place, but it looks like we will have to be even earlier next time, as people have had similar ideas and they are right at the front. Even before the service has begun, it feels strange to be here, even though there are hundreds of people here, there is no running around trying to get anywhere, the area is quiet considering the number of the crowds. After an hour, the bands / troops start to arrive, they make there way down Whitehall and as they take their spots on each side of the road, our view is restricted now as they stand in front of us, this doesn't worry Mr UKBuses as he still gets his pictures and videos by holding his camera in the air. The main service starts, and after another half hour, The Queen, Prince Charles and Prime Ministers past and present take their places by the Cenotaph. It is now eleven o'clock and as Big Ben tolls, the two minute silence starts, and it is surreal as you can hear a pin drop, the two minutes pass by with no problems apart from one person who decides to shout at the top of his voice "No More War". The last post is played which sends a shiver down my spine, The Queen and Prime Minister lays wreaths onto the Cenotaph, and a hymn is sung by all who attend followed by The Lords Prayer, and finally the national anthem, God Save The Queen. The current and ex-service men will make there way down Whitehall and to the Cenotaph to lay there wreaths, we leave at this point as we need to make our way across London to get a bite to eat and to catch our train back home. I'm glad that I have stayed in London so that I can experience this and pay my respects to those who lost their lives during the wars to protect our country.

When we get back home, we find out that we do make it onto the BBC coverage, a still from the coverage is shown above right, can you spot us. Video footage can be seen below.

We make our way back to Westminster tube station but we do find it hard going as we do get stuck a few times through the crowds along Whitehall, we have to squeeze through some very tight spots along the way. We finally make it past the security area and I do need a "fresh air break" after making my way through the crowd. Nerves calmed we make our way underground and we head onto the District Line and make our way to Victoria. Upon arrival we make our way to our last London J D Wetherspoons of the weekend, instead of using the pub in the station as we did yesterday, we head to where we would have gone yesterday for lunch, "The Willow Walk" and as Mr UKBuses finds a seat, I get the round in. We see the tail end of the coverage of the Remembrance Sunday on the pubs television, and it seems strange that we have just come from where the TV pictures are being filmed. Back to lunch, and Mr UKBuses and myself opt for our usual Wetherspoons fayre. After finishing our lunches, our main priority is to get to London Euston, where we need to catch our train back home, so we make our way back to Victoria tube station, and we jump onto the Victoria Line which will take us straight back to London Euston, or so we thought. There are problems up ahead on the Victoria Line with signals, and the tube services are being held up. As we make our way along the line, the train is being held at each station for about five minutes each time before moving again. We are starting to get tight for time, and as we arrive at Warren Street tube station, the driver informs us that we may be here for some time, so we decide that we will change onto the Northern Line at this station after the driver's announcement, so we make our way to the Northern Line, as we start to walk away from the platform, the tube closes its door and promptly makes its way to the next station, London Euston. We run to the Northern Line platforms at Warren Street, we didn't realise that it is a bit of a walk. As we arrive on the Northern Line platform, luckily a train arrives and we jump on to get us to London Euston. It is a last minute dash through the ticket barriers and into the main London Euston railway station. As we make our way up the escalators we find that our 1318pm Virgin Train will be departing from platform five. We can calm down now though as we have just over five minutes to get onto the platform and our train.

No time for a "fresh air" break, we make our way to platform five, and board our train, I do notice on our coach door that the service is leaving Euston at "1418" and think nothing of it, as we take our seats, we get a table seat as it is available, the time is 1318pm, and we pull off and start making our way towards Birmingham, as we pull out of London Euston, Mr UKBuses notices that he has lost his poppy, next year he will be stapling it to himself so he doesn't lose it. This should be a fast train as we are only stopping at Coventry and Birmingham International before we reach Birmingham New Street, but we are making a brief stop at Watford Junction states Mark, our Train Manager. After we pass Watford, I go to the shop to get refreshments and as I come back to Coach A, I utter the words "Tickets and passes, please", Mr UKBuses doesn't fall for it this time, but a passenger on the table opposite thought it was funny. After we stop at Coventry, Mark, our Train Manager informs us of the time that we will be arriving at our stations, it turns out that we will be back an hour later than the printed timetable, I then notice that the times on the display screens are an hour behind - I think Virgin Trains have forgot to put their clocks back a few weeks ago and are still operating to British Summer Time (BST). We arrive back in Birmingham New Street and have to wait about twenty minutes for our train to Smethwick Galton Bridge, luckily it is already on the platform opposite, so we take our seats and rest our legs. After twenty minutes we pull out of Birmingham New Street and head towards Smethwick Galton Bridge, where we change to the Snow Hill Line. We have another twenty minute wait at Smethwick Galton Bridge, but as it arrives we get on a "shiny new train", back to Stourbridge Junction where we change onto the Stourbridge Town Shuttle otherwise known as "The Parry's People Mover". As we arrive at Stourbridge Town, we head towards Birmingham Street and Stand C to get Black Diamond's service 276C back home to rest after an action packed weekend.

I've had a fantastic weekend in London, with a fantastic hotel and fantastic company. I cannot wait until we go down London again as I want to try out my Oyster card and be classed as a proper Londoner!

2011 - Day Out 30: London - Lord's Mayor Parade

2011-11-16T21:25:00.000Z

Date: Saturday 12 November 2011

Continuing our weekend in the Capital, we plan to visit the Lord's Mayor Parade which will be taking to the streets of London, and we also explore new places in the city.

After a sleepless night, I decide to get up just after 0715am and first on the agenda is a "fresh air" break, so I get myself to the front of the hotel. As I light up, I decide to have a little excursion whilst I smoke, and I decide to have a walk around to the back of the building which is opposite the hotel, after a couple of minutes I am at the back of the building and I am shocked at what I see before me, I see the East India DLR Station, I think that Mr UKBuses needs to learn to read a map after he took us the long way around to the hotel last night. After finishing my "fresh air" break, I go back to my hotel room to freshen up before breakfast. After my shower, I head down to reception where I meet up with Mr UKBuses so that we can have our breakfast before the day ahead. After a big helping of sausages and bacon, I decide to have a yoghurt, and another, and whilst Mr UKBuses is up I ask him to bring me another one, well it is an "all you can eat" breakfast. Breakfast finished, we head up to our rooms to freshen up before we start the day and meet back in reception ten minutes later. As there is no DLR in operation today, we have to make our way to Canning Town, we walk around the corner from the hotel so that we can catch our first bus of the weekend for the short journey to the Canning Town interchange. As we make our way past the hotel, we come to a crossroads, and Mr UKBuses is up to his old tricks again as he carries straight carries on. We turn back and turn right to where the bus stop really is, we only have to wait five minutes for First London Service 309 to turn up and take us to Canning Town.

As we arrive at Canning Town, we take a few photographs of the buses in the station before we make our way down to the tube to get us to our first destination of the day. We decide to visit Stratford, a place we have been trying to get to on previous visits but due to various reasons we have never got there. We make our way to the tube station where we get onto the Jubilee Line, and six minutes later we arrive at Stratford, I decide to get a photograph taken (above left) as a memento of our visit and to say that I have finally got there. We make our way out of the Stratford Interchange and it is one of the best interchanges I have ever visited, the bus, rail, tube and DLR services all meet in one place. The place is spotlessly clean, easy to navigate and all round passenger friendly. The bus station is currently being redeveloped, but from what I can see from the works that have already taken place, the bus station will be up to the same standard of the combined tube and railway station (see picture, right). At least one of the features of the new Stratford bus station will be exactly the same as the Stourbridge Interchange back home, and that is what I now call "The upside down umbrella", Stratford will have more when finished. We have a quick look around Stratford before we head back to the tube station. We arrive on our platform just as a tube train pulls in, we now make our way on the Central Line to Bank, or so we thought as the tube train is having problems with shutting it's doors, and after several attempts, the driver announces that the train will have to be taken out of service. As we wait a National Express train pulls in on the adjacent platform, but as we make our way to catch it, a tube train pulls up, so we get on board and we finally make our way to Bank.

We leave Bank Station and as we arrive outside of the entrance to the station, the crowds have already gathered along Poultry ready for The Lord Mayor's Parade. A man walks past selling flags and whistles, so I purchase a whistle as insurance for any "fracas" music that may be played over the rest of the weekend. We stay in Poultry to watch the parade take place. There are over 150 participants taking part in the parade, Mr UKBuses has taken video footage of mostly half of the floats that have passed. Whilst in the crowd, I am a sitting target for a couple of the floats. The first float that decides to throw something at me is a bean bag, it hits me right on the brow of my head. About ten minutes later another passing float decides to throw something at me, but this time I can forgive them as about half a dozen chocolate sweets decide to bounce of my noggin, Mr UKBuses is busy taking some video footage, so I grab the opportunity to pick up his share of the sweets and eat them while the rest of the parade goes by. During the parade, we see TV presenter Claire Balding go back and forth in front of us a few times as she interviewed people taking part in the parade. After an hour from the start of the parade, the final float goes past. We quickly make our way to the Bank tube station, before the rest of the crowds, and it is back onto the Central Line to Oxford Circus where we change onto the Victoria Line to take us to Victoria Station. We had planned to have lunch at Victoria but we were still a bit full from our big breakfast, so after taking a few photographs in the bus station, we decide to try out a new J D Wetherspoons in London (see picture, left) and it is situated in Victoria Station. It is a small Wetherspoons due to its location, but it is also a nice place to relax with a drink whilst waiting for a train. After we finish our drinks, we decide to deviate from the plan, as we are ahead of schedule.

We make our way to Victoria bus station, but on our way we decide to become proper Londoners, and we visit the London Transport Ticket Office at Victoria railway station and purchase an Oyster card for future trips to London, we pay £5 deposit for the cards and £5 for the first top up. This will save us the hassle of buying a one day travel card when we arrive in London each time, and we can top up our Oyster card online before we arrive in London. The card takes a standard fare off your card each time you scan it as you board a bus or tube, but as you reach the level of the one day travel card on the day of travel in London, no more fares will be taken off, unless you travel to the next zone and the same will happen. We get back to our day in London using our standard travel card and we deviate from the plan by having a ride on the buses of London as we are ahead of time. First off we catch the Go-Ahead London 436 from Victoria to Vauxhall. As we arrive in Vauxhall, we promptly catch the Go-Ahead London service 87 from Vauxhall to Trafalgar Square. At Trafalger Square we catch Go-Ahead London service 12 to Oxford Circus, and we get back onto the original plan. We have a walk down the busy Oxford Street through all of the shoppers doing their Christmas shopping. We get to our stop and wait for the next bus we are going to catch, as we are waiting I have to help a distraught French woman who is desperately trying to pay for her bus fare using the on-street ticket machines. The bus driver is getting irate too as he is starting to beep his horn, which makes her panic more. Whilst this is going on, our planned First London service 25 arrives and as Mr UKBuses boards, I nearly miss the bus, but I do get on....just.

We plan to go to Mile End, and en route we are diverted due to the Lords Mayor Parade and after about half an hour Mr UKBuses is up to his old tricks and gets off the bus early, very early as we get off at Aldgate and decide to take our last photographs of the day in Aldgate bus station, a great place to take photographs as we found out on our last trip to London. After taking our photographs, we cross the road to Aldgate tube station and use the tube to get to our originally planned destination of Mile End. I also get the opportunity to video my favourite thing about the tube - that is when the train comes out of the tunnel into the station, this can be seen in the video below (the lady starting to take her clothes off was an added bonus). We leave the station for a couple of minutes to see what the area is like, I think we may have been before on one of our previous visits, but we go back on the plan and we get back on the tube and onto the District Line to Temple. We make our way out onto ground level and there are quite a lot of people there already waiting for the Lord Mayors Parade fireworks, which are due to take place at 1700pm. A trip to the toilet is needed desperately by me, but we can not find any in the area, we decide to have a walk around the corner, and hidden away is a pub, which we enter straight away to use the facilities. Mr UKBuses leaves the toilets before me and decides to use a different entrance, I spend a few minutes searching for him, and notice the other entrance, and as he spots from across the road, he frantically waves his arms to get my attention. Once I catch up with him he asks me where have I been, I cannot print my response publicly.

It is decided that we won't stay and watch the fireworks, so we have a walk past the tube station and eventually we end up at a bus stop outside the Royal Courts of Justice. We wait a few minutes when Metroline London service 4 turns up and takes us to Waterloo station. We decide to have a bite to eat and we use McDonald's and we both order large meals, which also means that we are entitled to a limited edition Coca Cola glass. We spend a few minutes at our table to let our food settle, and we stay in the station and we use the Jubilee Line which takes us straight to Canning Town. We walk from the tube station to the bus station and we get our DLR rail replacement bus back to East India DLR station, where we walk the correct route back to the hotel, we arrive at 1845pm, so we head to our rooms so that we can freshen up and arrange to meet back at reception in an hour so that we can visit a few pubs on the evening.

It is 1945, and I head down to reception as planned and find Mr UKBuses already sitting there waiting for me, he informs me that he has been there for some time, so we head straight out and back to the East India DLR station to catch our rail replacement bus back to Canning Town Interchange. From there we head back onto the Jubilee Line to West Ham, where we change onto the District Line where we alight at one of our favourite places in London, Whitechapel. We are on the lookout for a new pub in the area, The Kray's local, "The Grave Maurice". From previous research on its location, we turn right as we head out of Whitechapel tube station, instead of our normal left, and walk down towards Aldgate. On the way I stop to get some cigarettes from a newsagent whilst Mr UKBuses stands outside. We carry on down the road, and Mr UKBuses thinks its the other way, so we catch a First London service 25, back up to our London regular, The Blind Beggar. This is Mr UKBuses first time in this pub on a night time, and it is a different atmosphere to our normal daytime experience, but the company in the pub is still good. Whilst we have our drinks, I get the Blackberry out and try and do some research on The Grave Maurice, and later find out that the pub has closed and is now a "Paddy Power" betting shop. The crazy thing about this was that Mr UKBuses was standing outside of it as I visited the newsagents as it was next door, and we ended carrying on towards Aldgate without realising. Drinks finished in the Blind Beggar, we walk to the nearest bus stop to catch our bus to the next drinking location.

We wait about ten minutes and a First London service 25 bus turns up, which takes us on the short journey down Whitechapel to Aldgate East tube station, from here we try to retrace our steps from a couple of years ago down Commercial Street, after a ten minute walk, we arrive at The Ten Bells, a pub which is supposed to have been the regular haunt for Jack The Ripper. We arrive and there are a load of people outside and that is because this pub is popular, but the pub is too small to accommodate these people. Since our last visit a couple of years ago, they have moved the bar from its original location to the centre of the pub, which has also made less space available for customers, a crazy idea if you ask me as the pub had capacity problems before the change. For me, the movement of the bar has also ruined this pub for me, as it has ruined the atmosphere of the pub and also it means that the pub doesn't have the original "Jack The Ripper" days feel to it. As we are getting cold as we are with the crowds outside, we drink up and make our way to the bus stop, in which First London service 67 arrives to take us the short distance to the Aldgate East tube station. We jump onto the District Line, where we change onto the Central Line to Stratford.

We arrive in Stratford for the second time in one day (probably because we enjoyed the visit earlier and we simply had to come back) and as we walk through the shopping centre, opposite the interchange, it takes us to the main High Street area of the town and we decide to have a drink in "The Longthorne", previously a Yates pub. A trip to the toilet is needed first before purchasing any drinks as we are finding it difficult to walk as we are bursting to go. We choose a seat by the window, to rest our feet for a while. Drinks finished we make our way back to the interchange, and find out where we need to get our DLR rail replacement buses to get back to the hotel. We see a few pulled up at one stop and upon closer inspection these are the buses that we need to catch. We catch the bus to Canary Wharf, passing through many DLR stations, I do get excited when we pass Devon's Road, this was the DLR station I had to use when I had to visit the offices of my work when we had a presence in the London area.

We arrive at Canary Wharf where we have a little walk to get to the Canary Wharf tube station. From here we get onto the Jubilee Line, but before we catch our train, Mr UKBuses has to visit the toilet, which I tease him about as he was stating that I was the person who has the bladder trouble, revenge is sweet! We get on to the tube and shortly after we arrive at Canning Town, where we catch the DLR replacement bus to East India DLR station and finally arrive back at the hotel. Mr UKBuses goes to bed, whilst I have a drink in the hotel bar where I catch up with emails on my Blackberry, before finally climbing into bed myself.

An action packed day was had by both with new locations visited. Mr UKBuses finally had a night time experience in The Blind Beggar. We look forward to our last day in London, and hope it will be as enjoyable as today's activities.

2011 - Day Out 29: London

2011-11-11T13:21:00.001Z

Date: Friday 11 November 2011

It will be our last visit to the capital this year, so Mr UKBuses and myself decide to spend the weekend in London which means that we will be able to see The Lords Mayor Parade, as we have seen in previous years and we can also see Remembrance Sunday at the Cenotaph.

Work have allowed me to leave half an hour early, but I also sneak off a few minutes earlier so that I can make my way down to National Express West Midlands Pensnett Garage where I will meet Mr UKBuses who will give me a lift home so that I can have a quick bite to eat before we leave for London and also so I can pick up my bag. Before we get back home though, Mr UKBuses pulls up outside a newsagents in Kingswinford so that he can get an Express and Star for his mom, I do the honours and also get Mr UKBuses a poppy as he as lost his. After making our way through Wordsley and Amblecote, beating the rush hour traffic, we arrive in Wollaston where Mr UKBuses drops me off at home. As soon as I get in, my tea is ready so I eat it fast so that I can pack my final few things for the weekend, I also have a quick freshen up before getting changed and have a final check to see if I have everything.

I now make my way back to Wollaston village where I board the 1726pm National Express West Midlands service 276, which will take Mr UKBuses and myself to Stourbridge Junction. As I take my seat, I send a text to Mr UKBuses to ensure he is at his stop, and as the bus makes its way through Norton, Mr UKBuses is at his stop and boards the bus. We make our way through Stourbridge, and as we pass the construction site which will be the Stourbridge Interchange, we can not see any progress as it is too dark. After a couple of minutes wait in Stourbridge, we make our way around the ring road again and shortly after we arrive at Stourbridge Junction, being dropped off virtually outside the station as Mr UKBuses uses his powers by ordering the driver to drop us off after the proper bus stop. We have a shorter walk to the railway station, and before we catch our train, we buy our One Day Travelcards for use in London on Saturday and Sunday. We time it right as the person in the ticket office informs us that a Birmingham bound train is waiting to depart on Platform 3.

