Although I was working Good Friday and the weekend, I did get Easter Monday off. Bank holiday Monday's are curious days- treated like weekends yet with some weekday bonuses. As such, some visitor attractions which only open during the week also open on bank holidays allowing more people to visit.

We first decided to go to the Chiltern Open Air Museum, near Chalfont St Giles. I’m a great supporter of open air museums, and I’d never visited this one so close to home. If you are unaware, the COAM saves buildings from around the Chiltern Hills which may have been demolished and rebuilds them on its site. It’s a fantastic idea. Our visit was a fairly enjoyable one. Some of the re-constructed buildings were of little interest to me, but others were. These included an original toll-house which lay on the A40 near the Rye until 1977. It guarded the old turnpike Road between Beaconsfield and Stokenchurch.

There was also a pre-fabricated house from Amersham, built shortly after the Second World War for temporary purposes- lasting for well over fifty years in fact. It was surprising how comfortable the house was. Unfortunately the old Wycombe furniture factory was closed for unknown reasons, which was a shame. These are just a few of the buildings- there are lots more including an Iron Age house reconstruction, several barns, farmhouses and chapels.

What spoiled our visit was the lack of food. Don’t get me wrong, there is a cafe there, but it didn’t take debit/credit cards- which in 2010 is pretty silly, especially when the entrance ticket office was able to take our money with plastic. I suppose the best thing is to always carry cash.

This problem struck again when we left the museum and headed towards Chenies Manor, a fifteenth century manor house in Chenies near Amersham. This attraction opens only on two weekdays and Bank Holiday Monday’s, hence my intro to this blog. It was the perfect day to visit. We thought there’d be a ticket office of some kind. How wrong we were! Instead, tickets were bought from ladies sitting at trestle tables with cash boxes. So we couldn’t proceed. Chenies will have to wait until May Day!

A bit upset and hungry, we then decided to pop over to the Food Festival in Great Missenden. Food! Not wanting to be rejected again, we went to a cash machine first. And then sod’s law decided to have fun with us. The food festival did accept cards...

The festival was very good with a wide variety of things to taste. In the end we bought a few bottles of wine (from a vineyard in Wallingford, Berkshire (Oxfordshire- whatever) - the point is it’s British wine!), and some speciality cheese. Oh yeah, and something to eat then and there: a pasty or two.

After that we headed home. It wasn’t the day we’d planned but it was fun and got us out of the house.

XVI © MMX