Bus Pass Validity?

Today we planned on catching the bus into Coventry. Not a big deal you might think but due to extensive road works in the area the bus route had been changed which we didn’t realise until nearly the final minute.

No, not steam powered but a big 4Lt engine.

Upon boarding the de Courcey 778 bus we scanned our bus pass only to be told it was invalid. After some discussion with the driver that the passes were genuine he pushed the override button to allow us passage. This is the 2nd time this has happened recently when we boarded a Geoff Amos GA02 bus. This company had only recently installed scanners and that didn’t recognise our passes either. Later travel on a Coventry city bus we had no problem whatsoever. Is this a sign of things to come with the bus passes?

Pavement artist in Coventry town centre. He was actually doing it with pastels on paper not the paving.

In Coventry we headed off to IKEA for Dot to purchase a computer lap tray. Now this IKEA store is enormous,all 6 floors of it and about 20 checkouts. Of course what we wanted was on the 6th floor so we rode in one of their freight style lift’s which would probably hold 30 or more people. After finding our required purchase it was then a case of follow the arrows on the floor to the checkouts which would have taken us through close on 50% of the store. Talk about encouraging impulse buying. On our way to checkout who should we bump into but Lynne from Nb Piston Broke along with Betty from Nb Tranquility. You can’t go anywhere without being spotted.

Model gypsy caravan in the Transport Museum at Coventry. You can hire these for holidays in Ireland.

Once finally out of IKEA we walked back up through the covered market where Dot bought some ribbon for a lace plate she found recently in a charity shop. It was then onto the Transport Museum for lunch and another browse around this amazing museum. Basically it covers all forms of transport built in the Coventry area over probably the last 150 years or more. From horse drawn vehicles to push bikes to land speed record holders they have the lot except for the like of Vauxhalls, Leyland’s, Bentley and Rolls Royce but with just the odd Ford sneaking in which were all made down South.

We met this boat with a different crew a couple of years ago. It is a share boat owned by a Scottish, Kiwi, Welsh consortium.