10 July 2015
Had breakfast at the hotel where we found that breakfast does not come with the stay. It was ten pounds per person for breakfast. I had forgotten why I never stayed in Holiday Inns. I will try to remember in the future. WiFi also does not come with the room. £20 for WiFi and it is good from noon to noon 24 hours. It would have cost £70 to have it for the whole time we were here and that for only one of our rooms. I did not want to give them the satisfaction. They don’t even have it free in the lobby as some hotels do.
The room is cramped and has only one drawer. I like to unpack if I am going to be in a hotel for more than 2 nights but don’t have the space. Kathryn had three larger drawers so I guess I just got unlucky.
Seeing as Kathryn is my guide, we spent the day in bookshops and Starbucks. Starbucks was for the WiFi. Learned that I cannot use my credit or debit cards just anywhere. They have chip readers and my cards don’t have chips, something to remember for the future.
We stopped in to a local church that was giving a free organ concert. I definitely am going the way of my mother. I couldn’t hear most of two movements of a Mendelsohn (sp?) sonata.
I was ordering cawls, some sort of lamb stew, for our dinner and the man at the bar could not understand what I was saying. Kathryn had reminded me that in Wales, w is oo as in William so it was cah-ools,. I felt much better when he couldn’t understand her either. We had to point to it on the menu. It sounded like he said it just like she did but anyway… after all of that, they didn’t have it. We had a delicious Shepherd’s pie instead.
Thought about theatre or choral concert but rejected the idea. The choir was singing Disney songs to benefit a children’s charity but I was a bit disgruntled at not hearing a lot of the organ. So, we went to Starbucks for internet and conversation.
This is Pettigrew’s Tearoom, taken from my hotel room. I am not fond of tea but it was a wonderful place for tea and cakes. It is at the entrance of beautiful Bute Park which I will post more about later. By the way, the name has nothing to do with Peter Pettigrew.