I am sitting in the lap of unexpected luxury.
It is completely and utterly unexpected, because we have been upgraded to a suite.
I do not know why this might be. We were not expecting it and it does not look as though the hotel is full. The only clue I have is that the chap on the hotel reception looked at where I had signed the check-in form and said in a admiring tone that it was the most beautiful signature he had ever seen.
I had brought my own pen in case I needed to upset somebody because of it being far more portable than a sword, but other than that it was just a signature. It was not even a very flourishing one since I had not remembered to bring my glasses.
We concluded that the south is just a very peculiar place.
All the same it is an exciting place.
It is very hot here. It is the middle of the night but it is still very hot, and all of the fields are burned to an artistically golden hue.
No wonder they all believe in Global Warming down here.
When we called Oliver he said that he, and Emily, and Ritalin Boy, who is also staying for a few days, were fine. We were not to worry about them, that he had got the fire going nicely and they were all warm and comfortable.
It is a different world.
Oliver’s girlfriend Emily, who also lives down here, has a wardrobe full of completely inadequate garments, not a thermal vest nor a pair of woolly socks to be seen anywhere. She is always shivering when she visits us, and I am not in the least surprised.
We are in Guildford, where we decided that we would stop for the night. We booked it over coffee a few mornings ago, inspired by the discovery of an hotel which has an outdoor swimming pool and also by a vague mistrust of the hotel our friends have booked near Glyndebourne, which we have been assured is Quirky.
I do not know how I feel about Quirky yet. If I want Quirky I can usually manage to achieve it all by myself without even trying. I do not know if I will like other people’s peculiarities. My own make life quite sufficiently inconvenient.
Hence we thought we would have tonight in the promise of reliably quirk-free sophistication. We have had dinner here, which was very nice although I have put its peculiarities simply down to being in the south, it would never ever have occurred to me to serve lamb with peanuts and yoghurt and pomegranate seeds. Mint sauce is about my level, with garlic if I am aspiring to an air of exotic continentalism.
We ate too much, which was brilliant.
The surprise suite is very splendid. I am currently reclining on the sort of enormous sofa that goes round a corner, looking at the enormous vase of flowers, and Mark is pouring the complimentary gin and tonic included with the room. We were not expecting this either, and although it is not very good gin, it is a Gift Horse and its teeth are its own business.
It is now half an hour later, and I have discovered that part of the overheating difficulty is caused by the hotel believing that a heated towel rail is a good idea even when it is thirty degrees outside. The windows only open for the tiniest crack in order that you do not jump out, and so my sympathy for baking southerners has been considerably diminished. Obviously they do not have to heat the place by sawing up old pallets.
Still, it is a very splendid place, very modern and full of the sort of LED lighting designed to make you feel that you are sophisticated. It is working reasonably well so far even though my lunchtime sandwich leaked some mayonnaise on my trousers and I have had to keep my hand over the stain ever since.
It is a bit too warm for trousers. We will really be able to wear our shorts tomorrow. I have been looking forward to this bit. They are real shorts as well, not just old trousers with the legs hacked off.
I am feeling very southern and sophisticated.
My visit to the middle class starts here.
PS. We saw HS2 being built today. This completely astonished me. I had no idea it was real. In my head it was somewhere between Father Christmas and the Second Coming, a fairy story for believers.
It is a pointless creation anyway since it stops at Birmingham. What earthly use is that?