We board our train and we arrive just under half an hour later at Birmingham Snow Hill. We have a little time to kill in Birmingham before our London train is due, so as we make our way to the next station, we divert to Bennett's Hill, where we have a quick drink in J D Wetherspoons' "The Briar Rose", the pub is busy, so Mr UKBuses finds a seat as I buy the drinks. Between Birmingham Snow Hill and The Briar Rose, Mr UKBuses has lost his poppy, so he makes a mental note to purchase another one in London tomorrow ready for the Remembrance service on Sunday. Drinks finished and toilets visited, we make our way to New Street Station via The Pallasades and as we arrive we check the destination board to ensure that there are no problems with the train that we are catching. We find out that our train will be leaving from Platform 5 on time, so after getting refreshments from WH Smiths for the train journey, we make our way to the platform where our train is waiting.

We board our Virgin train and take our seats and to keep us busy on our journey ahead, we decide to make notes for crossing points on the upcoming charity walk for the 246 route at the end of November that we will be taking up the honours of marshalling the traffic en route. We go through the maps twice and make notes of how the marshalling will work. We think that this will keep us busy for the most of the journey, when we finish we have a look at what station the train has stopped at and we discover that it is only Coventry, we still have just over an hour to go before we arrive in London, we can not even look at the scenery outside as it is pitch black. The drinks we had at the pub earlier are catching up on me, and after visiting the toilet, I make my way back into coach A, where with a posh voice I try and do my impression of the ticket inspector and say "Tickets and passes please" just after I have walked through the carriage entrance. I seem to have fooled Mr UKBuses as I'm sure he nearly pulled his tickets out for inspection.

We arrive at London Euston and we now need to get our ticket for the journey on the tube to the hotel in the East India district of the Docklands. We don't know where we need to purchase these from as the normal London Transport ticket office is shut, we make our way to the Virgin ticket offices to see if they can gives us the appropriate ticket, but when I ask for "two single tickets to East India", the man behind the counter looks at me gone out before he informs me that we need to purchase our tickets from downstairs in the tube station. Before we do that, we head outside so that I can have a much needed "fresh air" break, and after I have finished we make our way down to the London Euston tube station. We both don't have any change, so we have to wait in a long queue for our tickets. After waiting about twenty minutes, we get our tube tickets, and after passing through the ticket barriers, we make our first tube journey of the weekend, and as we arrive in Bank, we change from the tube and we get on the Docklands Light Railway to our destination at East India. This would be our only trip on the DLR this weekend as there are engineering works for the rest of our stay.

We alight at East India DLR station, and we need to find the hotel. After a walk of about ten minutes following the main road and quite a few office complexes, we arrive at our hotel, Travelodge Docklands (the photo can be seen at the top of this blog post), as we book in at reception we decide to book breakfast for tomorrow morning, especially as it an "all you can eat" breakfast buffet. After booking in, we decide to drop our bags off in our rooms, and after a quick freshening up, we both meet back up in reception where we decide to have a couple of pints before we go to bed in the hotel bar, as can be seen in the photograph, right. As we settle down in the bar, I notice a man in a CM Punk T-shirt, and after a few more minutes, a load more people descend upon the hotel wearing different wrestling t-shirts. It seems that the WWE are in town and the WWE Raw brand have been showing off there wrestling skills in the nearby 02 arena. If only I had known, I would have booked the day off and come down to London earlier in the day and watched the event whilst Mr UKBuses made his way from work. As we finish our second pint we decide it is time for bed, I wish Mr UKBuses a goodnight, and pop outside for a "fresh air" break before I hear my bed calling.

It has been a different experience as we travelled down toward London during the evening and also in the dark. The weekend has got off to an enjoyable start ahead of the next couple of days.....

2011 - Day Out 28: Birmingham Brawlings

2011-11-10T10:28:00.001Z

Date: Monday 07 November 2011

The WWE Smackdown Superstars are in town, so it is a good opportunity to see the guys in live action, rather than on the television, whilst they are in the country on the European Tour.

First of all, I have to pick up Mrs SBI and Little SBI, so after getting into Stourbridge, I catch National Express West Midlands (NXWM) Service 257 to Kingswinford. After arriving at Mrs SBI's residence, I help get an overnight bag packed and subsequently have to repack again as I break the zip. Before we make our way to Birmingham, we have to pick up Little SBI, and so we pick him up for school "so that he can go to a family gathering". We make a quick visit back home so that Little SBI can quickly get changed and so that we can also pick up our overnight bag and my replica WWE World Heavyweight Championship Belt - It is not only Little SBI who wants to see the wrestling!!!

With Little SBI changed, we are all ready to make our way, so we get to our stop in Stallings Lane, and after a few minutes wait, in which we look at the redecorating progress of The British Oak, our NXWM's service 257 arrives and we make the trip to Stourbridge. After passing through Kingswinford and Wall Heath, we arrive in Stourbridge and we have a few steps to walk from our temporary stop to the NXWM Service 9 stop, but Little SBI carries on to the layover stop and tells the driver to hurry up, he must be excited! Whilst we are waiting the Pensnett Garage drivers are having a joke with the woman driver, they point at something on the entrance and she subsequently bends over to have a closer look, I catch one of the male drivers having a cheeky look at her cheeks (so to speak). Its not long after our NXWM Service 9 pulls up and we board ready to make our way to Birmingham, Mrs SBI decides to have a little joke by sitting upstairs, normally I don't mind this as it keeps Little SBI happy, but I cannot bend very well as I have a big belt around my waist limiting bendiness!!!

We make our way through Halesowen and Quinton, and eventually we arrive in Broad Street in Birmingham, and I have to guess when to press the button to get off for the hotel, and luckily I correctly guess as when we alight, the Birmingham Central Travelodge is virtually opposite. We check in, and we can go to our room which is on the fifth floor and drop our bags off and give my waist a rest by taking off my belt for a couple of hours. After dropping our stuff off, we head back onto Broad Street, where we catch the bus for a short trip into the City, and we alight at Colmore Row. We decide to look for food before having a quick look around the shops, and so we head to JD Wetherspoons, "The Square Peg", where we feed ourselves, bet you can't guess what I had? We have a few minutes so that the food can go down, and we spend a little time looking around a couple of shops before heading back to Colmore Row and getting NXWM's service 9 for a short journey back to our hotel.

We have a little rest back at the hotel before we get ready for the main event of the day. We eventually leave the hotel at around 5.00pm and catch the bus back into the city where we alight at Colmore Row and walk to Moor Street to get NXWM's service 900 to Birmingham International Railway Station. It takes us about 45 minutes to get there due to the peak traffic from the city, we alight at Birmingham International and now we have to try and find the LG Arena, our host for the WWE Smackdown Tour tonight. As we are in the bus station we spot a few men dressed up as WWE characters, so we decide to follow them, seeing one of them as disguised himself as "Papa Shango", I decide to show off my belt. We make our way upstairs and head towards the NEC, we have to turn right before we reach there and have a short walk to the LG Arena. I get a few looks off the kids passing as they make there way to the arena, I think they like my belt, I also get a few good comments from the adults, or should I say big kids attending the show too.

We arrive at the LG Arena, and after we have our tickets scanned we are inside and first of all a trip to the toilet is needed, and Little SBI is eager to get to the merchandise stand. Little SBI wants everything from John Cena Armbands to a Sin Cara Mask, but he does eventually opt for a John Cena T-Shirt, and we throw in a show programme as well. I have to have a shirt as well and I opt for a "Christian's Hit The Switch" T-shirt. Mrs SBI feels left out, so she gets herself a Sheamus T-Shirt. After we spend all of my money, we make our way to our seats, but Little SBI changes into his John Cena T-shirt first, we eventually find the stairs for Block 1, and we climb the stairs to find our seats. The usher informs us that our seats have been changed and we find ourselves in better seats with a better view. I decide to follow Little SBI's enthusiasm and change into my Christian top, and whilst doing this the fans behind me decide to check out my belt and find that I must be strong as they also feel the weight of it. It is not long before the show starts and as the lights dim, we prepare ourselves for our first live WWE event, what we didn't prepare for is the pyrotechnics that go off and what makes it worse for us is that they are virtually in front of us. After we have our heart attacks we keep our eyes on the entrance and see who is the first to wrestle....

William Regal Versus Daniel Bryan

The first match of the night is between William Regal, one of the British wrestlers who is signed to the WWE, and the American Daniel Bryan, one of the newer signings to the WWE. The match demonstrates a lot of the classic scientific moves, William Regal scores the pin, he had to really seeing as he is the Brit. After the match Regal gets the microphone, thanking his opponent for a good match, and it turns out that Daniel Bryan was one of the many wrestlers that have been trained by Regal (on later research, it turns out that Regal has trained many of the superstars who are appearing tonight). Regal also thanked Robbie Brookside, who was in tonight's audience, for training him, all them years ago.

Jinder Mahal Versus Johnny Curtis

The second match is about to start, and Johnny Curtis is making his way to the ring. As he is halfway down the aisle, Jinder Mahal runs down and attacks him from behind. He pulls Johnny into the ring where he attacks him a bit more. At this point a medic makes his way to the ring and it looks like Jinder won't be wrestling a proper match. Mick Foley's ring music starts blaring out, and the audience are surprised that Mick Foley is making an appearance, his first in a very long time for the WWE. Foley grabs a microphone and talks to the crowd, and then he calls out Curtis' replacement and Tyson Kidd makes his way to the ring, and the bell rings and Kidd wrestles Mahal. The match finishes and is won by Tyson Kidd after outside interference from Mick Foley.

Tamina Versus AJ (with guest referee Aksana)

Next up was a WWE divas match, with the main divas in Liverpool for the RAW tour, and television taping, we have Tamina and AJ with the match being refereed by Aksana. This match was a slow match and it didn't cause a lot of reaction judging by the audience being quiet for most of the match.

Christian Versus Sheamus

The last match before a break, and so Christian's music blared out and he came down to the ring. His opponent was about to come down to the ring, and as his music started, Mrs SBI started to scream, one of her favourites was on his way to the ring, the flame haired Sheamus. After my hearing came back, the match had started, and it was also a funny start as Christian and Sheamus had a bit of banter going. As Christian had took his shirt off and about to throw it to the audience, Sheamus grabbed it and wiped it on his bottom. He then held it up like a matador, and Christian got in the act as he bent down as if he was a bull about to charge. Shenanigans over, and the wrestling started, throughout the match, the crowd and Mrs SBI were chanting for Sheamus, I was in the minority and I was cheering on Christain. After a fast moving match, Sheamus got the pin, and Mrs SBI had a big smile on her face.

It is time for a break in proceedings, and Mrs SBI decides she feels left out so she is the first to go for a toilet break and then change into her Sheamus t-shirt. Little SBI and myself wait so that we don't lose our seats, so after ten minutes Mrs SBI returns and Little SBI and myself have the opportunity to go for a toilet break, and we dash as I am desperate to go. After the toilet break I get some more liquid refreshment and we make our way back to our seats, we time it right, as soon as we take our seats the second half of the show begins....

Sin Cara Vs Yoshi Tatsu

Time for the next match, and it was Sin Cara's and Yoshi Tatsu's turn to wow the crowds. Sin Cara had entered the ring in his high flying way, and as Yoshi was waiting in the ring, Sin Cara had gone to the crowd, picked up a home made poster and took it to the ring and ripped it up. It turned out that this was the evil Sin Cara, in the Goody Sin Cara's ring attire. After the bell had rung, the two lighter weighted wrestlers gave us a good fast match with high flying moves. It was Sin Cara who got the pin.

Ted Dibiase & Randy Orton Vs Cody Rhodes & Wade Barrett

Next up was a tag-team match, and the first team to come down was Cody Rhodes and Mancunian born Wade Barrett. For the other side, Ted Dibiase made his way to the ring, and as he is about to enter the ring, Wade and Cody attempt to double team him even before the match had started. Ted turned around to the curtains to signal his partner to come down. Randy Orton's music blared from the main speakers and very loud screams blared from Mrs SBI's mouth, her other favourite wrestler is on the show, and my ears are definitely going to need some medical attention in the morning! After a well thought match, there was only going to be one winner, and after RKO'ing his opponents, Randy Orton and Ted Dibiase get the win. As the RKO was about to be used, so was Mrs SBI's vocal chords again. If I come to another WWE live event with her, I will have to bring some ear plugs!

Big Show Vs Mark Henry

Time for the last match and the main event. It is a World Heavyweight Championship match between the current champion, Mark Henry and The Big Show. They both make their entrances, with the crowd booing Henry and cheering for the Big Show. The Big Show is a bit of a joker who has always got a smile on his face. As he climbs onto the ring edge, he holds onto the ropes before giving a "booty shake" and entering the ring. Before the bell rings, the referee does his final checks, and ensures that there aren't no hidden weapons hidden on the wrestlers. After the Big Show is checked, he plays another joke by turning round, sticking his bottom out and asking the referee if he wants to ensure that nothing is hidden there. The belt is held high in the air by the referee before the bell rings. Despite the size of both wrestlers, the match is quite a good one. Seeing as this is a house show, the championship rarely changes hands as it is not televised, so we know that the Big Show cannot win by pin fall. The Big Show does win the match though, by disqualification after Mark Henry gets a steel chair and hits the big show with it in full view of the referee.

After the main event finishes, we have fifteen minutes to get back to the bus stops at Birmingham International, so we make a dash, and luckily the doors are open by our block entrance, so we save a few minutes walk, we head back to the National Exhibition Centre, and along the main walkways back to the station, we arrive at the bus stops just as NXWM's Service 900 pulls up to take us back to Birmingham. After half an hour, we arrive in Moor Street, Birmingham, so we walk through the Bull Ring, where we pass the bull glistening in the moonlight. We are feeling peckish, so we make our way around to The Pallasades to have a crafty McDonald's before we go back to the hotel. After we have eaten, we walk up to Colmore Row to catch the bus back to the hotel, as we arrive, NXWM's Service 9 pulls off. We think that this is the last bus, but upon closer inspection, we discover that there is one more. We wait at the stop for about ten minutes, when a NXWM Service 126 pulls up. We decide to jump on this as it goes past the hotel. After about five minutes we arrive back at the hotel, where we go straight to bed. In the morning, we will make our way back home, that is after sampling one of J D Wetherspoons tasty fried breakfasts!

A good day out and a new experience by watching WWE live rather than on television. I certainly enjoyed it and I think Little SBI thoroughly enjoyed it, the best part of the evening for Mrs SBI was the appearances by her favourites, Sheamus and Randy Orton. The WWE normally makes two trips to the UK each year, and after tonight's WWE experience, I think a visit to the next live show is definitely on the cards.

2011 - Day Out 27: Pensnett Garage

2011-11-06T11:51:00.000Z

Date: Wednesday 02 November 2011

I am sadly at work, toiling away, and at about 11.30, an email desktop alert appears. I have an email from Mr UKBuses, asking me "If I want to come down to his workplace, National Express West Midlands Pensnett Garage, to have my picture taken?". I reply with no hesitation, "Yes, I'll be down in a bit."

There is a reason for this impromptu visit to Pensnett Garage. On 2 August, I helped out with traffic marshaling on a charity walk that was organised by National Express West Midlands Pensnett Garage driver Dave Gerrard. The walk followed the National Express West Midlands 246 route from Dudley to Stourbridge, and just after the two hour mark, the walk was completed when the Pensnett Garage drivers who took part arrived at the temporary stands in Birmingham Street. The money which was raised would be going to the Children's Unit at Russell's Hall Hospital. I did volunteer to assist the walkers across busy road junctions with Mr UKBuses and we would be going ahead on a supporting bus, ready for the walkers to arrive, for some reason I ended up walking the whole distance of the 246 route, and I cannot complain as I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

Back to today, the reason Mr UKBuses has got in touch with me was because Dave Gerrard would be officially handing over the cheque to The Children's Unit, and it is also being covered with a story and a photograph in the local media, The Express and Star (as can be seen left, click on the picture for a larger view) and also The Stourbridge News. Mr UKBuses kindly asked me if I could pop along so that I could appear. Luckily, I work on the Pensnett Trading Estate and my workplace is just a couple of minutes walk to the garage. I inform my work colleagues that I will be having an early lunch break, so at 11:50am, I walk through my office door, and walk the short distance down Second Avenue. As I arrive at Pensnett Garage, I ring Mr UKBuses and tell him that I am just about to arrive, so that he can come and meet me, and also means that he can help me follow the Health and Safety Regulations by bringing me down an HI-Viz Jacket to wear whilst on the premises.

I spot Dave talking to his manager, so I give a quick hello to him, when his manager asks me "Where is your Hi-Viz?", at that point Mr UKBuses appears out of the garage building to save the day, and he gives me a Hi-Viz, which I quickly put on. It is a bit windy, so Mr UKBuses invites me into the traffic office, where I spot Dave's long suffering wife, Carol, so I have a little chat, it is through Carol that I know Dave, as I used to work with her years ago and he used to meet her out of work and also giving me earache with his barrage of jokes whilst he waited for her. We still have a few minutes to wait for the member of staff from the Children's Unit to arrive, so after being introduced to Mr UKBuses work colleagues, he decides to give me a tour of Pensnett Garage.

First off, he shows me the travel office, and I take note of the Health and Safety notice board, spotting the Health and Safety Policy, which is a bit ironic, as I have just been working on the policy for the company I work for at my place of work. We go round the corner and we arrive in the engineering area, and there are are a couple of vehicles in the pits having work done on them, at least I can vouch for the garage if anyone thinks that no works are done to their vehicles, this place looked busy to me, at this point Mr UKBuses thinks that I'm strange as I love the smell of oil. We go around another corner and Mr UKBuses takes me upstairs and into the administration office, this is also his office where he keeps the garage ticking over during the day. I spot his desk before he tells me, it is the one where there is absolutely no paperwork on and a few scuff marks on the corner from where he puts his feet up for most of the day (only joking Mr UKBuses!!). It is by the window, so he can keep an eye out over the estate. We now go back downstairs, but not before he shows me where the garage manager's office is, something which he has his eyes on in the future. We are back downstairs in the travel office, and it isn't long before we are called out into the yard.

The nurse, Karen, who is accepting the cheque has arrived, and the photographer is ready to take our picture. We all line up alongside the bus which has the destination blind showing "246 Charity Walk". We are told that we have to recreate the cover off the Madness album "One Step Beyond", the cover showing the band members doing a strange kind of walk. So we take our places, and after we are sorted out by height, which means that Mr UKBuses and myself are towards the back, we put our left legs out and our left arms in the air. At this point, the wind starts to blow, so I am struggling to keep my hair out of my face and wish that the photographer would get his picture. Dave and Karen are at the front with Dave kneeling on the ground. Whilst we are in place, a couple of Mr UKBuses work colleagues decide to use the pose to their advantage and with their arms stretched outwards, decide that they can just swing around and Mr UKBuses could be hit, the photographer notices this behaviour and it is Mr UKBuses that gets the telling off!

