Gloucester

I didn’t realise when I booked the room at the Station Hotel that the bar downstairs turned into a bit of a club over the weekend and the noise from the sound system filtered up to my room without too much trouble. Knowing that I had the day off today I didn’t worry too much about not being able to get to sleep too early though so I watched some TV and then put my iPod on until I dozed off.

It was early when I woke up and in my half asleep state I thought I could hear water dripping. Had I left a tap running last night? Was I hearing things? I switched on the light to investigate and after checking the bathroom I could indeed hear water dripping…in my room! I soon found the problem area and saw that water was clearly coming from one of the rooms above, through a crack in the ceiling that kind of gave me the impression this had happened before. It was too early to do anything about it, and as it wasn’t threatening any of my stuff or my bed, I put a towel underneath it and dozed for another couple of hours.

As I’ve done on other rest days, I couldn’t be bothered to rush around to get up for breakfast. I wasn’t feeling particularly hungry so I thought I’d take an easier morning and didn’t start to get myself together until almost 10am.

As I was sorting myself out there was a knock at the door by the cleaner asking if I wanted my room cleaned. I showed her the water leak so she went off to speak to the big boss man. She came back shortly letting me know that they were going to move me to another room for tonight, which was good because I kind of got the feeling that they might have tried to get me to stay in the room. All ready for an argument and then I didn’t have to have one, oh well. I moved my stuff in to the new room and popped out to see what Gloucester had to offer.

Knowing the one thing I did want to look at, I followed the signs to the cathedral. It wasn’t long before I got there and very nice it is too. I didn’t get to go in as there was a service on, it being Sunday, but the area around the cathedral was lovely with lots of old buildings and the like.

The rest of the town centre though didn’t exactly have a lot, if anything, to offer. There seemed to be a real clash between old and new in the town, with the old kind of taking a back seat to the newer shops and buildings. It almost felt like they didn’t really care about the history of the town or giving people a reason to visit. This was hit home outside one of the shopping centres in the high street. Outside was a glass covered area which had some of the original town wall under it. There was a plaque giving you all the information about it but you could hardly see anything as the glass looked like it hadn’t been cleaned for a decade or so. No pride at all from what I could see.

Realising that there wasn’t really anything in the town for me to look at or walk round I stocked up on a few things in Boots and made my way back to my room, deciding an afternoon on my bed in front of the TV – F1 and rugby – would be a better way to relax on my day off. And that is exactly what I did.

My initial impressions on Gloucester from yesterday still stand and I can honestly say that there is nothing here to make me ever want to visit again. Shame, as there’s clearly quite a lot of history to the place but it just looked like they didn’t care about any of it and it certainly didn’t make me want to spend any more time looking around to find out more. In a lot of ways it really reminded me of Aylesbury, where I used to work, which has some lovely bits but they’re all pushed in to the background by all the new buildings and high street.

I did have a bit of a problem with the big toe on my left foot today. It had been playing up a bit over the last couple of days and I put it down to a blister causing me a bit of trouble in the new boots. I’d had a blister plaster on it but it really was beginning to get quite sore.

Taking the plaster off it was clear that there was still a blister there but it was beginning to look a little red around the edges and I wasn’t convinced the fluid in it was looking the best. So, I cleaned a pin and released the yellow, pussy fluid – eeeeuuuwww! I gave it a thorough cleaning with medicated wipes and I’ve put a few coatings of antiseptic cream on it while I’ve been sat in my room.

It feels a bit better now, still a little sore but better, so I hope I managed to catch it before it went too bad. Only time will tell over the coming days how it’s going to be but I’ll be keeping a close eye on it that’s for sure.

I’m not planning on doing a lot this evening. I’ll no doubt pop out to get some food for tomorrow’s lunch, in case I don’t come across any open pubs, and then it’ll be a spot of dinner somewhere, not sure where though as I really didn’t see anywhere worth going to on my walk about earlier. It may well be the microwaved pub fare downstairs again. Joy.

Not the longest of days tomorrow and I’m hoping for a nice walk. I’ll be picking up the Sever Way and walking along the river so fingers crossed the day off has allowed my body to recover and I’ll find the going a little easier going again? That and not too many hills, if any, which will be a welcome change from the past few days on the trail.

Photos

I f you want to find out more about this day you can see the photos I took.