A trip to Leamington Spa for my birthday seemed like a splendid idea, and indeed it was rather enjoyable. We left reasonably early and arrived just after nine, too early for some of the jewellers but not (unfortunately) Ernest Jones. I tried on a TH Formula 1 Red Bull which was almost as underwhelming as the service. Never mind, it was over in a flash and we were on our way.
We perused the shopping centre, but quite a lot of the stores were empty, so we headed out into the wide streets to where all the shops actually were... in contrast to most places, oddly. There were quite a lot of expensive looking independent shops selling unnecessary fluff like 'home decorations' and I can't remember ever having seen a 'Farrow and Ball' paint boutique anywhere before either.
There's one thing about Leamington Spa, there's no excuse for shoddy hair; everywhere you look there's hairdressers, hundreds of the bloody places. We had a good look around House of Fraser, which was predictably House of Fraserish.... I tried on a cool 'Diesel' T-shirt but even though it was 'XL' it fitted me like a second skin and since they didn't have any XXXXXL I had to give it up.
We wandered around the store trying to find the men's toilets, but to no avail. Eventually we asked at a till and she pointed into a dark corner where you could just see a door. How would you find this unless you just happened to be standing by this particular till? I have no idea.
We also visited Hotel Chocolat and stocked up, and also took the opportunity to harangue the woman behind the counter about our bloody pointless loyalty card. On hearing it was my birthday she gave us a £5 discount, so it wasn't a complete waste of time. While we were in the shop someone did a runner with something or other and one of the staff shot down the road after them. Not really a good idea I don't think, not worth getting stabbed over some truffles.
Our next stop was Tustains for more watch trying on, this was much, much, much better than Ernest Jones. If you live in Leamington Spa please give your business to Tustains. Finally we wandered down the other end of the town and came across another jewellers called 'Peter Stephan'. Rose liked the look of a necklace in the window as since we were in there anyway I tried on an odd looking Oris.
I'd booked us a table at a pub a few miles out of the town which meant we were kind of on a clock, this was a bit annoying, but then again it was worth the inconvenience. The Windmill Inn isn't particularly glamourous, but it's not a shithole either, it's just an average sort of place. But the food (which is the important bit after all) was cracking.
Rose had an enormous burger and 10lbs of curly fries, while I had the chicken, bacon and leek pie with chips. Both very nice indeed, but very substantial. Rose left about half her fries but I heroically managed all mine. We were stuffed, but since this place seemed to specialise in cheesecakes we thought it would be a crime not to indulge. So we had an Eton Mess cheesecake and it was mag-bloody-nificent!
After this we took a quick detour to Sainsburys and then parked near the park and went for a wander up and down that for a bit. There was an art exhibition but it looked shit so we didn't go in. We walked back through the park, stopping briefly to admire then made our way back to the car, negotiating droves of litter dropping tossers who were on some sort of bus trip.
Bus trip wankers indeed.