The photographer from the Stourbridge News is also present, and luckily, she decides to take a picture to the same style, with Dave and Karen doing a different pose at the front. This photograph only takes a couple of minutes to shoot, and luckily the wind has died down, so my hair behaves itself. Dave's wife, Carol notices that the door on the bus is closed and that her handbag is inside, so I get the opportunity to do something that I have wanted to do for years, and that is press the outside button to open them. Another driver closes them from the inside and jumping out before the doors are shut. After a brief thank you speech from Dave, Mr UKBuses decides to get on the bus and change the destination display to show the next destination for the next charity walk, if things go to plan this will be taking place at the end of November. After he has come out of the drivers cab, he leaves the doors open, so he gives me the chance to fulfil another dream, that is to stand on the platform, press the button inside the bus above the door, and then jump off whilst dodging the closing doors. I've only been waiting 30 years to do that!!

It is time for me to go back to work, so I thank Mr UKBuses and Dave for inviting me along, hand my hi-viz back and walk back along Second Avenue back to my desk in my office. The final total raised by the walk in August and handed over today to the Children's Unit at Russell's Hall Hospital was £1250. Another charity walk is planned for the final Sunday in November, weather permitting. We are still going to be walking the National Express West Midlands 246 route, but we are going the reverse way of the route we did in August, and that is from Stourbridge Bus Station to Dudley Bus Station. This will be harder as it will be colder and also it will be mainly uphill. I have already been volunteered to help out on the day, and I will be with Mr UKBuses on the support bus helping out doing the marshaling and helping the participants across the roads safely, lets hope that my road crossing skills have been passed down to me from my mom.

I would like to thank Dave Gerrard, Mr UKBuses and other staff at National Express West Midlands for inviting me "down the road", and letting me have my picture taken for the newspapers and also extra thanks to Mr UKBuses for kindly showing me around a bus depot for the first time, so at least I know how things work in bus land. If the walk goes ahead as planned, you will read about it here first.

2011 - Day Out 26: Liverpool

2011-10-24T13:22:00.000+01:00

Date: Saturday 22 October 2011

It is our second trip of October, and whilst we still have the natural daylight to go further afield, we have decided to go back up north to one of our favourite destinations, the city of Liverpool.

It is an early start, and I walk into Stourbridge, where I will meet Mr UKBuses, who is catching the bus to the ring road stop. As I make my way into Stourbridge, it is still very dark, the British Summertime is fading, and so is the temperature, I button my coat to keep my body heat in, and finally make my way to the bus stop located on Stourbridge Ring Road. I wait a few minutes, and Mr UKBuses bus is running early and just after 07:15, he turns up. We have to wait a while for our next bus, so we take a seat in the bus shelter and just after ten minutes, our National Express West Midlands Service 246 turns up and we are on our way to Dudley to make our way to Wolverhampton as there is no direct bus to Wolverhampton from Stourbridge until 08:35. After passing through Brierley Hill and Russell's Hall Hospital, we arrive at Dudley Bus Station, and we make a change to the plan already as we catch National Express West Midlands Service 1 which will take us into Wolverhampton.

After making our way through Sedgley we arrive in Wolverhampton, and we alight outside of the Central Library, and we walk past The Midland Metro terminus and past the new bus station. We have a while before our train arrives, and we head to our first J D Wetherspoons of the day, "The Moon Under Water", where we have breakfast, and a few minutes after ordering our bacon rolls arrive and we fuel ourselves up for the journey ahead. We let our breakfast go down for a few minutes before heading out into the autumn cold air and a quick walk down Railway Drive, we arrive at Wolverhampton Railway Station ready for our service to arrive at 09:19. Our train is on time and we board our London Midland train. We make our way through the carriages where we find a table seat to relax in, but after we take our seats, a gang of woman board and from the noise, it seems that they are going to Liverpool for a hen do. Even though the hens make a bit of noise on our journey, Mr UKBuses is able to rest his eyes for half of the journey, and despite the hens noise and Mr UKBuses snoring, I am able to catch forty winks as well. After nearly one and a half hours, we arrive in Liverpool and we alight our train at Liverpool Lime Street. Whilst at the station, we get our All Areas Saveaway tickets for use on the bus and ferry around Liverpool today.

We make our way out onto the Liverpool streets and we pass our usual boarding place, The Hood Street "Hub", and make our way around the corner to St Thomas Street, where we will catch our first bus of the day. We have a few minutes to wait, so we decide to get a few photographs. Our first bus arrives, Arriva North West's Service 433, which will take us under the River Mersey to New Brighton. We take our seats, and we head towards The Kingway Tunnel, and this is our first time in using this tunnel. This is the newer of the Mersey Tunnels, and was opened in 1971. We are only under the tunnel for a few minutes and then after a journey of just under thirty minutes, we arrive at our destination, New Brighton. A few photographs are taken before we decide to pop into Morrison's to get ourselves a drink. I introduce Mr UKBuses to self service by using the self-service tills to pay for our drinks. We take a walk around the back of the supermarket and sit on the banks of the Mersey and have a rest whilst supping our drinks. After enjoying the views we decide to make our way out of the wind and back to the bus stop. Our Arriva North West Service 411 turns up to take us to our next destination, Seacombe, where will catch the ferry back into the city. En route and Mr UKBuses is panicking as the bus is running slightly late due to traffic. We arrive at the Seacombe ferry terminal and as we make our way to the bus stops area I can see the ferry making its way to moor and load, we alight and walk fast to the terminal building where we get our tickets and make our way down to the loading area. We make it in time and board.

Mr UKBuses has to make a bladder stop and after pointing him in the wrong direction nearly making him go down below to the engine area, he finally finds the correct area and after making his visit, we make our way to the top of the ferry and take our seats. Within a minute of sitting on top deck, the wind obliterates Mr UKBuses hair, obviously he did not use the string hold Brylcreem this morning. A first for me again today, as this is my first time of catching the ferry this way round, and after we make a visit to the Woodside / Birkenhead ferry terminal, we eventually are on the ferry 'cross the Mersey back to the main city. We arrive on the right side of the Mersey, and we make our way out of the Pier Head terminal a different way from previous visits and luckily at the entrance is a bus stop in which our next bus will visit, so after a couple of minutes wait, our Cumfybus Service C2 arrives and takes us back to main shopping area, where we will stop for lunch. We alight, and Mr UKBuses gets the wrong stop, so we have to follow the C2 on foot, but it is too quick and we are searching for our Wetherspoons. We pass The Cavern Club, and luckily it is a Wetherspoons that I tried before and we find "The Welkin", we enter the building and before purchasing our drinks we try and find a table, but the pub is jam packed, upstairs and downstairs, so we vacate the premises and I get my bearings and we decide to go to another Wetherspoons, "The Fall Well", see picture right. It seems that we may have the same problem, but I order the drinks and Mr UKBuses does find a table, he pounces on a table whilst the previous occupants are just getting up! We have a little rest before ordering, and after perusing the menu, Mr UKBuses opts for his BBQ Chicken Melt "without the cheese", and I opt for my usual Beer and Burger. It doesn't take long before the food arrives and we consume the food. We let the food settle and after vacating our table for the next customers to use straight away, we make our way towards the bus stop, which we have to pass the Hood Street "Hub" again and we eventually find Victoria Street, where we wait for a couple of minutes before our Arriva North West Service 464 arrives to take us to Birkenhead.

We board and we make our way through the streets to go under water again, but this time we are using the older Mersey Tunnel, The Queensway Tunnel, which was opened in 1934. This is also a first again on this trip, as this is the first time that I have used the tunnel in this direction. After a few minutes underground we arrive in Birkenhead and we alight at the bus station. After a few photographs, we take a walk down Claughton Road and past the new Asda which I have seen being built on all my visits to Liverpool, it looks like it will be ready for business soon. After we pass the new Asda, we arrive at our now Birkenhead regular pub, The Mackenzie, see picture left. It is Mr UKBuses round, and after our drinks are purchased we take a seat at our normal table. I must say that this is one of my favourite pubs in the Liverpool area, the visits to this place made more pleasant with the friendly staff and customers. Time for a quick cheers photo, see right, and we make our way back to the bus station. We make our way back, and we make our way round to Stand 7, and we deviate from the plan and we catch our first First bus, with First in Chester & Wirral service 72 doing the honours of taking us back to Liverpool through The Queensway Tunnel. It is not long before we are back Liverpool side of the Mersey, and we alight at Whitechapel, and take a short walk to Elliot Street, nearly getting lost along the way as we decide to take a short cut, but we don't get lost as we find our stop and we take a short ride on Arriva North West's service 86, to sample a couple of pubs that were spotted on our last visit.

We are only on the bus for a few minutes before we arrive in Hardman Street, and we alight the bus just outside our next refreshment stop, a place called "The Flute". We make our way indoors and whilst Mr UKBuses finds a table, I wait at the bar and wait and wait. The service in this pub is poor, with the woman who is serving being overtaken by a snail as she serves other customers, and a man who thinks it is more important to restock the fridges, despite looking around a couple of times to see people waiting. I do eventually get served and it looks like I make in time as when I get to Mr UKBuses he looks like he is about to pass out from a dry throat. The pub looks like it used mainly by students, as can be seen by the age of the people using this pub. It is time to take a cheers photo and disaster strikes, the battery in my camera has gone, and I forgot to charge my spare battery. I think it is time to move on, and we decide to take a few steps closer towards the city and visit the pub virtually next door, "The Fly in the Loaf". The pub looks amazing before we have set foot inside due to the exterior decor, which gives the pub a traditional feel. We step inside and you can tell that this is one of the real ale connoisseur favourites, and the pub seems so much better than The Flute, with loads of space due to the large sized of the pub. Mr UKBuses comes to the rescue and lends me his camera so that I can take a cheers photo, he simply pops my memory card into his camera so I can make this possible, as can be seen right, - cheers! After supping our drinks it is time to catch the bus back into the city, and it is quite a few minutes we have to wait before one turns up. We jump back on service 86, and decide to go to the Liverpool One Bus Station, remembering to alight at the bus stop rather than being dropped off in the staff only lay by area, like we did on our last visit. Photographs are taken around the station, and we make our way to stand 10, where our Arriva North West Service 82 bus takes us back into the main city.

We have about forty five minutes left before we have to catch our train and we are back at the station, so Mr UKBuses opts for a Burger King, whilst I visit Marks and Spencer's to eat on the train back. Mr UKBuses finishes his burger and we head outside so that I can have some "fresh air" before boarding our train. It is starting to get cold now, so we head back indoors and to Platform 7, where our Virgin Train is waiting. We find our seats and we get comfortable for the journey back, with the train heating warming us up. We depart Liverpool Lime Street and make our way back to the West Midlands. Mr UKBuses decides to have a nap and I tuck into my food. We pass through Crewe, and it isn't long before we arrive at Stafford where we have to alight so that we can catch our London Midland train to take us back to Wolverhampton. We move over to Platform 4, and we only have to wait a few minutes before our train arrives. Whilst we wait, we notice that Stafford Railway Station does not have a Platform 2.

We only have a short journey to make and it doesn't take long before we arrive back in Wolverhampton. We make our way from the Wolverhampton Railway Station and across the new footbridge to take us to the new Wolverhampton Bus Station. We arrive at our stand and the bus turns up early, with the driver kindly letting us on so that we can warm up, and it isn't long before we slowly make our way back to Stourbridge passing through Wombourne and Kingswinford along the way. We arrive back in Stourbridge just a few minutes late to catch our bus back home, so we kill a bit of time by walking past the building site of the new Stourbridge Interchange to see how it is progressing and back to our stop where Black Diamond's Service 276C will take us back home and into the warmth.

I've had another fun day out, and have noticed that I have really enjoyed the last couple of outings, which is a good way to see the end of the year out. I am sure that our last few trips in 2011 will be to the same standard of today's trip to Liverpool. A big thank you to Mr UKBuses for making the day a success.

2011 - Day Out 25: West Midlands

2011-10-02T14:18:00.000+01:00

Date: Saturday 01 October 2011

It is the first day of October, but it doesn't feel like it, with leaves on the ground it looks as if it is autumn, but the temperature is 29 degrees celcius, and the sun is shining with no sign of cloud or wind, it looks like it is going to be a good day out, and today we will be having a local trip around the West Midlands.

As it is so hot, I decide not to put a coat on, so I walk from Wollaston in just a t-shirt, and make my way to Norton to meet up with Mr UKBuses. After about ten minutes, I end up on the junction of Shenstone Avenue and Westwood Avenue, and it is not long before Mr UKBuses makes an appearance. Mr UKBuses had purchased our DayTripper tickets yesterday, so I briskly pay my debts, and I receive my ticket, and just in time too, as from around the corner our first bus of the day arrives, a National Express West Midlands service 276. We board and we make our way through Stourbridge, passing the new interchange which is looking like it won't be too long before it will be finished, and along Red Hill where we alight outside The Labour In Vain public house, and it is just a short walk to Stourbridge Junction. One of Mr UKBuses aims today is to catch a #shinynewtrain (as Mr Phil Tonks puts it on Twitter), and we make our way to the Birmingham platform to see if one will turn up. On Platform 3 (The Kidderminster/Worcester Platform), there is a Class 150 waiting, and upon inspection of the departure board it turns out that the #dulloldtrain on Platform 3 is our first train of the day, bad luck Mr UKBUses. We make our way to the other platform, and we soon depart after boarding. So London Midland is running our first train, and we make our way through Cradley Heath and Rowley Regis, before alighting at Smethwick Galton Bridge.

We make our way to the lower platforms where we wait for our next train, there seems to be a hold up towards Birmingham on the line as there is a problem with one of the trains, this also seems to be holding up the Walsall train, the one that we could do with catching as we are on our way to Aston and this will go straight through Birmingham New Street, which means that we don't have to change. A bit of luck happens to be on our side as the trains seems to be swapping over on the track, as our Walsall train seems to have past the stricken train and is moving to the top line of the departure board. The Walsall train arrives and we board, this is a relatively new train on this line, but it is not a #shineynewtrain that Mr UKBuses wants to catch. The trains departs Galton Bridge, and we pass through Smethwick Rolfe Street, Birmingham New Street and Duddeston before we arrive at our destination, Aston. We make our way down to street level, and cross the main road outside the station, and Mr UKBuses leads the way, and after a 5 minute walk up Holbourn Hill, we arrive at Rotola headquarters, and also home to Central Connect. We take a few photographs from the top of the ramp, using the zoom on our cameras to get a few photo's of vehicles that are parked up in the depot. Photographs over, we decide to make our way back into Birmingham, and Mr UKBuses leads the way again, and we walk up one of the roads situated opposite Rotola HQ, and we soon arrive at a bus stop and as soon as we arrive, our bus arrives, National Express West Midlands Service 66, which takes us through the Aston streets back into the City Centre. We take a seat on the bus towards the back, and as we make ourselves comfortable, a young woman decides to make a phone call, which in the end will last for the entire journey. It seems that she doesn't need her mobile as the volume she is causing, the person on the end of the phone should be able to hear without their phone switched on.

We arrive in Birmingham, where we alight in Morris Way, around the corner from our first refreshment stop of the day, and the old faithful J D Wetherspoons. Before we whet our thirst, we take a few photo's of the buses in service along Morris Way. I leave Mr UKBuses as I need to get some cash, and spot the Tesco Express, so I go the cashpoint, and it is out of order, I inform Mr UKBuses that it is broken, and we go to our Wetherspoons, "The Square Peg", where as I have no cash on me it turns out to be Mr UKBuses round, and as it is hot we both decide to have a quenching pint of Pepsi, see picture right, and the ice makes it more refreshing and cools us down on this unusual hot October day. We get down our pints in record time, and Mr UKBuses recommends that we catch Arriva Midland's new service the X31 to take us to our next destination. We have to find Carrs Lane, and I know where it is, so we make our way there. As we arrive at the stop, we have near enough 30 minutes to wait, so we make our way down Birmingham High Street, where I find a Barclays to get some cash, I try and get out of buying the next round by informing Mr UKBuses that I have to use a Santander cash machine as it is my bank, but he doesn't fall for it and states that I can use any cash point - it was worth a try! Cash machine used, we make our way back to the bus stop, stopping off at WH Smiths along the way so that I can top up my phone. We still have to wait and a couple of National Express West Midlands X51's pull up which take a few passengers away from the stop, but even though there is more room, we both get pushed and shoved as people make their way past. Our Arriva Midland X31 is next to arrive, and we board ready for our journey to Willenhall. We make our way back through Aston, and through the Spaghetti Junction where we end up on the M6. We end up at Junction 10, and as soon as we are off the motorway, we alight at the nearest bus stop. Only a few minutes to wait and we decide to catch National Express West Midlands service 529, which takes us through Willenhall, past The Malthouse that we have come to like in Willenhall Town Centre, and onwards to Wolverhampton.

We arrive in the new bus station, I admit that I like the look of the building, but I just don't like the atmosphere, it seems to have been lost when the old bus station was torn down. We make our way to Lichfield Street, and as we make our way out of the station we notice that they already have the floor up insdie the station building to do some repair works. We decide that it is time for food, and we head into the second Wetherspoons of the day, "The Moon Under Water", and the place seems to be packed with people wearing orange shirts, Wolves must be playing at home today, the sign on the door gives it away, saying "no away supporters". We do find a table towards the back of the pub, and we opt for the ususal, Mr UKBuses has his BBQ Chicken Melt (without the cheese), myself the Beer and Burger, and I save a pound by having a coke with mine (I don't save a pound at the end of the day as Mr UKBuses stills owes it me from his change!). The food doesn't take long to arrive after we order it, and it goes down quickly, and washed down after with our drinks which have been served in plastic glasses, something that Mr UKBuses doesn't like. After our food has gone down, we make our way to St Georges and the Midland Metro terminus. As we arrive a tram is waiting to go, and we board "Sister Dora" and make our way through Bilston and West Bromwich before arriving at The Hawthorns.

The Metro was my choice as I wanted to use all three modes of transport that we can use on the DayTripper tickets, and we make our way from the Metro platforms, accross to platform one to catch hopefully a #shinynewtrain back to Stourbridge. A train is soon due as we arrive on the platform, but it doesn't seem to be Mr UKBuses lucky day, as another Class 150 #dulloldtrain turns up. I persuade Mr UKBuses to wait another ten minutes for the next train, just as I did at Birmingham Snow Hill the other week in the hope that a #shinynewtrain would turn up, for me it worked, will the same principle work again today for Mr UKBuses, we will wait and see. As the station announcement blares out that the next Stourbridge train is on its way, Mr UKBuses has a smile on his face, as it seems that in the distance heading towards us, is a Class 172 (172338 to be exact) or in Mr Tonks' words a #shinynewtrain. We make our way towards the back of the train so that when we arrive at Stourbridge Junction, we can take a few steps and get some photgraphs before it leaves the station. As we boarded, we notice that the new train smell is still in the air, and we take our seats, which seem to be more comfortable and more spacious. As it is still record temperatures outside, we feel the benefit of the air conditioning cooling us down on our journey, the only thing that was not working today was the computerised announcements, and the guard seems to be doing these today. After a pleasant trip, we arrive back in Stourbridge Junction and we get our #shinynewtrain picture before the train carries on towards Great Malvern. With a thumbs up from Mr UKBuses after his maiden voyage on a Class 172, we make our way to Platform one, where we sample the Class 139, otherwise known as the Parry's People Mover, a journey which is not as smooth as the #shinynewtrain as we arrive back at Stourbridge Town.

