Being back in full-time work makes me realise all over again just how fleeting weekends are. Our cunning plan to make a weekend feel more like a weekend was this: we’d leave work on Friday, travel an hour or two in the opposite direction of home, spend the whole weekend (three nights) there and return to work on Monday, bright eyed and bushy tailed.
Boats at Chichester Marina.
One Friday evening in January, we headed off towards Chichester in West Sussex, checked into Premier Inn and began our mini-holiday. Things kicked off with dinner at Efes, an unassuming-looking Turkish restaurant. It turned out to be a real treat: the meze plate was small but bursting with flavour, the halloumi in the halloumi salad was tasty, the salad was tangy. The vegetarian kebab was the stand-out: deliciously smoky veggies, with melt-in-the-mouth eggplant/aubergine and juicy mushrooms. We were stuffed. We came back to the hotel and I forced myself to have a nice hot bath. What a hassle!
 Efes Turkish restaurant. |  Chichester Canal basin in the mist. |
Saturday morning dawned cool and misty. We wandered through the quiet town, getting our bearings and poking our noses down little laneways. Everything looked a little softer, a little more magical in the fog, especially the old Guildhall at Priory Park. When we (eventually) found a breakfast place that suited us, the town had woken up: there was a band in Chichester Cross and a constant stream of people flowing past.
 The Guildhall and Priory Park in the mist. |  View down East Street from Chichester Cross. |
After getting some important shopping business out of the way, we headed to the cathedral for a look around. There are a few intriguing bits and bobs inside, including a cut through of the floor to reveal a section of Roman mosaic beneath, eye-catching contemporary tapestries and glass, and some great old paintings. Just down the road is the Novium museum, which is built over the site of a Roman bath house - the remains of which take up a large part of the ground floor. It makes a pretty spectacular foyer.
 Inside Chichester Cathedral. |  Tapestry by John Piper in Chichester Cathedral. |
All that shopping and sightseeing knocked us out, so after a tasty, wholesome lunch at St Martin’s Coffee House, we went back to our room and fell asleep. Luckily, we managed to drag ourselves out of bed before it got dark so we could drive down to the marina for a short walk. We had fun looking at all the dry docked boats and plotting punny names for if we ever own a sea-going vessel. Down beside the water of Chichester Harbour, trees grew in loops and twists. We wandered a little way from civilisation along the stony shoreline before scrambling up to the footpath and heading back.
 Twisty trees along the waterline at Chichester Harbour. |  If it's black and white and upside down it must be art. |
The next morning, we were persuaded by the in-house marketing posters to try Premier Inn’s unlimited breakfast. (The posters had sparkles on all the glassware, syrups, fruit compotes . . . and also on the sausages. I know I’m vegetarian, but sparkly sausages are A+ marketing.) I proceeded to stuff myself with pancakes, fruit, yoghurt, crumpets and inoffensive coffee. We timed this well. First, hardly anyone else was about to see us making pigs of ourselves and second, I had an hour-long online meeting straight after, so we could go back to the room and loosen our belts.
 A town of rescued houses at the open air museum. |  Bayleaf at the open air museum. |
It was cloudy outside, but the forecast rain held off as we headed to the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum. This is somewhere we’ve wanted to visit since watching Tudor Monastery Farm a couple of years ago - and it didn’t disappoint. I loved poking around all the old houses and getting interesting facts from the stewards, tasting leftover Christmas treats and hot griddled bread in the kitchen, admiring the hilariously dumpy sheep, seeing the in-progress thatched Saxon house and saying “just like on TV!”
 Spinning wheel threaded with ivy for midwinter celebrations. |  The best sheep you ever saw. (Southdown sheep with woolly little faces.) |
One highlight was going on a tour of the massive Downland Gridshell Building. It’s fascinating to hear how the structure was put together, and cool to see how it’s used by the museum (e.g. for workshops and to look at the buildings that they bring to the site) . . .
 Downland Gridshell Building: interior. |  Downland Gridshell Building: exterior. |
. . . But it gets better! Underneath this amazing space is an even more amazing space: the artefact store. This is one huge room lined with stacks (like a gallery or museum archive), crammed full of all kinds of farm tools, domestic utensils, bits of machinery, clothes and other miscellany. The miscellany was very miscellaneous: a sink, wooden bosses, a horse-drawn hearse, bells, biscuit tins, artwork . . . it was brill!
 Details of smocks in the store. |  Drilling down into the archive. |
On the way back we detoured through the fog to a lookout, which was unsurprisingly also completely enveloped by clouds. But as we sat there, the clouds drifted apart for a few minutes, giving us a glimpse of hills, valleys and the low coastal plains around Chichester. We’d spent most of the day at the open air museum, so when we got back we curled up in our room to read our books and have another bath. I love baths.
As we drove into the sunrise on the way to work on Monday, it felt like we’d had a proper mini holiday. Well done, Chichester. Would visit again.
As we drove into the sunrise on the way to work on Monday, it felt like we’d had a proper mini holiday. Well done, Chichester. Would visit again.
Year of sleeping variously: budget hotel edition
And so we kick off our year of sleeping variously . . .
Yep, that looks like a room at a Premier Inn.
- Bed (5/5) - Very comfortable, I can see why Lenny Henry likes them in the ads.
- Room (3/5) - Not enough coat hangers and no drawers for me drawers!
- View (0/5) - A massive KFC sign and a car park.
- Facilities (3/5) - Bath, aircon, (slow) WiFi, big TV if that's your thing.
- Location (4/5) - Easy walk to town centre, easy access to countryside, close to train station and free parking.
- People (3/5) - Helpful, friendly staff. Drunk, loud, annoying neighbours!
- Food (3/5) - Unlimited buffet breakfast with drinkable coffee.
- Value (3/5) - It's a Premier Inn.
- Uniqueness (0/5) - It's a Premier Inn.
- That indefinable something (2/5) - It's a Premier Inn, but the misty mornings were lovely and the sparkly sausage amused me.
Budget Hotel verdict: 52%
Do you have any ideas of where we should head for another weekend in a similar vein? Ideally somewhere within an easy 2hr drive of Brighton? (Maybe . . . Brighton?!)
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