Sitting in the Warwick Southbound Welcome Break while my car charges. Welcome Break WiFi has become irritating, it demands my name and email address every time I visit. I'm fairly sure it used to remember. Moto remembers and gives me a cheery Welcome back Nina.
Today's outfit is a denim mini and nice short sleeved ecru blouse.
Once my car has charged I'll head for the Mulberry Café at Cropredy to see if their avocado toast really is as good as it looked last time I was there.
Got to Pittville Student Village on the outskirts of Cheltenham at about 16:00 and found my way to reception in the Laurie Lee building. I was a little disconcerted to see that there was no one at the reception desk but then I saw a notice saying the receptionist had been called away and a number to call for assistance. Did that just as she came through the main door. She quickly and efficiently handed me the key, explained how to find the room, and where I could park my car without having to pay for it, and said that there is a small shop opposite the building I'll be staying in.
Then I drove around the block to the building containing my room. The buildings are four story blocks with six rooms and a kitchen on each floor. The key let me into the building but wouldn't open the door to the flat. So I walked back to reception and was told that the locks apparently run on AA batteries which need frequent replacement. She called the maintenance man and also reprogrammed my key just in case it was the key that was the problem. I walked back across the site, got into the building, walked up the spiral stairs to the third floor (zero based), and now it unlocked the door to the flat. But, the door to my room was open and it hadn't been cleaned. I also noticed that the kitchen was locked with a padlock. Back to reception again, given profuse apologies. The receptionist called the cleaning company and they found a room on the first floor that they declared had definitely been cleaned so I was given a new key. When I mentioned the locked kitchen I was directed to a common room in the Laurie Lee building that has a microwave, toaster, and kettle.
When I got to my new room the key worked for all three doors and I noticed that in this flat the kitchen was open although it had the same notice saying that if it were used it might incur an extra cleaning charge. I have nothing better to do so I walked back to the Laurie Lee building and asked about it. I was told that so long as I don't make a mess it's most unlikely that I would be charged. The notice is there because apparently some visitors leave the place under mountains of rubbish.
Didn't need to do anything o connect to the WiFi, my Glide registration from the Nottingham hall of residence works here too. I wonder if it ever expires?
Do modern students not eat or drink? There wasn't a bar or refectory at Broadgate and there isn't either one here. When I was studying we had two bars and refectories on campus and refectories in each cluster of halls. And CathSoc ran a bar within fifty metres of my hall of residence. I think CathSoc had more atheist members than it had Catholics.
So I had to go shopping The shop across the road from the room is a Premier local shop and they are generally useless for actual food and expensive for alcohol and snacks so I plotted a course to the two nearest grocery shops, about a kilometre away, a Simply Fresh and a BP station with M&S Food. But I had decided that I wanted a pork pie and neither of them had one. So I used the BP WiFi to find the nearest Lidl, less than two kilometres further on. I hadn't walked much today so a half hour walk to Lidl plus another half hour back to my room was reasonable.
I think that both Lidl and Aldi have become pretty much the best British supermarkets. Got a bottle of Chilean Malbec for two thirds of what M&S wanted and Lidl has Melton Mowbray pies so I got one of those, a lump of Somerset Cheddar, a sourdough loaf, butter, tomatoes, and a plastic bowl of reduced price out of date stuffed peppers. Most of that is in one of the fridges in the kitchen.
On the walk I saw a few thins worth taking a picture of.
The halls of residence are in the Pittville district of Cheltenham
Almost at the Lidl. I've never seen a Holiday Inn with a mural before
On the way back I passed through a small green square in which was this dead tree carved into a seat
A few minutes later i was walking cross another 'green' and saw another lion
I think it's going to take these green spaces a long time to recover from the heat and lack of water.
