After the mixed results of our little holiday to Chester in early October, we decided that this time we would instead do without the overnight stay and simply have a day out in a town within driving distance. So we decided on Nottingham, since we knew we could park in the Crown Plaza car park, with access to their bar and toilets, which is also conveniently sited opposite the Marco Pierre White restaurant.
But we started the day on Derby Road with a visit to the 'Museum of Curiosities'. This place has apparently won awards for being the 'best' Museum... although in which category I'm not entirely sure. It does rather remind one of the Forest of Dean Museum... though the highs are lower and the lows are higher. More middling in other words.
The first room is somewhat odd, as it's all about Robin Hood... which feels like the sort of thing you might find in a stately home rather than an allegedly 'Haunted' museum. But once you go out of that room you find yourself in a cave like space and immediately you are accosted by a muppet asking if you want to hold a real human skull and have your photo on a fridge magnet. At least I think that's what he said.
Well, yes, we'll hold the skull, but no photo and no fridge magnet thank you so much. Of course the skull is theatrically locked into a glass cabinet to maximise the shock value. But I certainly didn't feel any strange vibrations from it or anything.
The next room (or corridor) really contained a haunted chair that apparently cries and walks about and the previous owner 'wanted it gone'. This becomes something of recurring theme from here on in, though the next room is more 'Museum' like in that it's basically a bunch of different skulls (some human, some animal) in glass cabinets.
Hellraiser Rat
Here on in though it's pure schlock. On the right we have a cabinet filled with what look like stuffed white rats in tens of undignified poses. Some of them are funny, but mostly it's just a bit tacky... opposite this there's a cabinet filled with Mason jars, inside which are dead pigs, cats and other animals.
Then you have to go down some very steep stairs to the basement, where there's a book sealed with string and wax that has 'Hebrew' writing on it (because that's particularly scary) saying 'This book contains Demons' or something. Then there's a wedding dress that is supposedly haunted and if you look the other way down this corridor there was a character from a horror film... I think it was a 'nun', that I recognised but I can't remember which film it's from.
And herein lies the problem with this place, it can't decide what it wants to be so it displays horror movie ephemera next to dead animals... or as in the photo above a mock up of the scene from the Exorcist, but with a large model of E.T. standing in the corner of the room. What E.T. has got to do with anything I really don't know.... but apparently this bed is also 'haunted'. Sure it is.
Then there was a room about serial killer John Wayne Gacy and some other haunted clown toy thing... I don't know, it was getting silly by this point. And then another room stuffed with dead animals and inexplicably a TV showing a scene from Eastenders featuring a blood stained shirt that resided in a glass case next to it. I mean WTAF?
Meanwhile on the top floor there was a large model of the Titanic a small cafe, and a toilet with another E.T in it. So we came back down and dutifully trolled around the remaining rooms, each seemingly filled with allegedly 'haunted' dolls that the previous owners donated to the museum because they wanted someone to take them who 'knew what they were doing'.
One of the best parts of the whole thing was a short video about some loon who lived on an isolated island and hung thousands of dolls up everywhere. That was actually quite weird, although our fridge magnet friend re-appeared while we were watching it and tried to engage us in conversation....
The funniest part of this whole experience though was the sign which claimed that some doll or other was given to the museum because the owner was worried about their 'Wealth Fair'. Or even their 'welfare' for Gods sake! I felt like taking a felt tip pen and correcting every sign in the place, especially the ones using 'there' when it should have been 'their'! Fortunately things improved dramatically after this slightly false start.
Clown Dress in John Lewis...
We headed back to our car for an early lunch and then headed into the town, we had about three hours to kill before our 'Escape Room' was booked so we looked around John Lewis (where I spent my birthday voucher on some Charbonnel & Walker chocolates), popped into Berry's and tried on the new TAG Heuer F1 Red Bull (the TAG Heuer boutique apparently closed two months prior), stocked up on Hotel Chocolat and then finally ended up in the 'Slug and Lettuce' on the square for a couple of Cokes before we went to the escape room.
This escape room is owned by the same guy who owns the Horton's Emporium ones in Northampton and while similar, this one was definitely a little better overall. For once we seemed to crack on rather than standing around for fifteen minutes expecting the first clue to smack us in the face. We had a fair bit of help I suppose, but there was only two of us in a room really designed for at least three people and we eventually managed to get out only a few minutes over our allotted hour. Definitely one of the better escape room experiences we've had I think.
We decided to head back to the 'Slug and Lettuce' for a 2-4-1 cocktail before we went back to the Crowne Plaza to get changed for dinner. We were torn between the 'Beach Babes' and the 'Pina Colada' but eventually plumped for the 'Beach Babes'. It was quite pleasant, but as expected it wasn't really a pukka cocktail. Worth £6.50, but I'm glad we didn't pay £12.95 for it...
We headed back to the CP and got changed then had a drink in the bar while we waited for 7pm to roll around. The bar was quite full of people on a works convention or something, all of whom felt the need to stand at the bar to make it difficult for everyone else to get served. I don't know why people do that, look around.... there's seats everywhere! Twats.
We headed across the road to the Marco Pierre White steakhouse and what a lovely place it was! Very cool and the staff were super friendly. We both had fillet steak and chips, followed by sticky toffee pudding. Both of which were top notch. All in all it was a brilliant way to end a day which had started poorly and steadily improved. Even if I did end the night by accidently breaking an oil burner lamp thing by knocking it off the table when I tried to push my chair back to get up. Oops.
