my trip to chichester

I just got back from a weekend in Chichester with my mum and dad. The mum and dad part was pretty hellish, but that’s another story.

The biggest thing to say is – I am sure I’m going to Love living there. I’ve only been twice before this visit, and I liked it then. This time was just to make sure, have another look round the town, get my bearings a bit, walk from town to college to see how far it is and how to do it, get a train timetable blah blah. It was gorgeous sunny weather the whole time, which is ace ;)

There is hardly any night life – no clubs, handful of pubs and restaurants, which suits me down to the ground. The uni is quite small and compact, we wandered round the campus and saw my halls – I can see the art department from them, wooo 5 mins walk in a morning :P

When we were going round the uni both my mum and dad said can they come live there hehehe! And a good thing my dad said was “you’ve made the right choice”. That’s a big deal really, I know some parents who stand in their children’s ways about this kind of thing, forcing them to go to a certain uni or take a certain subject.

I know the first time I was applying to uni he tried to, I think it was one of the reasons I didn’t go that time – I was conflicted a little bit and not strong enough to go my own way. Now I’m an adult, (I can tell the difference between what I’m like now and what I was like when I was a teenager) so I AM strong enough to break away and not let other people’s opinions cloud my judgement, especially my parents opinions.

I chose unis and subjects that I wanted to go to and do, and didn’t care what my mum and dad thought. And I’m so glad that they didn’t tell me I couldn’t do it (or not “tell” me, but make me feel like they had told me). I remember about 4 years ago when I was applying to uni the first time, my dad saying (in passing) “you don’t want to go too far away” and I said “no” in a sort of ‘not thinking about it’ way. But then later, and even now, I thought, ‘why don’t I want to go far away?’. What my dad was really saying was “I don’t want you to go far away”. Well sod that, I have to live and work there, what’s it to do with you?

We went out to dinner in town Friday and Saturday night, and it was dead, very quiet, the restaurants were fairly busy, but the town was empty. That’s also good news. It’s not like in a city (a big city – technically Chichester is a city because of the cathedral) where you’d be a bit wary of walking round at night especially alone. I believe this place is completely safe, even safer than my home town Skipton where I’ve heard some stories of rowdiness and stuff on a night.

The town is basically a cross – four streets leading away from each other with shops and stuff on each. And in the middle of the four streets is the market cross, picture right. It’s a quaint little historic town.

Here’s the website of the cathedral – I recommend the 3D virtual tour it gives a good idea of the place. It’s a huge cathedral, a lot like York Minster, Canterbury Cathedral or Lincoln Cathedral if anyone’s ever been there.

We stayed in this little B&B, we tried to get this other place that we stayed in last time but it was full. This was kind of a last resort type place although I didn’t make the arrangements so I don’t know how many places my dad tried. Anyway. We arrived and the house just looked like a house – there was no sign outside like at normal B&Bs. So my dad knocked on the door and asked if it was the right place. It was. It’s run by an old couple, they obviously ran it years ago and either got bored, or wanted to retire, so stopped. But then they missed the money. So what we thought was, they are still running the guest house for anyone that happens to drop by, but don’t advertise directly and don’t have all the frills of a normal guest house like a sign, or AA stars or whatever. What we also thought was – they are not registered with any agency, or regulator or anything – that’s worrying. There were no fire safety notices, which is illegal for one thing.

We didn’t get a cooked breakfast either (I love my full English breakfast when on holiday, it’s a nice change). They did tell us that there was only a “continental breakfast” on the phone – we just thought, ok fair enough if it’s good enough we could accept it. What it really meant was – “we want the money from running a B&B, but we want none of the hassle – we’re not going to give you tea and coffee in your room, we’re not going to cook you any bacon (even though we eat it ourselves), we’re not going to give you anything that means we have to go out of our way to give it to you”.

The breakfast we actually got was cereal, a banana, orange juice, tepid toast and horrible instant coffee.

I say, if you want my money you have to work for it!! I’m thinking of reporting them somewhere, I don’t know where yet, because this place is obviously a private affair, either as a tax dodge, or so they can make a fast buck, and it’s certainly a rip off – or probably a combination of all of them. I’m sure there haven’t got any health and safety regulations, including fire and food hygiene and that’s the main concern.

Anyway, apart from the yukky accommodation, the weekend was good!














As well as Chichester, we also went to Winchester because I liked it the first time we went, Arundel for the same reason – I loved the cathedral there it had a gorgeous circle stained glass window. We also stopped off in Bognor Regis and had a walk on the beach, that’s where I took the photos of the sea for my water project.

Going on “holiday” with my parents makes me really glad I’m not going to be living with them any more hehe. It sounds horrible, but we really can’t live together any more. Maybe this is what you feel when you know it’s time to get a divorce.

I just wasn’t relaxed, at all. I was always on edge, having to think ahead to do things that wouldn’t annoy my dad especially. My mum annoys him constantly it seems. She took more than one second to choose a sandwich and he started sighing and rolling his eyes at me. Thinking about it now what I should have done was taken longer than her to choose my sandwich, because it doesn’t annoy him when I do it, I don’t think. But that’s exactly what I mean about having to second guess and do things differently for the benefit of someone else. That’s no way to live.

I’m putting another post about art – because it’s important hehe and a lot more positive than this post ;)