Once more, I find myself in a hotel. Don’t know how that happened. But here I am.
Pretty sure that, after the last time, I vowed I’d rent a flat or cottage, even for a weekend. But here, as I say, I am.
A few things struck me. No, not objects thrown by protesting mobs, madam. I mean thoughts, to use the term loosely.
Why so hot?
The first was, boy, this room is hot. It was like entering a sauna. Luckily, there was a thermostat I could turn down, not to mention a separate heater, which I turned off.
I also opened the window. No energy crisis here, that’s for sure. I wonder if they keep it really hot for old people, folk with illnesses or some such, and just let others turn it down.
It made me realise how cold my house is. I had to laugh at a recommendation for people working from home that they must keep the temperature at something like 21 degrees centigrade or they would die.
I’m usually around 11 degrees. Not great. But liveable.
My hotel room is on the ground floor, with a view of grey sea and sky. Can’t see any mountains. Disturbing.
But the room is quiet and spotlessly clean. I don’t know how anyone gets rooms spotlessly clean. The idea eludes me.
Scuzzy people
I toddle roond the toon and notice how scuzzy people have become, with their cunning, scowling faces and baggy athletic trousers. Give me anoraks and stout boots every time.
You can see civilisation’s decline by visiting it every so often. I don’t mean to moralise, and I suppose people have always scowled and looked cunning.
Perhaps I do too after stoatin’ aboot in the hurly and, even at times, the burly. But I draw the line at wearing tracksuit bottoms in public. Disgraceful.
Everyone’s looking down at mobile phones. Why, what’s on them? Are they just looking at the phone numbers hoping one will ring?
Back to my room, and here’s an odd thing: the coffee and tea always taste better than my own. T
hey’re just generic brands. Usually, I decide I’ll buy them when I get home, where they don’t taste better at all and I just revert to my own brands. Do we like everything better when in “holiday” mode?
Not that I’m on holiday, of course, just having a change of air while still having to work. I haven’t had a week off writing for 15 years (Readers: “Yes, give it a rest!”)
The luxury…
But the best thing about the hotel room is the work space, where even now I am composing this libretto.
There’s a proper teak desk, phone and computer points, a table lamp. This is somewhat different to home, where I work from the same old armchair that I use to watch the telly, with my laptop on my knee.
I must do something about this. You can see already how it has improved my writing. Shut up, youse.
One reason I book hotels is for breakfast, but then I remember I didn’t like them any more.
I’m too tubby for fry-ups, apart from which I’m so nondescript they generally forget to serve me. Three times that has happened now. The invisible man. See you!
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