Standen (near East Grinstead)
There was no van trip today so we decided to explore by bus and visit one of the historical sites at Standen in order to prepare for Beverley's visit in March. We caught a bus at the Temple at about 9:43 AM and after two bus changes arrived at Standen at about 10:39 AM which was great. However, the historical site that will be open when Beverley is here was closed today so we had to return by bus without seeing what we had come for. Unfortunately the buses only run every two hours so it was a long wait. As we were out in the middle of the country and we knew that it wasn't far back to civilization we walked back to the edge of East Grinstead. Along the road we passed by several farms and a couple of retirement homes. Once in Town we passed by some new show homes. We finally got to the bus stop and waited for the next bus for over an hour which took us back to the town centre of East Grinstead where we did a little shopping before catching the two buses back to the Temple. We got back to the temple at 3:30 PM. We organized some washing and went to the Accommodation Centre to do it. While we were waiting in the reading room for the wash to finish the electricity went out all over the Temple site. Of course the washing machines hadn't finished yet so we waited patiently for the power to come on for almost two hrs without any luck. We decided to go back to the Manor House to see if the power was out there and it was out. We returned to the Accommodation Centre and again waited in the Reading Room which had an emergency light on so we weren't in the dark. By this time we were joined by others waiting for the electricity to come on as the individual apartments were in total darkness. The administration staff came by and said that the emergency lighting would soon fail and gave us flashlights to return to our apartments. We took the flashlight and found that the washers had spun out most of the water in our clothes before the power went out so we emptied the wet wash into a couple of bags and went back to our apartment where we hung everything to dry. We hadn't been home long and the power came back on. Here are some pictures of our time waiting for the bus back from Standen.
A farm we walked past
Some new show homes
Sister Kiddle at the bus stop on the edge of town
Some greenery near the bus stop