We have a bit of time before our next destination, so I take a few photographs of the construction works of the new interchange for the website, before making our way to Birmingham Street and Temporary Stand F to wait for our next bus to Kinver. We have just over ten minutes to wait and The Balmes (David and his wife Emma) make their way towards us. Mr UKBuses is spotted first and David says his hello's before greeting me. Our next bus turns up, Hanson's service 228, which we catch as we thought we would take advantage of the sun. It seems that everyone else has the same idea, including David and Emma, as the bus is packed before we even leave Stourbridge. We start our journey and as we make our way towads Wollaston a few more people board, as they also do in Wollaston itself. We make our way down to Stourton and a first is taking place as the bus stops at the stop just after Stourbridge Rugby Club, a stop that I have never before seen this service use. We make our way through Stourton and Dunsley and arrive soon after in Kinver. We make our way to the front of the bus and Mr UKBuses spots an Arriva bus, which is working on the 588 Service to Perton. Before we make our way to The Olde White Harte, we check the timetable and see that it is due out in a couple of minutes, so we decide to abort sunny Kinver and catch this service as far as Wombourne. After confirming with the driver that we can use our DayTripper tickets, we take a seat, and we head off. We pass through Potters Cross and up towards Enville. At this moment I'm having bad flashbacks as this is the start of the route of the Kinver 10K run that I ran in last week, luckily we head straight on and pass through Enville. The next part of the route is from Enville to Bobbington, and the Dennis Dart that we are on has to go through some small country lanes, I'm surprised that the bus didn't get stuck as some of the corners were very tight, there were no cars coming the other way so there wasn't a fight as there wouldn't be room for the both of them, there was nearly a tractor though.

After the tight lanes between Enville and Bobbington, the bus passes through Bobbington Village, where Mr UKBuses starts thinking as he has seen an old WMPTE bus stop, and he spends the next few minutes wondering what WMPTE route would have used this stop, as he is thinking I am also wonderiong whether the bus is on fire as I can smell burning, but it is Mr UKBuses still thinking. After passing through Bobbington, we nearly drive through Swindon, but the bus bypasses the village and we come through the back end of Wombourne past the new Sainsburys and Waggon and Horses before ending up on the 256 route into Wombourne village. We alight outside the cricket pitch, and Mr UKBuses is thirsty, so I tell him to walk to the corner and he spots The Vine, so we walk a bit further to the pub where we have a well deserved rest. We decide to sit outside in the sun, see picture right, after we order our drinks and spot an opportunity for a cheers photo, I am a bit wary as I use a chair to get the desired shot, the camera seems a bit wobbly, but the photograph is taken with no problems. Mr UKBuses wants one too, and so I have to set up his camera on a wobbly chair, and his camera has not got a flat bottom, so it makes the expereince more nerve shattering, after his photograph was taken, I can confirm that his camera was not harmed. We are refreshed, and Mr UKBuses spots The Old Bush right next door to The Vine, but we take the short walk back to the bus stop, and as we turn the corner, we can hear a bus, and it is a National Express West Midlands 256 that we have missed by seconds. We still decide to wait at the bus stop thinking that a National Express West Midlands service 255 bus will turn up and take us to Kingswinford. After waiting half an hour in the sun, we find out that the 255 does not use this stop as a National Express West Midlands 256 turns up, we wish that we popped next door to The Old Bush now. The 256 pulls up and we board and we head back to Stourbridge. After passing through Wall Heath, Kingswinford and Wordsley, we arrive back at the temporary stops along Birmingham Street. The sun and the heat has got to us, so we decide to call it a day and after walking up to Stand F, we have a little wait before National Express West Midlands service 276 pulls up to take us back home.

Another good day out was had, especially with the unusually hot October sun making a surprised appearance and with us going around in circles a couple of times with the places we visited in specific order. We will be out again in a few weeks further afield in Liverpool, but will the weather surprise us again this time with snow!

2011 - Day Out 24: Kinver

2011-09-25T22:32:00.001+01:00

Date: Sunday 25 September 2011

Back in August, I noticed that a race was being held in Kinver, and teased John, a colleague at work, he didn't take the bait, then I did something mad......I entered myself for it, all this to get John to take part.

Back to today, I wake up and prepare for the run ahead, I dig out my gear I wore when I did the Dudley Action Heart 5 in February this year, and get dressed. I go downstairs ready for the off, and trying to calm my nerves, I turn the television on, what's on? Only the Berlin Marathon. Mr UKBuses kindly gets up early on a Sunday morning, and just after 08.30am, he picks me up and drives the few miles to get to Kinver, we park up at Kinver Leisure Centre getting a prime spot on the car park.

We take a walk to the finish line, and I feel a bit out of place as I am the only runner dressed up ready to go, there is just under an hour to go yet. I prepare myself by having a bottle of energy drink, and we have a walk back up to the leisure centre, so that I can have a pre-race bladder stop. As I make my way outside, I bump into John, who has the same idea. Mr UKBuses and myself wait in the corridor for John to appear. After he comes out, we hang around as we know that we will have to visit the toilet again before we make our way to the start line. Our predictions were right, we needed to go again, it must be the nerves or psychological. Bladders emptied, we all make our way down to the starting area, and Mr UKBuses does me and John a favour by looking after some of our belongings, I'm a bit nervous by now as I pass him my BlackBerry, which he hates, and John is even more daring, by giving him the keys to his car (Well the company car really), will we see Mr UKBuses at the finish line later? We are near the start line and me and John both have a dreaded sensation, we both need to use the loo again, so a quick jog to the toilets and back before the race gets underway is needed.

It is nearly time and John and myself make our way to the start, and Mr UKBuses crosses the road and takes a few photographs, and I'm sure I saw him looking at John's keys to find out how to work them. Last minute warnings from the race organiser, and then the klaxxon goes, it is time to run. John was a bit ahead of me in the line up, and as we run, he moves further forward, after about 1/2 a kilometre, I lose sight of him. It is now a left turn into Wigley Bank Road, this is where I see the 1Km marker, I'm sure it is further than the 1 Mile marker when I did the Dudley run, it doesn't put my mind at ease. I get to the end of Wigley Bank Road, and it is a left and virtually after, a sharp right turn, a turn I am dreading.......

It is just under the 2Km mark and I have turned into a lane called Sheepwalks Lane, and I've also heard a bit about this part of the route, so as I carry on running, the road becomes steep, and then I turn a corner along the lane, and it gets even steeper (see the gradient by clicking on the course route, right), and this is where my legs tell me to run no further, even though I try my hardest, it feels like someone has hit my legs with a cricket bat, so I have to walk the next 1Km or so due to the sheer gradient. I do have a little try as I carry on along Sheepwalks Lane, as I think I have got to the top, but as soon as I start a gentle jog, another bank appears, and my legs just aren't having any of it. As I "walk" along a bit further, one of the runners states that this is the last bank and it is mainly downhill from then on, so I decide to not even try running as I see the size of the gradient ahead, I tell myself to just walk this bit and then once I'm at the top, it gets easier, so I walk even further, and once I get to the top, I prepare myself for the run ahead with a big gulp of energy drink. Gulp taken its time to run, and as I pass Hollies Lane, I turn into No Man's Green, and I'm loving this bit as it is downhill. I run for about a kilometre and I'm at the end of No Man's Green Lane and it is also at this point that as I turn into Heron's Gate Road, I see the 5Km marker, which means that I am at the halfway point, just under 3 Miles done.

I look at my watch and I have done about 35 - 40 minutes, so I think I need to do a bit of catching up if I want to beat my time limit of an hour, something that has been compromised due to "The Sheepwalks". I carry on along Heron's Gate Road, a nice bit of this route as it is a flat road, and I pass Pigeonhouse Farm, which means as I reach the next corner, it is also the four mile mark, after another half a mile, I get to a crossroads, which means that it is the end of Heron's Gate Road, and the marshall informs me I have to turn left, and left I go into Bannuttree Lane, this road has a slight gradient but nothing as bad as "The Sheepwalks", and as I head up to the next turning, it is the five mile mark, which means there is a mile left and just under one and a half kilometres left, and I am starting to feel it now, with my ankle deciding to start to go to sleep on me....

At just under the 8.5 km mark, I turn right into Bath Lane, and I'm glad I did, as if I went straight on, this would bring me back to the beginning of my now worse nightmare, "The Sheepwalks", and I prefer Bath Lane as it is nice and even as I go along, I reach the 9Km mark, and it is a left turn into Rocky Wall, well a little part of it, as I reach the next corner, which brings me to the top of White Hill, I know that I haven't got too far to go now, even though my ankle does not agree. As I run down towards Potters Cross, there are residents on their driveways, and marshalls along this last kilometre, all clapping and egging me on (I think they are or they are just telling me to hurry up as they want to go home), and as I continue further down White Hill, a welcome sight is approaching, Potters Cross and the finish line. I'm near enough at the bottom of White Hill, and as I reach the bottom, my ankle has totally seized up, and everyone must think that I am doing an impression of Quasimodo as it feels like I am dragging it along. I'm turning the final corner and Mr UKBuses is there and as I cross Enville Road, into the local playing fields I can see the finish line, and I get closer and closer, my smile gets wider and wider, and the photographer is there ready to take a picture. At this point, John and family are waiting there and give me a final shout of encouragement, at which point I get a final burst of energy and go faster, and I think as I cross the finish line, I am sticking my tongue out at John just at the moment my photograph is being taken!

My run over, I come back down to a walking pace, and get a fresh bottle of much needed water, and collect my race t-shirt, and off I go to find John and Mr UKBuses, albeit with a slight limp. As I find them, I enquire as to what my time was, and it was just over one hour and seven minutes - (John completed his run in 56 minutes), a shame about the seven minutes, but I'm happy with that, and I think if it wasn't for "The Sheepwalks" gradient that slowed me down to a crawl, I might have been under the hour mark. We all make our way back to the leisure centre, but not with the same pace as I had earlier, it is here that John says his goodbyes, and it looks like Mr UKBuses has given him the right set of keys. I take this opportunity to have a quick change inside the facilities and then it is back to Mr UKBuses car. We make our way out of the car park, with John passing us just before we move, and Mr UKBuses drives back to Stourbridge, whilst I rest my legs. We decide to have a quick one in The Gigmill, a drink that refreshes me as I have definitely earned this one. I also find out that while I was mountain climbing, Mr UKBuses had returned to his car and had a nap. Drink finished, we make our way out and off home I go. Mr UKBuses then kindly tells me to get in the car and he gives me a lift to the front door, even though it is in the opposite direction from the way he was going, but I'm glad he did, my legs were now starting to seize up.

A lovely energetic day was had by myself and am happy with what I achieved. A big thank you to Mr UKBuses for the lift there and back (very much appreciated), and also to John for the encouragement, and a big thank you to them both for the support throughout the morning .... Cheers guys!

More information on Action Heart can be found at their website: http://www.actionheart.com/, Photographs from the event can be seen by clicking here.

2011 - DayOut 23: Worcestershire

2011-09-18T21:03:00.000+01:00

Date: Saturday 17 September 2011

It is our second time out in September, and it is a welcome return for Mr D9, who has not been seen on a SBI day out since July. Today's day out will be a Whittle's Day covering Worcestershire and a little bit of Shropshire.

Fist of all, I meet up with Mr UKBuses outside the shops along The Broadway in Norton. From there we have a little walk up to the main Stourbridge to Kidderminster Road, known locally as Norton Road, where we get to our bus stop for the first journey of the day, after seeing two National Express West Midlands Service 276 buses nearly having a fight as they come out / enter the nearby Whittington Road, our bus is behind and pulls up to our stop and we board. We catch Whittle's Service 125 from Stourbridge to Bridgnorth which operates via Norton and Broadwaters, we are only catching this journey as far as Kidderminster and our section follows Midland Red's old service 305 route between Stourbridge and Kidderminster, a bit of route that Mr UKBuses is relishing. We arrive in Kidderminster at around 0945, so as we alight in Kidderminster Bus Station, we have the opportunity to take a few photographs, mainly Whittle's vehicles, before we decide to have a quick look around the town centre before the arrival of Mr D9. We make our way back to the bus station and Mr D9 duly arrives on a service 192 bus, also operated by Whittle's, albeit about ten minutes late, and as we walk around the bus station to greet him, he is nowhere to be seen as we near the bus, he has walked around the bus station to greet us, in the opposite direction, but as we turn around he is at the other end of the bus station and he duly puts his arms in the air. The ARM (Andy, Roger and Mark) gang is now complete, and we have a little time to wait for our next journey, so we go to a nearby Cafe Nero, where I opt for the standard coke and a "Portuguese Custard", basically a normal British egg custard which has been hit by an hammer! Mr D9 opts for a normal black coffee, and Mr UKBuses seems to have gone upmarket and opts for a Muffin with a Cappichino. A quick visit to the toilet before we set off (which seems to be located in the Stourbridge branch!), we head back to the bus station for our next bus. We have time for a quick cigarette before our bus arrives and Mr D9 asks me for a light, before I look up and realise he is smoking on a plastic cigarette, loaded with a supply of nicotine!!

It is now just before 1045am, and our next bus arrives, Whittle's Service 125, which will take us to Bridgnorth, which means we have covered the whole of the route today. We head through Bewdley, Button Oak, Highley and Eardington before arriving at our destination of Bridgnorth. As we head into the main town, we pass the Severn Valley Railway station, where we also see one of their trains heading out of the station towards Kidderminster. The journey has taken just over one hour and also a spot of D9 driving has been shown my Mr D9 himself. Mr D9 has also broken the rules on the bus along the way by having a "plastic" cigarette, but has he, as there is no smoke! We alight just before the main high street in Bridgnorth High Town, and we decide it is time for dinner, and we head to our first J D Wetherspoons of the day, and we duly head to Bridgnorth's "Jewel of The Severn", see picture left. We get a round in first, and it is indeed a first as Mr UKBuses decides to purchase the first round, I hope he isn't coming down with anything. Drinks purchased by Mr UKBuses, we find a seat and peruse the menu. Mr D9 and myself have a little wager that Mr UKBuses will have his Chicken Tikka Masala, and he proves us wrong when he opts for his now standard BBQ Chicken Melt (without the cheese!), whilst Mr D9 fuels himself for the rest of the day opting for the Gourmet Burger, and I have my now standard Beer and Burger. We don't have to wait too long before our food arrives and we tuck in. We are now fed for the rest of the day, and Mr D9 has eaten his onions, so his gas tank is full for the rest of the day, which is bad news for us. We make our way down toward The Bear public house, which is where we have to catch our next bus. As we wait, the sky goes dark and it duly starts to rain. There is no shelter nearby so we have to wait in the rain, but Mr UKBuses seems to be standing in someones doorway, and as it rains faster he further edges towards the front door, which means I can take a little shelter from the rain, but Mr D9 is still stuck in the downpour, but as he waits he looks in the front window, and is surprised that Mr UKBuses isn't comfy sitting in the unfortunates house owner's armchair, with his feet up in front of the fire, whilst puffing away on a pipe, as I look round he is virtually in their hallway!

Ten minutes later than planned, our return bus arrives and we board Whittle's service 125 again, but this time we will only be travelling as far as Bewdley. The bus makes his way out of Bridgnorth, with Mr D9 deciding to wave at someone out of the window as we leave. We make our way back through Eardington, with the driver trying to catch up time and doing his impression of Jenson Button along the way. We reach Highley, where the sun is now shining away and as we arrive we decide to stop on the bus as we don't find the village "Highley" interesting, the only good thing about Highley during our time on the bus as we pass through it is the smell from the chip shop, but this is quickly masked by Mr D9's "gourmet gas", which has started pumping from his body. We make our way out of Highley passing through Button Oak before arriving back in Bewdley. We have a quick browse around whilst making our way up Load Street, where we arrive outside our second J D Wetherspoons location "The George Hotel", and as we arrive at the bar, Mr D9 decides it is time for him to buy a round, and I'm not complaining. We head towards the front of the pub and we find a nice comfy settee to rest our legs, which is situated between the entrance to the hotel and the hotel reception. Before we get comfortable, Mr UKBuses decides to move the empty coffee cups off our table and places them amongst the display advertising the Christmas Fayre that will be available over the coming months in the run up to the main event. Before we get comfortable, I try and get a "Cheers!" photograph, but I have the wrong setting on my camera and duly get a video instead, results which can be seen below. Mr D9 and Mr UKBuses reminisce about their time at National Express West Midlands before we have to make our way to the bus stop, Mr D9 removes the empty coffee cups out of the Christmas display before we leave. Mr UKBuses must have a vision from his previous life and the explanation on the sign says it all, see picture above right. We make our way down Load Street to the bus stop for our next journey. We wait and wait, and it looks like we will be missing our connecting trip in Kidderminster, but our bus finally turns up, twenty minutes late.

We board Whittles Service 125 again and it takes us the short distance between Bewdley and Kidderminster, as we arrive in Kidderminster, the bus takes us to the stops situated outside of the Swan Centre, so I come up "with a interesting plan..." It is just before 1500 hours, and our next bus is due to leave the bus station at 1500 hours, we decide to have a little gamble and get off Whittle's service 125 at the Swan Centre, and after looking at the timetable on the stop, our next bus visits here, and after a minute our next bus, Whittle's Service 7 arrives, which takes us to Wolverley via Huscott and Sion Hill. As we pass through the little estates en route, Mr UKBuses decides to point out a few of the old Midland Red clay bus stops, and when we are around the Sion Hill area, I notice a block of flats that I think was residence to my auntie when I was a little toddler all of them years ago. We make our way through Sion Hill, and arrive just outside of Wolverley, and we alight outside of The Lock, a pub which is situated right next to the Staffordshire and Worcestershire canal and as the name says a big lock. My round now and the barmaid has to wait as Mr D9 and Mr UKBuses decide to visit the toilet at the same time and the choices are made after they made their visit, Mr UKBuses opts for the Boondoggle and Mr D9, Banks's Bitter. The weather is good at the moment, so we decide to sit outside of the pub, which is a pleasant choice as we have the canal boats going by and the traffic on the main road. We finish our drinks and decide to use the emergency plan and spend more time in Wolverley. We walk around to the other Wolverley pub, The Queens Head, see picture left, Mr D9's gas is coming through aplenty en route. Mr UKBuses recovers from buying his first round today, and then tries to make me pay for this round, even though I have just brought a round in, it seems Mr UKBuses is back to his normal self! We have a bit of time to spend in Wolverley, so we decide that a few games of pool are needed. Mr UKBuses and myself go first, and after a game full of snookers thanks to Mr UKBuses, I win. I head outside the back door after this for a cigarette break and find out that there is a lovely beer garden towards the rear of the pub, something that I have not noticed before. Whilst I have my cigarette, Mr D9 plays Mr UKBuses at pool, and Mr D9 is victorious despite Mr UKBuses using "tactics" by snookering him - well he did have an easy attempt of doing this as most of his balls were still on the table, Mr D9 decided to use tactics of his own and the help of his bottom with the gourmet gas causing a stink. I finally get to play Mr D9, and after a game where Mr UKBuses is creeping around with his camera, Mr D9 beats me. Pool over, a further round of drinks are purchased and with still time left, we swap the pool cues for darts, where Mr UKBuses and Mr D9 play against each other, due to my lack of darting skills, I opt to keep the scores. Mr D9 wins again. We have a few minutes to spare, so we have a quick "bullseye" game of trying to score 101 in six darts or less. I'm afraid none of us were able to manage it, so we were awarded with our "BFH - Bus Fare Home". And as we collect our BFH, we make our way to the bus stop, where more gourmet gas is escaping and our Whittle's Service 7 arrives to take us back into Kidderminster. We pass through the estates on this newly operated route, with Mr UKBuses playing "spot the clay post" along the way, and this starts me D9 thinking about a new hobby and looking at researching the old routes of Kidderminster, to see where these clay stops would have been located. We arrive back in Kidderminster with a few minutes to spare before catching our Service 125 back to Stourbridge, Mr UKBuses and myself try and get off the bus quickly as Mr D9 has "dropped one" and smelt the back of the bus out.

