Coventry out and about

Philip will give you the details, but I had the same problem when I lived "just over the border"!

Hi all, BUS PASS RULES. The England bus pass is viable on all local bus services, anywhere in England, after 9.00 or 9.30am each weekday, but no time restriction at weekends or official public holiday days. Some metropolitan areas, like the West Midlands, also permit use of trains, within the West Midlands area only. That area restriction is a train restriction only. Folk like you, if your bus pass is not issued by Centro, it cannot be used on trains, but you are able to use it from 9am, whereas Centro passes can't be used until 9.30. The national free to use bus pass scheme was started in 2008, yet there is such ignorance regards its use. I regularly see folk, who in my area will only use the 'old Corporation' buses, because they believe that their passes are not valid on Stagecoach (old Midland Red) or any other bus provider.

We're lucky up here in the sense that bus passes are issued from age 60 and can be used by all buses, whether 'Stagecoach', local or 'Megabus'. This does not include Scotrail though. It's really useful when visiting places like Edinburgh or Glasgow when parking can be a nightmare. The bus from Aberdeen to Elgin/Inverness runs hourly and the stop is a couple of minutes walk from our house and I use the local bus to the gym/swimming pool most weekdays as it's basically 'door to door'!

Today, I've used a 'West Midlands Day Tripper' ticket for my first rail outing in many months. I bought a return ticket to Leamington Spa, where I alighted to purchase the Tripper ticket. Details can be found here. It cost me £9.70, for which I could have travelled virtually anywhere around the West Midlands (see the map in the link above) on train, bus or Metro. Seems value for money - but it cost me £8.50 to park the car at my local station and £11.05 for the Leamington return ticket (with Senior Railcard reduction).

Hi all, I had lunch at the Pump House (Wetherspoons) in Shirley today. Used the X20 & the No49. I didn't use trains today. Glad you had a good day, MR. Regards my love for food, when you see what you think are bales of hay wrapped in black plastic, they are in fact liquorish Pontefract cakes, the green version are mint flavoured. Hope that helps, Helen & MR. Liquorice, an alternative to chocolate for some folk, I was told in my care home.

Been down to Coventry over the weekend for 5 days - this is a short clip from a video I will be putting together of my trip.

Hi Dougie You should've told us you were down here - we could have arranged an interim breakie!

Hi Neil. Went in the Town Wall Tavern on Sunday afternoon, asked could I just have a look round. Didn't have a drink but was made more than welcome by the people in there, getting to know all about me. PS. This will be history one day, as I've videos of the changes over the last few years of all round the area from my window.

Hello, I haven't posted on this topic for ages, but as most of my day out was on bus & walking, I thought it might be more appropriate. Google map tracker of where I've been. Todays trip matches any Shearings trips for me. Atherstone has a totally different feel to it for me as a visitor. I enjoyed my breaky at Leonardo, in Nuneaton, beautiful, complete with fried bread & tea for less than £8. Then continued on to Atherstone. I only had drinks elswhere. Some of the lanes that the Stagecoach bus 41 went along after leaving Nuneaton, were so narrow, twisty, tree lined, including a reversal. The only thing that I couldn't find was a seaside. My next visit, if it's a good weather day, I will continue on the 41, passed Baddesley.

Nice, trip Philip, pitty it takes you past the recycling tip !

Hello Anne, I'm going to call these trips Squiggles. Phily's Squiggles. The midlands location for sore eyes, so far, is travelling by train from Tame Bridge Parkway, where the line passes through the boundary of Handsworth & West Brom, on its way to New Street. Looking out of the left side carriage windows, the so called gardens have mattresses with legs. I've never seen such filth & garbage brains in my life. Those kind of locations are very few, thankfully.

Thankfully Philip the Grendon tip is not an eyesore, it is all very organised with skips arranged at a lower level making it easy to get stuff in. There is also a very good charity shop on the site. I was just trying to be clever and show you I knew where you would be going ! Enjoy your trip. We did a similar thing a few years ago, with the aid of a pensioners' rail-card discount we bought a ticket which enabled us to travel 3 days in a week and went to such places as Manchester airport, Llandudno and Holyhead and Skegness, and many other places in between. Roy arranged a very good time-table for the route, which did sometimes involve rushing across from one platform to another but all good fun.