An appointment with Ernie

According to our activity trackers we have done about 43,000 steps or 20 miles walking in the last 3 days. Time for a slow-down day. The campsite almost adjoins the Birmingham Transport Museum and despite buses not really being my thing, we ought to look since we are here. Anyway the are no events on there today so entrance is only 4 quid, so why not?

OK, I got it wrong. The museum is far more interesting than I could have imagined. Yes, there are long lines of buses, many seemingly very similar but for the non-anorak wearing visitor there are some well presented historical displays and a surprising amount of interactive bits and quizzes for children. A few of the vehicles are in pre-repair state which really brings home just how much effort and love goes into restoration. Bravo to you folk for keeping this history of the everyday alive and for making a great attempt at making it interesting even to those of us who don't share your passion.

As well as buses there are electric vehicles: milk floats such as this

And bread wagons. This milk carrier was also a generic electric cart and extremely likely to be the model my dad had when having to carry heavy machinery around the cheese dairy where he was a maintenance electrician.

No fancy cover like this one, just a flat bed, hand operated electric cart that gave me many a ride. With this, the milk churns, and chatting to locals about the milkman delivering Corona^[1] at Christmas it was quite a nostalgia trip.

Just down the road is a huge farm shop complex, busy on a Sunday, especially the restaurant. The farm shop had a lot of nice food at farm shop prices. I fancied some local beers but at £3.50 a bottle it felt they were taking the (you know, the stuff I would have produced had I bought the beer!). Next door was one of these huge discount warehouses selling cheap furniture and tat. Well one bit of tat was some rare as hen's teeth camping wine glasses which unscrew so the stem fits in the glass and is thus much more compact when stored. We'd found a couple last year but wanted spares. Sorted!

Reading, quilting, weaving, walking round the campsite, showers - an we know how to live the high life!