We use the time waiting for our next bus, by taking some more photographs around the bus station in the dying light, with Mr D9 having a little run to the nearby Tesco's to relieve his bladder for the journey ahead. Considering that the Whittle Service 125 has been behind time for most of the day, Mr D9 should have plenty of time, but disaster nearly strikes and our bus turns up on time. After a little plea with the driver (and contacting Mr D9 on his phone at the same time), the driver helpfully waits, and the passengers keep an eye out to see why the bus is waiting at the station, and Mr D9 emerges from the Tesco car park and into the bus station, doing a bit of limbo underneath a fence along the way, and he bounds across the bus station and onto the waiting service 125 to a howl of cheers from the other passengers as he boards. After Mr D9's jaunt across the car park, he takes a few minutes to get his breath back, and we make our way towards Stourbridge, and there are a few people aboard this bus, which must be one of Whittle's main earners considering the number of people that have been aboard the service throughout the day. We make our way past Broadwaters, and along to Norton passing The Old Waggon and Horses, and also The Crown at Iverley along the way. As we head towards Norton, Mr UKBuses points out one more clay post, this time in Stourbridge, hidden in a bush behind the Norton sign. We pass The Old White Horse and down Worcester Street and onto the ring road, where we alight and make our way to The Bell, see picture right. Drinks purchased we make our way into the old pool room, and take our seats. Mr D9 and myself seem to choose the correct sofa, whilst Mr UKBuses decides to opt for one that likes to eat him as we see his legs in the air and being pulled towards the back. Mr UKBuses and myself have another reminisce about our time working in The Bell years previously, deciding the layout of the present Bell seems to have been improved since our time, but the decor has lost it's traditional feel with current bright wallpaper / paint on the walls. It is nearly time for us to head back home, but we decide to have one last drink and something to eat, so we walk up Stourbridge High Street, before finally ending up in our last Wetherspoons of the Day, "The Chequers Inn", where we order drinks and Mr UKBuses and myself opt for the beer and burger deal with us both having the Chicken Burger variety. As Mr D9 orders at the bar, his "gourmet gas" is still pumping which makes me head quickly towards our seats, the bar is a no-go area for the next five minutes. Our meals arrive and as they do, Mr D9's taxi has arrived and so we say goodnight to him. Not long after we have finished our meals, Mr UKBuses and myself head towards the temporary stops in Birmingham Street, stopping along the way to look at the progression in construction of the new Stourbridge Interchange. After a ten minute wait, our final bus of the day, Black Diamond's service 276A arrives and takes us home to rest our feet.

Another good day out has been had which is due to the good company of Mr D9 and Mr UKBuses (Thanks!!), and who have made the day go by with the funny antics, stories and laughter throughout the day. We will all meet again in October, where we hope to make a visit to the capital of England, London, and if today's trip is anything to go by, it will be a stonker.

Before I go, it is time for one last thing.........

Andy's Bald Cranium (ABC)

Bald Spot One: This is taken in Bridgnorth, this would have been a classic shot, but the rain stopped play.

Bald Spot Two: This is taken in Bewdley, a shot taken with the help of Mr UKBuses, who kept Mr D9 talking.

Bald Spot Three: This is taken in Wolverley as we make our way from the bus to The Lock.

Bald Spot Four: Here we are in The Queens Head, Wolverley, where Mr D9 seems to have grown another head and treats us to two bald spots, in which his skin on top of his head(s) seeming to appear a lot smoother, oh hang on I've just realised where this is, I must have been slightly knocked out whilst taking a picture of Mr D9's bald spot and about to hit the ground when he gassed us with his "gourmet gas".

2011 - Day Out 22: Torbay Bus Rally

2011-09-06T11:02:00.000+01:00

Date: Sunday 04 September 2011

It is our third day in Torquay, and as I wake up and decide to pop down for a cigarette, to see what the weather is doing and as I head out of the front of the hotel, it looks like it will be a glorious day. Today is the Third Annual Torbay Vintage Bus Running Day, and it looks like I will be able to take some photographs today, something I didn't do in June when I visited the Weymouth Running Day, an event which is organised by the same group who has organised today's event, The Devon and Dorset Group. First though, I meet up with Mr WME and Mr UKBuses to have our breakfast. I opt for the English grill again, washed down by Cranberry Juice, but Mr UKBuses seems to be having a problem this weekend and cause more problems at the breakfast table. He asks for coffee, and ends up with tea, and also he doesn't get what he asks for in his English grill. Mr WME and myself have no such problems. After consuming our first meal of the day, we have a quick freshen up in our rooms, and then make our way to Torquay, and the car park at Shedden Hill, acting today as rally HQ.

We arrive just before the start time of 10.00am, so we take this opportunity to have a look around the stalls, before the crowds appear and make it hard to get to look at the photographs. We also make this an opportunity to get photographs of the exhibit buses on show today, just in case the heavens start to come down during the day. It is now just before 10.30am, and the rides today will be boarding along the sea front, so we make our way to see what we can catch. Below is a summary of the trips we caught:

Journey One: 10.40am - Service 28A Torquay Seafront - Hesketh Crescent.
This is being operated by a Ex-Stagecoach Volvo B6LE Alexander ALX200 bodied (P701 BTA - Owned by James Pratt), one of the first low buses to be preserved for future generations.

Journey Two: 11:10am - Service 28A Torquay Seafront - Hesketh Crsecent.
Another visit to Hesketh Crescent but this time in a smaller vehicle. This is being operated by a BayLine Liveried Ford Transit / Carlyle (C526FFJ - Owned by Adam Shuttle). This bus is not a stranger to Torquay streets, as these used to operate in the town as late as 1996.

Journey Three: 12:05 - Service 50 Torquay Seafront - St Marychurch.
This is being operated by the ex-Stagecoach Volvo B6LE Alexander ALX200 bodied bus that we caught for our first journey. As we take our seats, we are told that the owner has to come down from rally HQ to inspect a leak. Upon arrival and a quick engine check, we are told that this journey would be cancelled, due to a problem with the bus, a fair decision as this would have to be repaired by the owner at his own expense, keeping it in service may make the problem worse and more expensive to repair.

Journey Four: 12:10 - Service 109 Torquay Seafront - Preston Down Road (Occombe Farm).
This service is being operated by a Leyland National 2 (FDV 829V - Owned by Graeme Selway). I am no stranger to this bus, as this picked us up at a wet Weymouth bus stop, saving us from getting drenched even further, and it was a pleasure to catch this bus again today. Even the spare tyre is still on the bus by the back seat. This was also a pleasant service it was operating on, going up the Paignton hills enabling us to view splendid views across Tor Bay before reaching Occombe Farm.

We arrive back at Torquay, and the driver informs us that he is going back to rally HQ, and that we could stay on if we wished. We took this opportunity to stay on the bus and take some more photographs around the Sheddon Hill Car Park - it also meant that we saved some shoe leather walking the distance from the sea front bus stop. We do indeed take more photographs, and it was a good decision as there are more vehicles available to photograph since more have turned up since this morning. The sun is still shining and we are also a bit thirsty, so before we make our way down to the sea front, we decide to use the short cut on the car park to the Beefeater pub, "The Belgrave" situated next door to wet our whistles, see picture right. We all order a coke which is more refreshing than alcohol, and was much needed as the sun was now shining away. There is a service due out at 14:05, which we want to catch, but this morning were unable to as the bus operating was jam packed with no room left for us, so we decide to make our way down to the seafront to ensure that we get this journey. It looks like everyone else has the same idea as there is quite a few people gathering. When we were at rally HQ, we found out which bus would be operating, so we keep a look out for the vehicle to come down to the stop. We are standing right at kerbside, and we spot the bus coming, so we ensure that we are at the front, and it works out that the bus pulls up with the door right in front of us. There are quite a few people on board already upstairs, they shouldn't really have been let on at rally HQ, and this means that there are less seats available. Everyone else has noticed this too, and as we are about to board, we are push and shoved around, but the trio manage to get on and find a seat, even though it is a bit of a squash. The behaviour of some people trying to get on has put a little bit of a downer on a good day so far, and cannot believe that people will resort to that kind of behaviour. This was also the same type of behaviour of an open top vehicle a few minutes previously, which could have turned out badly and ended in an injury as a woman had tried to get on the bus by trying to jump onto the open platform before the vehicle had stopped, she nearly ended up flat on her face. After ensuring that all the places were filled, the bus departed:

Journey Five: 14:05 - Service 118 Torquay Seafront - Kingswear
This popular service is being operated by a Bristol VRT / ECW Bodied vehicle (ATA 563L - Owned by Terry Bennett). This is another vehicle that is no stranger to Torquay streets, as it has operated stints with Devon General whilst in passenger service.

We arrive at Kingswear, and after having being squashed in for a while, we take the opportunity to have a breather off the bus before we have to make our way back to Torquay. At this point Mr WME decides that he wants to spend a bit more time at Kingswear to have a further look around the town and get a few more photographs. So, Mr UKBuses and myself say goodbye to him for a bit and will meet up with him upon his return to Torquay. Kingswear is a distance from Torquay, so we head back through the country lanes offering splendid views as we go, and after approximately forty minutes, we arrive back at Torquay, where after alighting, we head back to the stop at the seafront, and we decide to catch the next bus that turns up.

Journey Six: 15:45 - Service 135 Torquay Seafront - Broadsands

Considering that this is a Vintage running day, what turns out to be our last journey of the day, the bus running on this service turns out to be one that has been supplied by the rally sponsors, Stagecoach South West, and is a MAN 18.360 / Alexander Dennis Enviro 300 (WA59 FWW) which entered service in 2009, this bus is currently sporting a park-and-ride livery for Exeter, and after stopping at Broadsands, where a photograph is taken, the bus returns back to Torquay, it is just after 16.30pm, and the rain has started (which has held off whilst the rally has been taking place), so as we pass the hotel, the driver kindly drops us off and we have a little sprint to avoid the drops and arrive back at the hotel. We decide to have a drink in the bar, see picture left, and at about 17.20pm, Mr WME returns from Kingswear and joins us as we finish off our drinks. We decide to go back to our rooms to freshen up before we meet up again and visit Torquay for some food.

We meet up back in reception, and we head outside to the bus stop, with the bus arriving shortly after, we board and Mr UKBuses and myself purchase a Stagecoach NightRider ticket, which turns out to be cheaper than buying a return ticket from the hotel to Torquay. With the tickets purchased, we expect to see KITT and Michael. We arrive in Torquay and first on the agenda is food, so a curry is decided and we have a look at a restaurant that I spotted earlier in the day when we caught one of the rally buses, and decide to have tea in Curry Ocean. The restaurant is situated by the harbour in Victoria Parade, so we have splendid views whilst eating. After taking our seats, we all order and Mr UKBuses ensures that he gets his poppadoms tonight. Food finished, we head a few steps down along the harbour and into a pub recommended by Claire at the hotel, Seamus O'Donnell's. This pub is an Irish themed pub, with memorabilia placed all over the pub, and also seems a popular place. We find a seat in what seems to be an alcove / snug, and looks like it is being redecorated seeing as there is no carpet on the floor in this area of the pub. We finish our drinks and have a walk around to the other side of the harbour. The temperature has dropped and as we make our way back to The Strand, we decide that it is a good time to head back to the hotel, so we wait at the bus stop for our last Stagecoach South West Service 12 bus on this holiday. Whilst waiting, the Bristol VRT we had caught to Kingswear earlier, decides to pull up, where the driver and a few people on the bus decide to alight and take a few pictures of the bus parked up in the stop, and it is a good sight to see this bus in the dark illuminated by the interior lights. Our bus turns up, and we head back to the hotel, where we decide to have a few drinks in the hotel bar before heading up to bed. Before I go to sleep, I decide to pack my suitcase, so that I don't have to rush around last thing in the morning.

After a good night's sleep, I wake up to have my morning cigarette outside the hotel, a view that I have liked over the last few days, looking over Tor Bay, and we all meet up to have our last breakfast, another thing which I am going to miss. Mr UKBuses doesn't have any problems with his last breakfast, after eating our breakfasts we all head off back to our rooms to finish packing and we all meet up in reception, passing our keys to Claire for the last time. We head out of the hotel for the last time, and we make our way to Torquay railway station where a lot of people must be heading back home as there are quite a few passengers waiting to board. I ensure that I am okay for the journey, by having my last cigarette outside the station. It is 10.12am and our train arrives and we board and our seats reserved are the same seats that we came down on. There are people in our seats but we let them off as they are getting off at the next station, and after they have alighted we jump into our seats for the journey back. After a few hours we arrive at Birmingham New Street, where we say our goodbyes to Mr WME who is staying on the train to Wolverhampton. Mr UKBuses and myself alight and luckily, we only have to walk a few stops to the next platform where a London Midland train will take us to Smethwick Galton Bridge. Upon arrival at Galton Bridge, we head to the upper platforms, and wait for our connecting train to Stourbridge Junction. The new Class 172 trains start operating today, but as we see our train pull in it is sadly a Class 150, so our shiny new train experience will have to wait. We arrive at Stourbridge Junction where mommy SBI pulls up and gives us a lift back home.

I've had a lovely weekend with glorious weather, glorious hotel (and staff), glorious settings, glorious area and lastly glorious company. I will definitely be coming back to Torquay in years to come, it is just sad that we have to come back at all.

2011 - Day Out 21: Torquay, Totnes, Dawlish and Exeter

2011-09-05T19:31:00.001+01:00

Date: Saturday 03 September 2011

Day two of our weekend in Torquay, and I am awake early, so just after 7.00am, I have a little walk around the area close to the hotel, and after spotting a shop open, I get some supplies and head back to the hotel. On the way back I see this strange bloke in the distance coming towards me, but it turns out to be Mr WME who has the same idea before breakfast, so I leave him to it. I get back to the hotel and go back to my room to have a read of the paper. It is just before 08.30am, I make my way downstairs for a quick cigarette before heading to the breakfast room for our first fuel of the day. I meet up with Mr UKBuses and Mr WME, and we take our seat, and we order our English grill, and the food portions do not disappoint, this will keep us going for the morning. Breakfast over, and a quick freshen up in the room before we catch our first bus of the day, and we make our way to the stop opposite and just as we arrive, so does our bus, Stagecoach South West's service 12. After we make another purchase of the £6.90 Explorer day ticket, we have a short ride before we arrive in Paignton.

Upon arrival, in Paignton, we have a short wait for our next bus, so we have a little look around, Mr WME has a walk to the library, whilst Mr UKBuses and myself find a shop to get some refreshments. We make our way back to the bus station, enabling us to take a few photographs, a good photographing location, but watch out for stange people lurking, see right. We see a queue forming at our stand, so we make sure that we guarantee ourselves a spot by joining the queue. Our bus arrives and is operated by the Dartmouth Steam Railway and River Boat Company, operating the 100 service to Totnes. Our vehicle is called Molly, an open topper, so upon boarding we make our way upstairs and get our seat. The bus is getting quite full, and a stranger gives birthday greetings, but I'm not sure it was meant for the birthday boy, Mr UKBuses. We leave the bus station and as soon as we get on the open road, there seems to be movement in Mr UKBuses hair, it looks like he hasn't got the strong hold Brylcreem this weekend, a bit of touching up will need to be done after this journey. Mr WME is quiet as he is sitting to someone who looks like F1 pundit Eddie Jordan, and I'm using the fresh air to wake me up. We arrive close to Totnes, and meet up with the river boat waiting for passengers that are on this bus, and we have a short ride into the town centre. It looks like Mr UKBuses seems to be attracting the plants again, a fetish that started on our Leamington Spa trip, as he suddenly gets a face full of tree along the journey, which messes his hair up even further.

After Mr UKBuses brush with the plant life, we arrive in Totnes town centre, and we have a little wander along the main High Street, with Mr UKBuses feeling the strain today as he is pinched on the bottom by an old woman, but be assured, she came away with her arm intact and not lost in Mr UKBuses orifice. We decide to search for the railway station, which is roughly about a third of a mile out of town. We find the station with no problems, and after a few photographs, we head back into town, where Mr UKBuses has earned a drink so we pop into The King William, where Mr UKBuses gets yet another shock, when his pint of coke cost £3. He makes sure that he drinks every last drop, and I make sure that I am okay bladder wise by having a trip to the toilet before we leave. I'm in mid flow and this women accidentally pops into the gents mistaking it for the ladies, but to make matters worse, instead of going straight out, she stays and enquires where the ladies are! It is nearly time for us to catch our next bus, and we walk back through the town centre, with no sign of Totnes pounds, and we soon arrive at our stop.

Our next bus arrives and it is Stagecoach South West's service 88, which we rest our feet at the back of the bus. This journey takes approximately fifty plus minutes, but it feels like ten minutes, and also the driver seems to have morphed into a different person, this is only because I catch up with a little sleep by having a little nap. We arrive at Newton Abbot, home to the horse racing course. We have a bit of time to spare, and we decide to have a few minutes at the bus station taking some photographs, and we have a little walk around the corner, where we decide to pop into The Jolly Farmer, a splendid pub with friendly staff, this is also where I purchase a birthday drink for Mr UKBuses, he is looking good for an old 'un (only joking Mr UKBuses) - See picture left. After a relaxing time in the pub, we make our way around the corner back to the bus station, where we only have to wait a few minutes for our next bus, Stagecoach South West's Service 2, which, after a journey of just over thirty minutes, we arrive in Teignmouth.

