Chichester

And so it came to pass that we met up with Betty and Barney Rubble.

We had looked for a suitable meeting place, and discovered that there was a Tapas restaurant mentioned in the travel guides, and it featured in the top few establishments in Chichester. "El Castizo" is in the cellars under an accounting firm on the way in to Chichester from the east. A little difficult to find, it was well worth the effort.

As well as the usual range of tapas, there was a "specials" board featuring a number of extra dishes. It was a lovely place, and the food was excellent - it would have been too easy to settle back with a bottle of wine and spend the whole afternoon enjoying the friendly service and the quirky ambience of the whole place.

Emerging from the cellar we made our way into the town centre and strolled through the afternoon shoppers to the Cathedral.

St Richard's Cathedral dominates the town, yet is actually quite small as Cathedrals go. The Gorse Fox remembers being told, as a cub, that it was the only Cathedral that could be seen from the sea, and was used as a landmark by sailors coming through the Channel. He has no idea whether this is true, but it seems feasible.

Embracing technology, the Silver Vixen noted that flat-screen TVs stood by each of the massive internal columns, relaying the service to those whose view was impaired by the structure, or the lady with the big hat in the next row. Perhaps some technology should have been applied with more exactitude when the Cathedral was built. It was quite clear that the two towers surrounding the west door we out of kilter. Neither was quite square with the Cathedral front, and from the inside it was clear to the naked eye that the towers twist slightly and are out of square.

Leaving the Cathedral, we strolled through the cloisters and out into South Street where we took a table at Maison Blanc for a cup of tea and some patisserie.

A nice day.