Trip report:
Cracking couple of days
Got to Winchester just after midday, parked the campervan in Worthy Lane car Park. Advance reading/research suggested that a 24 hour ticket was £7.30, and on arrival we found Sunday was free and thrown in so our ticket was actually good until MONDAY circa 1230
Other research had indicated there were no TROs in force to prevent sleeping there so we were happy to plan to stay in central Winchester (aka "W") and spend lots of money there.
We wandered down the high street and looked at the stalls in the craft/whatever market. Tried for lunch at Bento Box which looked interesting but the lack of much seating and general chaos sent us elsewhere sadly (sadly cos the food looked great)
We adjourned to Green's Bar and Kitchen for a sandwich and a quick drink, and Mrs Didds (MD) wanted to return to the market. My hip was playing up and i was in quite a lot of discomfort so I left her to it and went next door to Overdraft for some seriously crafty beer. Excellent! The food menu looked pretty good there - variations on burritos and tacos.
More wandering around and coffee/tea at Three Joes Pizza in the square by the cathedral, ten off to eat at Bangkok. We dont have a handy Thai restaurant near us at home so it was a real treat - lovely food and top service.
Thence to The theatre Royal for a brilliant performance of HMS Pinafore by Sascha Regan's all male company.
A quick sniffter back at Overdraft before heading off to bed in the van, parked up a corner of the car park.
We awoke at about 0710 to a fair bit of noise - to find a huge car boot was setting up around us! MD carefully drove us out of the way of the car boot with one miserable steward moaning about how we shouldn't be there and we were "lucky" we hadn't been moved on. I had checked the night before on top of my earlier research and nothing on any signs said no overnighting, and indeed you can but a 24 hour ticket to boot anyway. No signage either that car boots were there every Sunday - misery guts said "its every Sunday - everybody knows that". As MD said "not if you are from out of town. How would we be expected to know?". Misery guts had no answer. Tw4t. A stall holder at the car boot subsequently told us that people always stay over and a few weeks ago there had been travellers staying there and "nobody did a thing".
Anyway, we re-parked and wandered around the car boot. Quite a decent one. Into W for the sunday market where I got some biltong and goats cheese. Thence breakfast at the winchester orangery - blimey the portions were enormous. Good food and superlative service. Then to the Winchester watermill, a NT place where we timed it perfectly to see them start grinding flour via the mill. Then along the Itchen towards St Cross - where I bumped into a guitarist Ive performed with ! - and then to the Queen Inn. Sadly their micro brewery is out of action currently during a refurb but the ale offerings (despite being a Greene king [pub! Urgh!) were decent. An hour spent watching cricket at Winchester college then back into W and home.
We shall return.
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