We are still feeling the effects of our big breakfast, so instead of a pub lunch, we decide to have a snack, and we find located close to the bus stop, the "Central Fish and Chips" shop, where a portion of chips are ordered and with tables laid on outside, we consume them in the fresh air. We finish our chips in time, as we put our wrappers in the bin, our Stagecoach South West Service 2 pulls up, which takes us on a journey of approximately 15 minutes to our next destination, Dawlish. We have a bit of extra time here, so as we alight our bus, we spot an amusement arcade, Mr UKBuses has a "Need for Speed", but rest assured, his real driving is not as bad as he demonstrated on this video game. Mr WME took the opportunity to take a few photographs of Dawlish Railway Station, but as he returned we moved onto another video game, Guitar Hero. We all had a go, Mr UKBuses came last with 26 percent, Mr WME came a well deserved second with 41 percent of the song completed, and myself came first and was the guitar hero of the day with 52 percent completed. With my guitar skills put to one side, we popped next door so we could all have an ice cream, which is acceptable when you are by the sea, and it was now time to go the bus stop so we could go to our next destination.

After a little wait, our Stagecoach South West Service 2 arrives and takes us onto the last leg of this route, and just under an hour later, we arrive in Exeter. We spend a bit of time hanging around the coach and bus station, where we can take some photographs, and after these are taken, we have a little walk around the town. Along one of the main streets, we see what we can come up with by playing a game of "Bus Spelling". Exeter operate a number of routes with a letter in place of a service number. We came up with some "long" words and the best we came up with was "Bad" or "Dads". Also I wasn't left out as there is a service "F1", but panic over as it was operated by a normal bus, driven at normal speeds. We have a bit of time before we can catch our next bus, so we decide to have some food, luckily we spot a KFC, and we all order a Zinger Meal, and we sit down and enjoy our spicy chicken burgers, and quench the fire with a Pepsi. After our food, we head back towards the bus station, we make sure we are alright for the journey by using the station toilets, and we find the stand we need to catch our bus from. I decide to have a little treat for the journey back, so get some white chocolate buttons from the vending machine, and please Mr UKBuses when it looks like my snack may get stuck in the machine, but panic over as it does eventually pop into the tray at the bottom. Mr WME decides to purchase some chocolate for the journey ahead, and as he goes to get his snack from the tray, he seems to get his hand stuck, or does he attempt to try and get a few freebies from the bottom row, he does eventually free himself. We have a bit longer to wait as it seems as our bus is running late, so a local man spots Mr WME's attire to enquire about the cricket score, and it also looks like he has had a few to drink when he does a little dance for us, our wait is over, as the bus does eventually arrive.

Stagecoach South West Service X46 turns up to take us back to Torquay, but we also spot that this bus goes past the hotel, which saves us having to swap buses in Torquay. The bus is running about twenty minutes late, but it looks like the driver of the "F1" service in Exeter is driving our bus, as when it gets onto the main dual carriageway along the route, he opens the throttle to try and claw back some time. After about an hour we arrive back in Torquay and eventually arrive at our stop, with the bus only running a couple of minutes later than the allotted time, so the driver has done well with his impersonation of Jenson Button. We head back to our rooms so that we can have a little rest and freshen up before we go out for the evening, and we all meet back up in the reception an hour later.

We decide that tonight we would go back to Brixham, and have a look at how "The Hole In The Wall" is on a night time, we do have to wait a while for our Stagecoach South West Service 12 to turn up, but eventually it does and for the time of night, the bus is packed, which is not bad considering that this bus service has a twenty minute frequency during the evening. Stagecoach South West must be doing something right for this to be a popular route. After about forty minutes, we arrive in Brixham, and we make our way through the town to get us back to our pub that we visited the day before. We enter "The Hole In The Wall", see picture right, and considering this pub is small inside, the pub is filled just right, and it looks like there may be some live entertainment happening in the corner in a while. Pints ordered, but Mr WME's pint has to be changed as it looks like it is at the end of the barrel, and with the friendly staff in this establishment, they swap it over with no problem for another ale of Mr WME's choice. Mr UKBuses wants some music on the jukebox, so I put a pound in, and I seem to time it right as the live entertainment is about to start, but at least the landlord is kind enough to reimburse the pound from the jukebox. We spend a while listening to the live entertainment, and after a handful of songs, we decide to head back.

We walk back towards the bus stop to get our bus back to the hotel, but it looks like someone has it in for me, as I slide and then nearly trip in two separate incidents along the way, but we time it right as a bus is about to pull off. We make our way to the top deck, and start our journey back. We arrive in Paignton, where a few youngsters get on, and as we head back to Torquay, they decide to sing happy birthday, all these strangers seem to know it is Mr UKBuses birthday, but alas it is one of their gang who are celebrating. It is dark outside now, and we misjudge the stop so we get off a stop earlier than planned, but at least it is all down hill. We arrive back at the hotel, and it seems that either age is setting in for Mr UKBuses, or he is still trying to get over his near decapitation on this morning's open topper service, as he makes his way to bed. Mr WME and myself decide to catch a little bit of the hotel entertainment, a singing husband and wife entitled "G and T" or "Gin and Tonic" for their proper stage name, who aren't too bad, but we find out why Mr UKBuses has gone to bed early, as it seems to us that he has written the terrible jokes that the pair are coming out with. After a handful of songs, we decide to go outside for a last cigarette before saying our good nights and going to the land of nod.

Another cracking day out, and we look forward to another big breakfast in the morning and a visit to the Torbay Bus Rally on day three of our trip. The weather did us proud today, will it stay for the most important day of the weekend?

2011 - Day Out 20: Torquay

2011-09-05T17:57:00.000+01:00

Date: Friday 02 September 2011

After a weekend away in Weymouth in June, The WRP's (Woody, Roger and Paul) decide to spend a weekend just down the coast in Torquay, for the annual Torbay Bus Rally.

It is an early start and I meet up with Mr UKBuses just after 8.00am, where we get a quick lift of Mummy SBI, to Stourbridge Junction. We only have a few minutes to wait before a London Midland local service takes us to Smethwick Galton Bridge, to transfer to the Birmingham New Street London Midland Service. We make our way to the first carriage, where we meet up with Mr WME, who fails to notice us as he is checking his mobile phone, so he is shocked to see us as he looks up, and was expecting to meet us in Birmingham City Centre. With the weekend gang complete, we make our way into Birmingham New Street, where we decide a quick walk is needed through the Pavilions Shopping Centre and to McDonald's, where we all opt for a Bacon Roll to fill us up for our journey ahead. Breakfast over, we make our way back into New Street, where I get a "fresh air" break in and a visit to WH Smiths before our long journey down to Torquay.

Refreshments for the journey sorted, we make our way to Platform 3A, and as the train pulls in, Mr UKBuses realises that we are at the wrong end of the train and a quick rush to coach F, which is the other end of the train, is needed to get to our seats. We board the train and Mr UKBuses and myself find our seats, but Mr WME upsets a woman who is in his seat. He asks politely and she does move, but the look on her face wasn't nice. It is 09.42am and we make our way on the Arriva Cross Country service to Torquay where we will pass through Bristol Temple Meads, Weston-Super-Mare and Taunton along the way. We start off our journey by having a read of the newspaper, Mr WME opting for The Metro, and myself The Sun. Mr UKBuses has brought along a book to read, "My Story" by Ronnie Kray, and he does find the reference to our London Regular, "The Blind Beggar". The journey is going quite good, even though a passenger boarded along the way and nicked a seat of a mother and child whilst she was in the toilet, and refuses to give her back the seat when she points this fact out, and these old people wonder why the young don't respect their elders. We know the end of the journey is in sight when we pass through Dawlish and experience a pleasant part of the journey when we have a ride along the coast. It has taken three and a half hours, but we do arrive at our destination, Torquay Railway Station. I soon make a dash to the front of the station and have a well deserved "Fresh air break".

We have a little walk and after about a five to ten minute walk we arrive at our hotel of the weekend, "The Corbyn Head Hotel", where we are checked into our rooms by the receptionist, Claire, who decides to laugh out loud when we tell her where we are from, it turns out she comes from Dudley, so no wonder she laughed. We make our way to our rooms, where we have a freshen up before meeting back in reception for a little look around the area in the afternoon.

Luckily, the bus stop is situated right across the road from the hotel, and we will be catching Stagecoach South West buses throughout the day and opt for the Stagecoach "Explorer Ticket", which is priced at £6.90. We catch the Stagecoach South West Service 12, which will first take us to Brixham, and after a journey time of about forty minutes, we arrive at Brixham, and after a few photographs have been taken, we have a little walk around the town. A newsagent is found enabling Mr UKBuses and myself a chance to purchase a Euromillions ticket, which hopefully after the draw tonight, we could be a £100 Million pounds better off, we can only wish. Before we become a multi-millionaire, Mr UKBuses soon finds a JD Wetherspoons, "The Vigilance", see picture right, we take our seats by the open window looking out onto the street, with the fresh air breeze keeping us awake. Whilst in the Wetherspoons, a local seems to be interested in Mr UKBuses hair, he stands up and walks across to look out of the window, but he seems to be interested in looking at Mr UKBuses hair and then giving Mr WME a strange look, perhaps he has found out why there is a Brylcreem shortage in the area. We make our way into the town and walk up the main high street, and we find a public house that Mr WME is on the lookout for, a little corner pub, called "The Hole In The Wall". We enter and it is a nice cosy pub inside, and seems to have a good atmosphere. The time of day we were in, approximately 3.00pm, it is a bit quiet, but seems that by the evening, it will be a busy establishment. A quiz machine is found in the corner, and after a quick game of Bejewelled Blitz 2, we have a go at the pub quiz, unsuccessful, Mr UKBuses decides to have a flutter, and he hands me his wallet, I seem shocked at this, and as he looks at my response, he soon realises that national security has been breached, and quickly takes it back out of my hand twice as fast as he put it in, I was also shocked at the weight of the wallet, so he must have had a good few days previously spotting discarded penny's. After a thirty pence flutter, his heart can't take anymore expense and we soon leave the pub and get some fresh air to restore Mr UKBuses colour. On our way out we pass by the harbour, before walking up a street to takes us back to the bus stop.

As we arrive, our bus is waiting for us, and we make our way to Paignton back onto Stagecoach South West's service 12, and after twenty minutes we arrive at the bus station in Paignton. A few photographs are taken by Mr WME and Mr UKBuses, whilst I try and find a toilet as Mr D9 seems to have lent me his bladder. There are none in the bus station, so I make my way to the railway station opposite only to be told by a member of staff that I can't come in as it is now being locked up. I make my way towards the town, and I realise that there is a pub opposite, "Winston's", and sneak in and out to use the facilities without purchasing a drink, Mr UKBuses would have been proud! We make our way into the town and find our second Wetherspoons of the day, "The Talk of The Town". We are asked if we are drinking outside, but decide not too as we would be drinking out of horrible plastic glasses. A relaxing drink, we make our way opposite the pub, where Mr UKBuses has spotted refreshments to cool him down, so Mr WME and Mr UKBuses sample an ice cream, we are by the seaside, so it is a good reason to indulge. Whilst they are cooling themselves down, we make our way back to the bus station, where our bus is waiting for us again, Stagecoach South West's, Service 12.

We board, and make our way to the top deck, Mr UKBuses sits at the front of the bus, and as Mr WME and myself are making our way upstairs, a standard "toot" is given by the driver, signalling that he is reversing, and Mr WME makes his way to the top deck, but is starting to move involuntarily down towards the back of the bus, and I seem to make my way back down the stairs. After clambering back to the top deck, Mr WME and myself settle into a seat close to Mr UKBuses. Just under twenty minutes pass, and we also pass the hotel, going for a quick wander around Torquay. We walk round the corner and we catch Mr UKBuses outside of his shop, before looking above the shop to find our third Wetherspoon's of the day, "The Green Ginger". Drinks ordered we grab a window seat looking down onto the main street, sipping from our plastic glasses, a bit of a let down for a Wetherspoon's establishment, something which I think takes the taste away. Drinks finished, we make our way back downstairs and towards The Strand, where we catch, you guessed it, Stagecoach South West's Service 12, for a couple of minutes journey back to our hotel.

We have a freshen up, and after an hour we meet back in reception, to go back to Torquay for a bite to eat. We don't have a long wait before our "12" takes back for the short journey into the town. We alight at Cary Parade, and I spot a toy crane machine, where I try and "grab" a "Woody", a pound after, he is unable to be pinned down, must run in the family!. We have a short walk along The Strand where we spot our fourth Wetherspoons of the day, "The London Inn", a good classic Wetherspoons pub with decor that is the chain's standard, we realise that "The Green Ginger" is probably an ex-Chicago Rock Cafe style of establishment. We seem to make our way to the sky, as we are on the top level of the pub, up in the heavens, and after perusing the menu, we order our standard Wetherspoons fayre, with Mr UKBuses returning to his Chicken Tikka Masala, but after half hour of waiting, our grub arrives and Mr UKBuses doesn't seem to be happy as there is a lack of poppadoms on his plate, and he has paid for these!!! We soon finish our grub, and we make our way back on to solid terra firma, and virtually opposite is Mr WME's pub that he was after, our second visit of the day to another "The Hole in the Wall".

It is a little climb up a side street, and we are in the pub, a bit bigger that the Brixham version, but there isn't a lot of room as the pub seems to be a popular establishment. We make our way outside where it does seem to be a bit windy, but we are not talking the weather here, Mr UKBuses seems to move a lot outside of the pub, he must have ants in his pants, see picture left. We soon finish our drinks and we head back towards Cary Parade with Mr UKBuses still muttering about his lack of poppadoms, and decide to make a second visit to "The Green Ginger", but before we do, we visit the pub opposite, just to check on the score of the England Euro 2012 qualifier against Bulgaria, I think that we are through as we are toward the latter stages of the match, with the score being 3-0 in England's favour. We are on the lookout for Mr UKBuses "Uncle Dave", who is in the area on holiday, but alas after checking this Wetherspoons he is nowhere to be seen, and so we seem to be forgetting something as we are still being served in plastic glasses, which also does nothing to enhance the flavour of the purchased "Abbot's Ale", which is half left as we decide to go back to the hotel.

We make our way to the stop opposite in The Strand, where we wait for our final Service 12 of the day, but Mr WME decides to opt for the journey on foot, and after a short wait, Mr UKBuses and myself catch the bus. We keep a lookout for Mr WME along the way, and as we pass The Pavilion Theatre, Mr UKBuses spots Mr WME, who is waving at the bus, I don't know if he can see us, but he still waves. I don't spot him however, as when I turn round into the direction of Mr WME, we are half a mile up the road and all I can see is pitch black. Mr UKBuses and myself arrive back at the hotel, where we grab our room keys, and Mr UKBuses decides to call it a night, I go outside for a "fresh air break", and Mr WME appears walking out of the darkness up the hotel drive. We get a drink to end the night being served by Sylwia, and opting for seats in the quiet coffee lounge, sitting in the window overlooking a dark pool area. A little while later I decide to pop out for my last "fresh air break" of the day, and since the temperature has dropped considerably, we spend the last ten minutes sitting in the bar area, before we decide to go back to our rooms to catch up on some much needed sleep after a nice relaxing day and introduction to the Torbay and Brixham area, hoping that the glorious sunny weather of today will stay for us over the weekend - Night Night!

2011 - Day Out 19: London

2011-08-17T23:33:00.000+01:00

Date: Saturday 13 August 2011

It is halfway through August, and with Mr WME away, Mr UKBuses and myself decide to take a visit to the capital of England, and we are off to London. It is an early start and after waking up at 05:30am, I make my way into Wollaston at 06:30 for the first journey on a Saturday morning of National Express West Midlands Service 276, so upon arrival at the terminus, I board the bus and at 06:36 I am on my way. A quick text is sent to Mr UKBuses to let him know that the bus is on the move and for him to get to the bus stop in Norton on time (This plan does work most of the time). Upon arrival in Norton, Mr UKBuses has received my text and is waiting at the bus stop ready to board. With the WARP's complete for this trip, the WR's are on their way to Stourbridge Junction to get their train. After a quick trip through Stourbridge, we arrive at our stop outside The Labour In Vain in Oldswinford, and we make a quick walk up to the station. Upon arrival we save time when we arrive in London, and get our London Transport One Day Travel Card Zones 1-2 from the ticket office at the station. Tickets bought for our day in London, even though the staff at the junction asked if we were going on the Chiltern!, we make our way to Platform 2, and after a short wait, our Chiltern Railway train arrives and we head to Birmingham Snow Hill.

We arrive in Birmingham, disaster strikes already, we make our way to the ticket barriers at Snow Hill Station, and the barriers do not like our tickets, so we are stuck station side, luckily an attendant is nearby, and lets us through onto the streets of Birmingham. We make our way to The Pallisades and we pass the shops that were looted by yobs in the week, which are boarded up, but with the British spirit, there are signs up saying "Open as Normal". After walking down Corporation Street, we arrive at The Pallisades and we have time for breakfast before our train is due, so we head into McDonalds, where we both have our usual Bacon Rolls to keep us going through the day. Bacon Rolls devoured, we make our way through The Pallisades and into Birmingham New Street station, where upon arrival we check out the departures board and see that our train will be on Platform 2 at 0830. With a little time to spare, I pop outside for a fresh air break, and before we make our way to the platform, we head into WH Smith to purchase liquid refreshments for the journey. We are now on Platform 2, where on time our Virgin Train arrives on time and we board coach B to find our seats, but we head further up the carriage and we find an available table seat. We are off to the Capital, and we make our way to Birmingham International. After leaving Birmingham International, it seems that the carriages seem to be creaking, or that there was a strange noise coming from somewhere. I work out that the noise is coming from Mr UKBuses, and he has decided to have a nap. It is a shame that the other passengers couldn't do the same but they were being kept awake by his snoring - evidence is shown above left. Just before we reach Milton Keynes, Mr UKBuses wakes up and the snoring stops, which means that the passengers can have a short nap before reaching London. We make our way past Wembley Stadium and just before 09:55, we arrive in the Capital and at London Euston Railway Station.

We make our way from Coach B, which is at the back, so we have a way to walk to get out of the station. We are off the platform and we now make our way across the concourse, and outside to the front of the station. It is time for me to light up, whilst we make our way to the bus station which is located at the front of the station where Mr UKBuses starts the photograph taking, getting a head start while I finish my cigarette. We spend a few minutes at the bus station, and then make our way towards Euston Road, and stand at bus stop H, so that we can get our first London bus of the day, and after a few minutes waiting Arriva London's Route 73 turns up and we board. Half hour passes and we arrive at Victoria Bus Station, where we spend a few minutes walking around the station taking photographs. We now make our way down to Victoria Underground Station, where we make our way onto the Victoria Line and catch our first tube of the day. The tube arrives, and it is quite busy, so we cram ourselves in and we haven't got far to travel, well the next station to be precise, and after a journey time of just 2 minutes, we arrive at Green Park Underground Station.

