Jobs; (mini) jackpot; further adventures in Milton Keynes

Book Group met at The Back of Beyond’s beer terrace on Thursday – it was supposed to be at Tamzin’s house but she appears to have gone to ground. The sudden onset of summery weather enabled us to sit outside for the whole evening, though we spent more time discussing everyone’s job situation than discussing the book. Few of us had made the time to tackle the book, Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol – I may or may not get around to reading it. As probably the only person in the country who hasn’t yet read The Da Vinci Code, I should probably read that one first.

Very excited on Friday to discover an envelope from NS&I with a slip inside announcing that one of my Premium Bonds had won a prize. I bought £500 of Bonds a couple of years ago and, obviously, have been awaiting a large payout ever since, even though various people have told me that I probably don’t own enough Bonds to make that likely. Eagerly scanning the enclosed cheque told me that I’d won £25. Better than a slap in the face, I suppose. Didn’t think it was worth re-investing it in new Bonds so spent it on Amazon instead, as any responsible citizen would.

Outing to Milton Keynes at the weekend, with a view to having a scout around some residential areas within reasonable distance of the OU. Bribed Ruth to get an early train with the prospect of breakfast at La Taaza; after the usual great coffee and fried bread fest we made our way over to Euston and thence to MK. Managed to catch a bus from the railway station to Tinkers Bridge (suspect strongly that I am going to miss Reading’s excellent council-run bus system) and walked across Woughton Park to Walton Hall, the Open University’s campus. Crossed over and then into Kents Hill Park and more green space, before making our way to the first of the day’s flat viewings, a shabby little hole on the ground floor of a c.1980s block. Left feeling somewhat depressed and asked the letting agent the way to the nearest café or pub. After walking for a good 15 minutes, we eventually reached Walnut Tree¹’s Local Centre, featuring three takeaways, a Ladbroke’s and a Hungry Horse called the Tawny Owl, to which we reluctantly headed and stepped over the assorted Staffies and crying children to order a drink. Felt it prudent to order a spot of lunch as we had another viewing at 2pm, but won’t be doing that again – Ruth did manage to get through most of her disgustingly pallid-looking scampi but I rapidly lost appetite for my extremely dry Cajun chicken salad and just-about-cooked chips. Left, vowing never to set foot in a HH again, and viewed another flat in the same development as the first, also a no-go.

Headed north through Monkston and the new-and-posh Monkston Park and then, after a brief sit down near this concrete flyover, into Woolstone, presumably one of the older villages that was swallowed up into Milton Keynes. Nice, though getting a bit far from Walton Hall at that point. Proceeded to Willen Lake and the Milton Keynes East Premier Inn, which I had booked us into for the night. Discovered on arrival that we appeared to have booked into some sort of lakeside fun park, as the lake area and the pub adjoining the hotel were heaving with young families. Did the only possible thing and retreated to our room, where Ruth took a nap and I took a bath. Later that evening we had an acceptable lasagne in the somewhat ravaged pub – managed with some effort to find a table that wasn’t surrounded by discarded chips. Retired to our room fairly early and watched CSI.

On the Sunday we had a somewhat irritable breakfast (I say “we” – actually it was entirely me being irritable) before walking back to Central MK via Campbell Park. Stopped off at a Costa for me to have a cup of coffee to take away the memory of the weak brown liquid the hotel restaurant had served up earlier. After a trip to Hawes & Curtis for Ruth to stock up on some more shirts we made our way back to Reading. Bit of a question mark over MK at the mo.

¹ Another suburb. MK seems to specialise in cutesy/weird names for its residential districts: there’s another one called Coffee Hall.