Day 4: Sheffield to Leicester and Barsby

A very urban day compared with the last three. From Sheffield to Chesterfield to Nottingham to Loughborough to Leicester, ending in a rural retreat, the village of Barsby. We did go through Sherwood Forest bus couldn't see Robin Hood. A long day. Our first bus at 9.45 am and we arrived here at 7.10. All the buses on time and comfortable. Two female bus drivers - our first on this trip. Spent a couple of hours in Nottingham and visited the wonderful sculpture by Anish Kapoor, a stainless steel concave mirror of the world above it. Beautiful and soothing. The day was a typical April day - showers and sun - and we watched these play across the mirror. The sculpture is outside the Nottingham Playhouse and we had lunch in the bar/restaurant attached and were comfortable in this environment since we both have connections with our local theatres - the Octagon in Bolton and the Crucible in Sheffield. We were very unimpressed with the Broadmarsh bus station in Nottingham. A bit dingy and very inadequate timetable information. An office which says 'public transport' where we queued couldn't give us information about getting to Leicester and told us to go next door to a office called 'Barton Travel' where we queued again and were told they didn't have the timetable for the bus to Leicester. We eventually found it but would have had to wait at this rather uncomfortable place for an hour and a half so decided to do the journey through Loughborough.
We realise we have become rather blase with our bus pass and just wave it at the driver. One of them checked us very politely and said he had to know where we were going to so the company could claim the subsidy for the concession.

After we finished Araucaria's wonderful crossword where every clue is an anagram but the letters which make up the anagrams are run-on across words, we read a piece about a Guardian journalist and his father doing what we are doing but the other way - from Penzance to Carlisle. They don't seem to have had much fun. They did it in four days whereas we are dawdling along. Manju said the only interesting thing in the piece was about us!

Manju's counsin rang to say we are on the front page of a celebrity paper in Mumbai.

I should explain why I, Christine, write the blog. We divided responsibility for planning this trip. I did timetables. Manju did the blog. Because once upon a time I trained as a shorthand typist, I can input from an electronic keyboard at an amazing speed so I type the blog. But nothing gets posted without Manju's additions and approval. She manages the blog in terms of accepting or not comments to be posted.