We need to get to Bermondsey, to get to a new filming location, so at Green Park, we change from the Victoria Line and onto the Jubilee Line where we go five stations along and the south of the river and arrive at Bermondsey. We are now looking for a fire station, and as we exit Bermondsey Underground Station we turn right and start walking along Jamaica Road for a street called Parker's Row, after a few minutes we cannot find it, and we realise that we are walking in the wrong direction, so we turn around and walk back along Jamaica Road and we pass the underground station and continue walking along. After a few minutes we still haven't found Parker's Row, but with Mr UKBuses checking out his phone we soon find out that we are walking in the right direction, who needs a map allowance! We find Parker's Row, and we turn the corner and we find a fire station - The Dockhead fire station to be exact, otherwise known as Blackwall in the ITV Series London Burning. After taking a few photographs, we have a look around the back, and take a few more photographs, seen above left. I remember the back yard more than the front entrance, but after checking out YouTube, the front entrance was used quite a lot when the fire engines were called into action. After visiting "Blackwall", we make our way back onto Jamaica Road, and await our bus to take us for a dining location, and after 5 minutes, we catch Abellio London's Service 188, and we go for a short hop literally as we get off at the next bus stop, where we walk around the corner into Druid Street and a new Wetherspoons to sample, "The Pommelers Rest", situated virtually on the entrance to Tower Bridge. After getting our drinks, we find a table and peruse the menu. I opt for the usual Beer and Burger offering, and Mr UKBuses now opts for his now standard BBQ Chicken Melt without the melt (Cheese). After ordering the food, I gather the condiments (with no horseradish sauce to be seen), and take a seat. After a few minutes our food arrives and we find out that the chip portions are near the Chester side, but we still appreciate the food and wolf it down us. Food consumed we make it to the bus stop to get to our next destination. So after walking around in circles in Druid Street, we find our bus stop, which is located just outside the Wetherspoons!

Arriva London's Service 78 arrives and it takes us across Tower Bridge, and through the streets of London, where after about fifteen minutes, we arrive at Aldgate and another photographing location - Aldgate bus station. We hang around the bus station for a while getting as many photographs as we can. Considering that this bus station is in the middle of busy London, this station is a very good location for bus photography, and seriously puts several West Midland's bus stations to shame. As I stated that this bus station is a good location for photographs, be very careful that people don't get in the way, such as this strange character on the photograph seen left. Photographs over, we wait at Stand L in the bus station when our next bus arrives, Arriva London's Service 254. We take our seats and it is a short ride and we arrive at our stop along Whitechapel Road, and we alight outside the underground station and have a short walk to our London regular, The Blind Beggar, pictured below, right. After a quick drink, we make our way back along Whitechapel Road, and down to the Whitechapel Underground Station, and we go onto the District Line to get to our next destination, or so we thought. We happen to catch the wrong train, and we are on the Hammersmith and City Line and arrive at Liverpool Street Underground Station, the maps on Mr UKBuses phone didn't work properly on this little journey. From Liverpool Street we jump on the Central Line which takes us to Bank Underground Station, and then we have to walk to Monument Underground Station, to get back on track and back onto the District Line, where we catch our tube to take us to our next destination (the correct one this time!!).

We arrive at Tower Hill Underground Station, and after going around in circles outside the tube station, we are now waiting for the Heritage Route 15 Routemaster, which is operated by Stagecoach London, we have taken our seats at the back end of the lower deck, and we have a cheery chappy conducting who entertains us all the way to Charing Cross. Upon arrival, we take a couple of photo's of the Routemaster before we walk around the corner past Trafalgar Square, and we catch the Abellio London service 3, which takes us a short ride down to Parliament Square. After having a little walk and a break around the square, we walk past The Houses of Parliament and we are ahead of schedule, nearly two hours, so we go off the plan, and first we catch Go Ahead London General service 87, which takes us to Vauxhall Bus Station. From here we decide to jump back onto the tube, and so we go underground and back onto the Victoria Line and after a bit of time underground, we arrive for the second time of the day at Green Park. We make it to the open air again, and make our way to the bus stops where we decide to catch another Routemaster Heritage Route, Service 9 operated by First London, but we nearly didn't catch it as we are waiting at the bus stop, the bus pulls up a bit away from the stop due to another bus parked up. We make our way up to the bus and it decides to drive off and we see it heading down the road. It doesn't get far, it is stopped by the traffic lights, so we make a quick dash and the conductress kindly lets us on and apologises as we board about driving off from the stop because she had already pressed the bell. It doesn't take us long on the Routemaster before we arrive at Trafalgar Square.

Upon arrival we decide where to go next and we have a little walk from Trafalgar Square to another Square, this time Leicester Square. When we arrive at Leicester Square we make a return visit to a public house that we have visited in the past, The Bear and Staff, seen left. At the bar I ask for a Becks Blue, so the barman decides to ask a stupid question "I've never tried this, does it taste like Becks'?" I reply "yes", but I was tempted to say "No, it tastes like Budweiser". Mr UKBuses has already found a seat, and after a while from relaxing his feet, he decides to join in with the barman and asks "This bit must have been a shop?", I point out to him that there is a sign right behind him stating that this bit used to be a tobacconists shop until the '90's when the pub underwent a refurb and the shop became part of the pub, I wander then why there are tobacco pictures on the wall in this part! We have had a rest and it is now time to carry on "off plan", so we decide to visit the tube for the last time today, and we make our way to Leicester Square Underground Station, and we opt for the Piccadilly Line, and make our way to King's Cross. We pass through Covent Garden, Holburn and Russell Square before we arrive at Kings Cross St Pancreas Underground Station. We make our way to the open air, and we come out of the station and start walking, but the map's on Mr UKBuses phone must be playing up again as we decide to walk around the back of St Pancreas Railway Station, it takes us about ten minutes before we make our way around the other side and back onto the main road before eventually catching our last London bus of the day.

We wait in Euston Road, and it is not long to wait before a Stagecoach London Service 205 appears to take us on the short journey to London Euston Railway Station. Before making our way into the station, we grab a few more shots in the bus station outside, and we have a bit of time to kill, so we decide to have a Burger King, which is situated off the main concourse of the station. I have time to pop outside for some "fresh air" before catching our train back, and after that we make our way onto the concourse for the usual "less than five minutes to board" platform announcement, but we look and our train is being prepared and not long after it is announced that our train will be leaving from Platform 1. With the early announcement, we don't have to walk far, as we are in Coach J, the first carriage on the train and "First Class", we board and find our seats, so with about ten minutes before we are due off we take our seats and relax for a bit in our first class seats, seen above right. We are on the move and get even more comfortable as I recline my seat, something that I have never been able to do in standard class. On our journey back we sample the complimentary drinks that are available, and I also opt for the complimentary short breads and crisps. The journey seems quicker in the quiet first class and it doesn't seem that long before we arrive in Coventry, followed by Birmingham International and arrive at our last destination of Birmingham New Street, we alight our first class carriage and we switch across to Platform 4 where a London Midland train takes us to Smethwick Galton Bridge.

We arrive at Smethwick Galton Bridge, and we have a little time before our train arrives, so we visit the front of the station for a quick "break", and we make our way back to the platform where we board our London Midland train which takes us back to Stourbridge Junction. For this time of night, it is virtually standing room only, and we just about get a seat to rest in whilst on our journey. We arrive at the junction and swap over to Platform 1 for our "Dodger" to take us down to Stourbridge Town, we board the train first before everyone else and get a seat and as the passengers from our Smethwick train board the Dodger, it is also standing room only for the three minute journey. We arrive at Stourbridge Town, where we make a dash and there is a Black Diamond Service 276C parked up. We ask the driver if we can board here (most drivers let us on), but this driver seems to be a jobsworth, and makes us walk to Birmingham Street and Stand F. As we make our way he passes us, and even though he knew we and another passenger wanted the bus, he drives straight past the stand and doesn't even have the courtesy to wait for us, so with another half hour we wait and finally board Black Diamond's Service 276A to take us both home after another brilliant day out, "First Class" I would say!

2011 - Day Out 18: The 246 Route by foot

2011-08-11T10:30:00.006+01:00

Date: Tuesday 02 August 2011

There I was walking down Market Street in Stourbridge after a hard day's work when someone shouts my name, it was a colleague of Mr UKBuses, a driver from National Express West Midlands Pensnett Garage called David Gerrard. I know of him as I used to work with his wife Carol years ago.

A few months ago, Dave raised money for Help for Heroes by giving up telling jokes for a month, and fair play to Dave, a hard task for a man who is constantly a joker. His latest fund-raising scheme is to walk the service 246 route, and it was happening this Sunday. After a little gentle persuasion, I gave in and said that I may see him Sunday.

I wasn't going to do this alone, so I roped in Mr UKBuses to help with the walkers along the way.

Date: Sunday 07 August 2011

The day of the walk had come. I arranged to meet Mr UKBuses at 10.45, but at 10.30, the doorbell rang and the dog went into his usual barking mode. After escaping the dog's antics, we walked it into Stourbridge to get to Dudley. Mr UKBuses had arranged for transport to take us into Dudley to meet the other walkers. We were being picked up from the stop at Stourbridge Ring Road, so as we stood there, National Express West Midlands Service 246, the route we will be walking later, had pulled up. We wouldn't be catching this one. At about 11.25, our transport had arrived, one of National Express West Midlands Pensnett Garage Enviro 400 buses (which are used on the 246 route), which was on "Private Charter". Our driver, "Shuttle" Steve, who is driving the bus back to Stourbridge whilst we walk and he will be stopping along the way to help us cross busy junctions, pulled up to let us on, and we were on our way to Dudley, with Steve, Mr UKBuses and myself having the luxury of the bus all to ourselves. We were nearly at Dudley, so I became a honorary bus driver for the day, and put my Hi-Viz vest on ready for our walk.

Steve pulls up at the layover area in our "Chartered" bus, where we alight and meet the rest of the drivers all raring to go. As we pulled in to the layover, I'm sure that I could lipread and Dave said "Oh, look there's Roger on the bus". As we got off the bus, we were met by Dave Gerrard, the organiser of this event, and after shaking hands, we mingle with the other drivers. It is nearly midday, and time for us to go, but before we depart, a photographer has arrived to take a photograph for the local evening paper, The Express and Star. We assemble in front of the bus and have our photograph taken. After our photo shoot, it is now time to limber up as we are about to walk the 246 route.

We start our walk, and make our way past the 246 stand at Dudley bus station, at this point I shout to Dave and ask "Is it the 246 route we ware walking or the 246E to Brierley Hill?", a reply of "We are walking the whole way" answers my question and so we have seven miles ahead of us. As we leave the bus station, and head towards the bus mall, Steve and his helper, Mr UKBuses pass us, sounding the bandit alarm as they go, and we head towards King Street, where we pass the back of J D Wetherspoons, "The Full Moon", and as the back entrance is a fire door, there is no way in and so we have to carry on. We reach the end of King Street, and at the junction of King Street and High Street, Mr UKBuses makes an appearance and is standing in the middle of the road to help us cross safely. We carry on down towards Queens Cross, where Mr UKBuses has got ahead of us thanks to Steve's driving, and Steve and Mr UKBuses are on hand to get us safely across the traffic lights. After this we carry on towards Russell's Hall Hospital, walking down Stourbridge Road. On the way, Dave says that we haven't got long to go till we get to the hospital. He mentioned this at a very memorable point along the Stourbridge Road, and he wouldn't believe me when I replied that where we were standing was where the 1 mile marker had been when I did my Action Heart run in February. We make our way down Stourbridge Road, where we are met yet again by Mr UKBuses at the main island to help us across the road, and we are now on the main Kingswinford Road and on our way towards the hospital. It doesn't take us that long for us to walk to Russell's Hall Hospital.

It is now just before 12.40pm, and we are now about one-third of a way into our route. We have a little break outside main reception where we have a photograph taken. The original plan was for Mr UKBuses to arrive early with Steve, and for him to apprehend some nurses to appear in the photograph, but at the main reception area, there were no nurses to be found, something that may have made Mr UKBuses unhappy. Photographs over, this was also an opportunity for us to have a quick bladder stop, which was a good idea as there was still some way to go. With our mini break over, we make our way to Kingswinford Road to carry on our journey, and with no need for Mr UKBuses, we use the pedestrian crossing outside the hospital so that we can carry on up towards Holly Hall via the Pensnett Road. As we arrive at the end of Pensnett Road, we arrive at Holly Hall, which we turn right into Stourbridge Road, and head towards Brierley Hill. There are no main roads to cross along this stretch of the route, so Steve and Mr UKBuses go ahead and have a well deserved break and stop off at a good photograph opportunity. After about ten minutes, we arrive at the photograph opportunity, and we stop for a couple of minutes to get our breath back, and also for the competitors to have their photograph taken outside the old Harts Hill Garage, a location where some of the buses used on the 246 route used to rest overnight, in the Midland Red and WMPTE days.

With the photograph taken, we make our way towards Brierley Hill., Mr UKBuses makes his way to the roundabout, to help us cross the road, and then swiftly onto the next set of traffic lights. After crossing us over the beginning of the Brierley Hill by-pass, Mr UKBuses makes his way to the main junction by the Civic Hall with myself helping out the walkers across the road. At this point Mr UKBuses realises that he has gone off Brierley Hill as there are two more crossings in the town centre for him to help us across. As we walk down Brierley Hill High Street, Dave pesters the passengers waiting for the 246, by asking them to walk with us, understandably no passengers joined in. We now make our way to the Five Ways junction and with three lanes to cover for us to get across, I help Steve and Mr UKBuses with the marshaling and at this point of the journey to Stourbridge, this is the only place along the walk so far that we have a problem with the traffic, with one ignorant driver who didn't want to wait for us to cross and virtually is on top of us as we cross. We now make our way to the end of Brierley Hill's High Street and we now have to cross the other end of the town's by-pass. This is an easy one for Mr UKBuses as there is a pelican crossing which helps with the crossing.

After Brierley Hill, we have a good stretch of the route that is downhill, and we make our way to Silver End, which Steve and Mr UKBuses have already made there way down there ready for us to get across. As we cross, a police car goes by and it is nice for the local constabulary to stop and help us, ay you may tell I was being sarcastic as they don't stop and carry on along Brettell Lane. We are safely across Delph Road, so Mr UKBuses gets back on the bus to get to our next crossing point, I ask him to get us a pint ready at The Starving Rascal - I'm unsure what his reply was!. As we continue I ask Dave "Which is the next walk, the number 9 route?", he replies, "No, it is going to be the 120 a nice route with Cape Hill thrown in for good measure." I just hope that the reply was one of his jokes. As we are going along Brettell Lane, we are not far off from the Collis Street junction, so this also means that we are two-thirds along the route, so we are on the home straight. We arrive at Collis Street, and Mr UKBuses is there waiting for us, so we cross the road, but he also makes sure none of us cheat and use the short cut and he makes us continue along Brettell Lane and into Amblecote - There was no sign of the pint from the Starving Rasccal!

From Collis Street, we have a nice descent and it is not long before we arrive in Amblecote, and without stopping at The Maverick, we turn left at the end of Brettell Lane, and we walk down Amblecote High Street and arrive at The Fish, the name that people still call the junction at the end of Collis Street, even though The Fish Inn closed several years ago - It is now a a Cantonese restaurant. Mr UKBuses is waiting for us to stop the traffic at the bottom of Collis Street, and he makes his way back onto the bus to get him to the next junction. After Collis Street we head towards Stourbridge, and even though we have had a long descent, we have to climb a slight hill. After a ten minute climb, we arrive at The Royal Oak, and with Mr UKBuses not getting us a pint again, he duly crosses us over safely, and I agree with him when he says this is one of the busy junctions that we have had to cross due to the fact that you have traffic turning into Vicarage Road from two directions as well as a feeder lane turning left to get to Stourbridge. After Vicarage Road, Stourbridge Ring Road is in sight, and we make a short work of the downhill descent and arrive on the last road before we get to our final destination. As we turn onto the ring road we have a short climb before the walkers make it into Birmingham Street, and with Mr UKBuses and myself having one last go at the marshaling, we arrive at the terminus.

We arrive at Stand F, and we have achieved the 246 route in just over two hours (only one and a half hours late from the published timetable). As we have a breather, organiser Dave Gerrard thanks everyone who took part, and also to Steve, Mr UK Buses and myself for giving up our time and helping out with the traffic marshaling (I think I had the rough part of the bargain as I walked all the way - Mr UKBuses had assistance from a Enviro 400 along the way - but if he didn't he wouldn't have been able to get to the next junction to cross us safely.). With £500 coming from National Express West Midlands, and with the sponsor money for all those who took part, it is hoped that over £1,000 will have been raised for the purchase of overnight beds for parents to use at The Children's Unit at Russell's Hall Hospital. Everyone who took part truly deserves a pat on the back for what they achieved. - To view the report that appeared in The Express and Star, click on the picture below.

With a few minutes for us to get our breath back, all those who took part, board our "Private Chartered" bus and "Shuttle" Steve undertakes his last duty for the day by taking all of us walkers back to Dudley along the 246 route that we have just walked. May I personally thank Steve for giving up his time and picking Mr UKBuses and myself up in the morning to take us to Dudley and also for driving the walkers back after their trek. Also may I thank the drivers who passed us whilst in service on the 246, by showing their support along the way and using the bandit alarms to top up our spirits along the way. As we rest our weary feet, I finalise the details for Dave, as I have organised for him to tell the residents of Stourbridge about the walk on the following Saturday and he is due to make an appearance on The Bridge Radio (102.5 FM), and appear with fellow bus enthusiast Phil Tonks' on his Saturday "Bridge Brunch" show on the radio station. Good luck to Dave for the appearance and also a big big thank you needs to go to Dave for organising this fund-raiser for the Children's Unit.

We arrive in Dudley and after saying goodbye to the rest of the people who took part, and a thank you from Dave for us turning up, Steve takes the bus back to the depot, and Mr UKBuses and myself have a little time to spare, so we catch a National Express West Midlands Service 126 that is waiting in the bus station, to take us to Wolverhampton, where we decide to check out the new Wolverhampton bus station. We make our way along the Birmingham New Road, and it is not long before we arrive in Wolverhampton and we make our way onto the Ring Road, and into the new bus station entrance for the first time. As we arrive at our stand, we notice that a National Express West Midlands service 256 is waiting at its stand, so we quickly make our way around the new station to get to the stand, as we didn't want to wait another hour for the next bus. Our first visit is also a short visit, but we board our 256 before exiting the station as quick as we entered it, and make our way back to Stourbridge. I'm not impressed with the station on my first visit to the new facility, but seeing as it was only a brief glimpse, future visits may change my mind.

We make our way through Penn, and this is the first time since our last memorable journey on the route, and as we arrive at the dreaded bus stop, the door seems to behave and doesn't drop off. After another half hour we arrive back in Stourbridge, and since we sat down on the bus in Wolverhampton, the walk is beginning to take effect with my feet now starting to ache. Upon arrival, we make our way to J D Wetherspoons, "The Chequers Inn", for a well deserved drink, and before making our way back home, we also visit The Longlands Tavern and finally The Gigmill and then back to our respective homes to rest our feet.

I'm glad that I went along and supported Dave on his fund-raising, and I can truly say, and also on behalf of Mr UKBuses, that I feel proud on what we achieved today, oh and also Mr UKBuses is quite handy at stopping the traffic!!

2011 - Day Out 17: Warwickshire

2011-08-09T22:32:00.000+01:00

Date: Saturday 30 July 2011

It's the last Saturday of July, and how can we celebrate it, the WARP's get together. So the first bus of the day is National Express West Midlands Service 276, on which Mr UKBuses boards (he was at the stop at the right time this trip!), and we make our way to Stourbridge Junction, where we have to wait to get on the train as the conductor had to sort out his cup of coffee first. Eventually we board and shortly we arrive at Smethwick Galton Bridge, where we change platforms so that we catch the London Midland Wolverhampton to Birmingham service. We wait on Platform 4 towards where the front of the train will be. The train arrives and as predicted, Mr WME is in the first carriage. Mr UKBuses and myself board and say our hello's to Mr WME. The gang is nearly complete, and Mr D9 had text us to say he is in Birmingham New Street, so upon arrival, I make my way to the smoking area, whilst Mr UKBuses and Mr WME search for a D9. I finish my break and rejoin the search, and he is then spotted the other side of the ticket barriers. The gang is now complete and we can make our way to Warwickshire, our area for the day.

First off, we make our way to Coventry, so we catch the 0930 Virgin Train service. We try and find a seat, but the carriage is a bit packed so Mr WME and Mr D9 sit further down the carriage. Mr UKBuses decides it is a perfect opportunity to take a bald spot photo, so he sneaks down the carriage with his camera ready and he would have got away with it, except that the flash went off and Mr D9 noticed! We arrive in Coventry and as we get off the train I take the mickey out of Mr D9's bald spot without realising that the bloke in front of me is bald - oops!! We make a bald, sorry, bold move to the front of the railway station at Coventry, and walk straight onto the National Express Coventry Service 27 "Bendibus", which will take us to Coventry's Pool Meadow bus station. The journey is going okay on the back of the bendibus, until Mr D9 sees the front of the bus turn, which makes him feel a little bit sick. Luckily, its not that far and we soon arrive in Pool Meadow, and as we make our way through the bus station, we head up Trinity Street to catch our bus to take us to our next location, Stagecoach Warwickshire's Service 86 to Binley Woods.

We make our way out to Coventry, and we arrive shortly after at Binley Woods and we alight our bus at Heather Road. We walk down the street, and on our left hand side is the residence of the bucket household, or more accurately Hyacinths from Keeping Up Appearances. We walk past taking a sly shot or two of the house ready to run down the road just in case she apprehends us. After visiting the bucket residence we make our way to the main road and at the 86 bus stop to take us on a short journey. We have a little bit to wait and Mr D9's bladder is kicking in, I do offer to stand in front of the bin, but then realise it would not be a good idea as there is another hole in the side of the bin and I'd have wet legs!!! The 86 arrives, and we make our way up to Binley and alight just outside Morrison's. We have to wait just over ten minutes so this gives Mr D9 a chance to visit the toilet in the store, and as he makes his way back, he decides to have a race with an old woman riding a mobility scooter, he overtakes her on the crossing and arrives back at the stop refreshed. Our next bus is NXC's Service 4 which will take us to Stoke Aldermoor. We are on the lookout for Mitchell Close, it is a good job that I am in the seat travelling backwards, as we make our way through the estate, we pull up at a bus stop, and with the rest of the WARP's looking out, I notice that we have just passed it, so we all make a dash to the door and alight.

We have a few steps to make and we are standing at the end of Mitchell Close, looking up the road and a few houses up on the left, we spot Onslow's house. We walk up the street, and we all sneak our camera's out to take a picture and we are prepared to run as this estate doesn't look to friendly. We walk to the top of the street and have a look at Pinley Gardens, a park that is for use of residents of the estate. After a quick look round we walk back down Mitchell Close and back to our bus stop. It is just before midday, and our NXC Service 3A arrives and takes us back to Coventry. We soon arrive back in the city and decide it is time for lunch, so a quick walk up Trinity Street takes us to J D Wetherspoons "The Royal Standard", drinks ordered we find a table to peruse the menu's, which there was no point of looking at them as we all opt for our usual meals. Mr WME and Mr D9 do the honours of ordering the meals, and when they came back Mr D9 had no room to eat as all the menus ended up on his side of the table for a meeting, even though he did try and make a bit of space by taking to wearing them, or was this a ruse to stop bald spot photo's being taken. Food finished, and a quick visit for everyone to the loo, we head out of the Wetherspoons and have a bit of time to spare, so we have a little walk around to the Cathedral, where Mr D9 and myself reported in to our other halves. After a walk around the cathedral ruins, in which Mr WME decided the bald spot was exclusively for him by knocking people out of the way whilst trying to take a photo of the polished bald spot, we walk back to Trinity Street and our bus stop, with Mr D9 transforming into a "Cone Head", pleasing the local natives along the way. It was now time to get to our next destination, Warwick.

We board our bus, Stagecoach Warwickshire's Service X18, which took us through Leamington Spa, a place we would be visiting later in the day. After a journey of 40 minutes, we arrive in Warwick, so we have a walk through the town and through the market, and take a little time to visit "The Warwick Museum", where after a walk around, we find Bruce's big brother, and on our way out of the museum, we bump into Mr UKBuses, oh sorry I was mistaken, it was a collection of old fossils. We have a further walk around the town, and we pass a plastic cow along the way before arriving at a pub that Mr WME picked up on his pub radar, so we head into "The Punch Bowl", Mr UKBuses doesn't take this opportunity to buy a round as this was also a cheap place, with a pint of bitter priced under £2. So far today, we have had very sunny weather, but the rest of the day's weather could turn bleak as Mr D9 decides to give us a rendition of Tom Jone's "Delilah", but at least Mr WME decided to take this distraction and use it to his advantage by swapping pints with Mr D9 (unbeknown to him) having a few sips before swapping the pints back over. With Mr D9 singing and finishing his pint (or what's left of it!), we decide to leave the pub before the landlord chucks us out and head back to the bus station. We arrive and find out that the G1, which was our next bus we had to catch, can not serve the bus station due to roadworks in the area, so I ask a driver on the X17 where we catch the G1 from, and after explaining to me, Mr UKBuses decides to catch the X17 to Leamington Spa, so after boarding the bus and showing my ticket, I get a response from the driver - "I thought you wanted the G1!", I quickly make my way to the back of the bus.

We make our way to Leamington Spa on Stagecoach Warwickshire's X17, and after a ride of just over twenty minutes, we arrive in Leamington Spa, and we sample the newly opened JD Wetherspoons, "Jug and Jester", where as we wait at the bar, Mr WME walks in and goes directly to another bar and gets served straight away, Mr D9 and myself have the same idea, with Mr UKBuses still waiting and then nearly getting into an argument as he is accused by one of the local natives of pushing the queue. Whilst the fracas is nearly taking place, the rest of the WARP's take rest in an area by the window, with Mr WME and myself taking advantage of some very high backed chairs. After a couple of minutes, Mr UKBuses escapes from the fracas that he nearly caused at the bar, and as he takes his seat he decides to start a fresh fracas by having a wrestle with the artificial plants. I can assure all readers that no artificial plants were harmed on this trip, but Mr UKBuses is now having counselling. After a rest we finish our drinks, and have a little wander around Leamington Spa, before heading back to the bus stop and we use Stagecoach Warwickshire's X17 service again, which takes us back into Coventry.

After a brief ride through Kenilworth along the way, we arrive back in Coventry, Mr WME's pub radar has picked something up, so as we get off the bus, Mr WME is nearly nowhere to be seen as he is virtually around the corner, and we catch up with him for a short walk, where we arrive at The Windmill, a medieval looking pub with a biker atmosphere. After a quick visit for a bladder stop, drinks are ordered and we find a seat. There are little cubby holes in The Windmill and it turns out that the pub could actually be a maze as there seems to be a load of little rooms all over the place. After our visit to The Windmill, we duly leave after our pints are supped and we return to the bus stop, where Mr WME and Mr D9 decide to have a walk through the centre of Coventry. Mr UK Buses and myself decide to wait and catch Stagecoach Warwickshire's X16 back to Pool Meadow, which only takes a couple of minutes after boarding. We get off the bus at Trinity Street, where Mr WME is already there, and soon after we see Mr D9 who appears to be a little out of breath. We have a short walk back to Pool Meadow Bus Station to catch our last bus of the day.

It is just after 18:15 and our Central Connect "Signature" turned up to take us to Solihull on Service 82, but instead of the Signature, we end up with a "Bus2Work", something that all of us don't really want to catch as it is a Saturday and our day off work! We are on our way to Solihull, and we pass through a favourite village of mine, Meriden and pass through Hampton in Arden, a place that Mr WME and myself visited a couple of months previously. Not long after Hampton, we arrive back at Solihull and we are dropped off just outside the railway station. Arriving a couple of minutes earlier than planned, a few photographs are taken in a hectic looking station, with all the evening buses arriving at what it seems the same time before they make there way back to the depot. We all make our way to the platform where our London Midland train arrives to take us back home. Before Mr D9 leaves us at The Hawthorns, Mr WME manages to set up his camera on timer to take a sneak shot of the bald spot in what I can only describe as a classic move. After saying goodbye to Mr D9, it is now time to say goodbye to Mr WME at Smethwick Galton Bridge, with Mr UKBuses and myself staying on the train to Stourbridge Junction.

After arriving at the junction, we change platforms where we catch "The Dodger" back to Stourbridge Town and then our last bus of the day, Black Diamond's Service 276A back home. It has been another cracking day out with Mr WME on top form for sneaking the bald spot pictures throughout the day. Good weather throughout with good company, thanks for the excellent day fellow WARP's.

The "D9" Bald Spot Pictures:

The first sneaky shot of the day taken on the Virgin Train to Coventry.

The second sneaky shot of the day, taken outside The Warwick Museum.

The third sneaky shot of the day taken on the X17 between Leamington Spa and Coventry. The sun had been out all day and gives a nice glow to the bald spot of Mr D9.

2011 - Day Out 16: West Midlands

2011-07-17T15:22:00.001+01:00

Date: Saturday 16 July 2011

It is time for a local trip and I make my way to Wollaston to catch the 0856 National Express West Midlands Service 276, where I will meet up with Mr UKBuses, who will board the bus in Norton. I get around to Norton and Mr UKBuses is nowhere to be seen, so I get off at the next stop, which turns out to be two stops as the driver flies past the one I want to get off, and so I walk back up Shenstone Avenue and arrive at Mr UKBuses usual stop and he is still not there. After a few minutes of waiting, Mr UKBuses, walks into view around the corner, and he is confused as he thought I was on the bus. He is confused as he thought that the bus was due ten minutes later than the advertised time. These things happen, and it doesn't dampen our day, but we are as we are getting soaked by the downpour of rain, and wait for the next 276, which arrives on schedule, and we board to get to Stourbridge. As we arrive in Stourbridge, we get off by the town railway station to catch our train up to the Junction. We arrive at Stourbridge Junction, where after a couple of minutes wait we board the local London Midland service heading to Birmingham Snow Hill.

We are not going to Snow Hill, we decide to change at Smethwick Galton Bridge, where we change to Platform 4, and catch another London Midland train, which takes us through Birmingham New Street and we arrive at our destination, Aston, and our plan is to take a short walk up to Rotola Long Acre depot, but as we walk down the station steps, the rain starts to come down fast again. Luckily there is a bus stop right in front of us, so we take cover. Whilst waiting, a National Express West Midlands Service 67 arrives and we board the bendibus which takes us for a short ride. As we make our way down Tyburn Road, we decide to alight and a short walk around the corner, we arrive in Bromford Lane. The shelter display says that there is a National Express West Midlands Service 11A is due in 9 minutes, but there is one coming now. We board and it is another short ride where we decide to get off at Erdington.

Upon arrival at Erdington, we decide that we will go to Sutton Coldfield, so as we make our way across the many junctions (I decide that Erdington is not very pedestrian friendly), we arrive at our stop, just as a Central Connect Service 167 pulls up, so we get our value out of the Network West Midlands DayTripper tickets we purchase and catch another operators' bus. Service 167 is a service that serves many estates before getting to the final destination, so we have a good ride, even visiting the same Asda store, twice! We arrive in Sutton Coldfield, and the rain has nearly stopped. There are a still a few drops coming down, but Mr UKBuses braves the rain and gets his camera out to take a few photographs. We walk up to the main bus stop area, and it is a bus photographers paradise as there are a lot of buses loading and unloading. We are feeling a little peckish, so we decide to make our way to Walsall so that we can have lunch at the Wetherspoons. Our next bus to take us there arrives, and we board the National Express West Midlands service 77.

We leave Sutton Coldfield, and we make our way to Walsall. As we make our way there we go through an estate that looks familiar. I realise that we are in Streetly and this was the estate that Mr WME and myself walked through to get to a pub, which I'm sure he went the long way round so that he made me build up a thirst. After a few minutes of riding through the estate, we come out onto the main road, where we pass The Foley Arms, the pub that was the prize for walking around the estate, and a scene that was like the "Bromsgrove Incident", where I had two pints, one to quench the first after my tour of Streetly with Mr WME. With the dreadful reminder out of the way, we leave Streetly behind and carry onto Walsall, where we are looking forward to our food. It is now after midday, and we arrive in Walsall, so we make our way from the bus station and head towards J D Wetherspoons, "The Imperial". Disaster strikes, The Imperial is closed for refurbishment, so our stomachs are not going to be fed yet. We make the decision to make our way to Willenhall and get food there, so after a walk around the whole of the bus station, we go back to the beginning again to catch National Express West Midlands Service 529 to Willenhall.

After about twenty minutes, we arrive in Willenhall. Along the way, we recognise where we went a couple of months previously to have a drink with one of Mr UKBuses colleagues, "Raymondo", but there is no sign of Raymondo today. We alight our Service 529 outside of J D Wetherspoons "The Malthouse", but Mr UKBuses has to pop over the road to make use of the HSBC cash machine to pay for his dinner. We make our way inside and we are served by Simon, a person who used to work in the Wetherspoons in Stourbridge. Whilst being served, another face is recognised from his time at Stourbridge. We come all this way and get served by old faces! We find a seat and look at our menus before deciding what to have. We don't go for our usual, Mr UKBuses opts for the BBQ Chicken Melt (without the cheese), and I opt for the Gammon, Egg and Chips (without the egg), and after about five minutes of waiting, they both arrive piping hot, and it is time to tuck in. For the price that we paid for the meals, we got our money's worth, the portions were huge, and there were a load of chips, no Chester sized portions here. After finishing our meals, we have a few minutes to let it go down, and we decide that, even though it is our second visit to this pub, it rates as one of our favourites in the J D Wetherspoon list. Both visits have had friendly and quick service and the building itself makes you feel welcome.

Dinner over, and we decide to make our way closer to home, and we head to Bilston. After a few minutes wait, a National Express West Midlands Service 525 arrives and we board for a ten minutes ride to our destination, Bilston Bus Station. We have time for a few photographs, well Mr UKBuses has, my camera battery failed on me! Our next bus is in the lay over area, Midland's Service 224 to Cradley Heath. The Bilston luck is not on my side, as the driver gets off the bus and starts to walk over to us. The bus is losing air pressure and he cannot drive off, at least the driver did well and came over and told us, so we will have to catch another bus. We don't have long to wait before National Express West Midlands service 583 arrives to take us to Dudley, as we leave the bus station, in the distance, we can see a Diamond liveried "Stourbridge Shuttle" bus, a bit off route 142!!! As we make our way to Dudley a local old age pensioner is ahead of us in his mobility scooter, and he makes his way around the island ahead (yes in the road traffic), and we follow him up the road where he is waiting ahead of us at the traffic lights. This is where we overtake him and leave him in a cloud of dust as the lights turn green! We make our way through Wren's Nest before we arrive at Dudley Bus Station.

We decide to make our way to Wordsley, so we catch service 226, the only one that is is the station is a Diamond operated one, so we decide to catch that. We make our way through Kingswinford before arriving at Wordsley, and we alight just outside The Red Lion. But we choose not to visit that pub, we decide to go to one that Mr UKBuses has never been in before and after driving past for many years, we step inside The Old Cat Inn, which is situated on the corner of the main traffic lights in Wordsley. We have a pint, and after we finish, we walk back around to the bus stop to catch another 226 bus, this time being operated by Hanson's, the original operator of this service. From the "226 Bus War" that is going on at the moment between Diamond and Hanson's, it looks like Hanson's have the upper hand, with a good load on the service. The Diamond bus that we caught earlier, there was only Mr UKBuses and myself on it, and other Diamond Buses 226's seem to be running empty. We head through the Hawbush Estate and Brierley Hill before we arrive at The Merry Hill Centre. From here we decide to catch a bus to Halesowen.

The bus of choice is another Diamond Bus Service, the 002 which takes us to Halesowen. As we leave the bus station at Merry Hill, the same driver who caught Mr UKBuses on a diamond bus on a previous outing spots him again, and heckles him as we head towards Pedmore Road. We make our way through Quarry Bank, Lyde Green and Colley Gate, and I introduce Mr UKBuses to The Lutley Mill as we pass it, the pub is situated at the bottom of Drew's Holloway, with the newly painted colour scheme, which now looks like it is a Wolve's fans choice of pub with the outside painted bright orange and black. Not long after we arrive in Halesowen, and decide to have a pint in J D Wetherspoons "The William Shenstone". After our pint we make our way back to the bus station, and I point out a parked up Black Diamond Liveried bus, stating "That looks like the bus that brought us back from Bromsgrove in the snow", walking further alongside the bus, we also find out that the driver is our "Diamond" driver Des, the bloke who got us back from Bromsgrove in that terrible snow. After a quick chat with Des, we make our way to the bus station, where we catch Diamond's Service 142, branded in the "Nifty Fifty" livery!

We make our way through Hasbury, Oldnall, Wynall and Pedmore Fields before arriving back in Stourbridge. Time for a few shots, and we make our way into the town centre. First of all we make enquires about swimming at The Crystal Leisure Centre, before heading next door to The Bell. On the way to the leisure centre, Mr UKBuses tries to wind up the Stourbridge Shuttle Driver, Steve, a couple of times - once in Church Street, and then outside the leisure centre. Whilst in The Bell we have a couple of pints and recall more memories of our time working at the pub all them years ago. Mr UKBuses is spotted by another Pensnett Garage driver who is off duty and has called into The Bell for a drink. After our drinks, we make our way to the bus stops in Birmingham Street, where we are in time to catch the last National Express West Midlands Service 276 back to Norton and Wollaston.

Another brilliant day out with a rainy start, but the weather brightened up in the afternoon for our local unplanned trip.