Wild, Wet and Windy Wednesday

Carol is on Half-Term from the Academy this week. We had planned to have a day out in London and had spent quite a lot of time researching where we wanted to go when we got there. We would have gone by train and booked via the internet, but when the day broke it was a very wet and wild morning that greeted us as we peered out of the bedroom window. We had seen trailers for the Disney animated film 'Zootopia' and being Disney fans Carol went on-line and found that there was a showing at 10.50 a.m. at the new Odeon  cinema complex at the MK Stadium which we had yet to visit. We drove towards the stadium and parked nearby. It was reasonably early and the car park was filling up fast, surprisingly. I suppose the reason being that it was Half Term and parents were taking their children out. We entered the Odeon complex which is in the centre of the newest parade of businesses within the Milton Keynes stadium complex. This is a bright and breezy building with all modern conveniences within. We were able to book our tickets on a sort of A.T.M. and as a result, we got the tickets printed out immediately. We could have booked on-line in the same way we had booked our rail tickets a couple of months ago when we went to Southampton to visit Carol's mum and dad. We had some time to spare before the film began and had coffee and pastries in the branch of Costa which is in the cinema complex. We went into the cinema auditorium, number 8, around ten minutes before the programme was due to start. We had booked Premium seats, which meant we had far more leg-room to sit, which suited me because I'm 6ft 2in tall and usually, whenever we go to the cinema, which is rare, or the theatre, which is far more frequent, there is barely enough leg-room. Milton Keynes Theatre has very little leg room in any of the areas of their auditorium and it is annoying in a modern theatre that you can't sit without having to stand up to let other people through. This wasn't the case in this new cinema. The sound quality when the film began was excellent (7.1 Dolby sound I believe) and a pin-sharp image. The film was good, but quite honestly it was far too long and they could have trimmed around 20 minutes off the running time. It couldn't decide what sort of audience it was aimed at. If it was mainly for children a lot of the gags would have gone over the children's head, frankly. But considering the number of times we've been to the cinema over the last few years it didn't matter as it was good to have some quality time together. The last film we saw was "Les Miserables" and that was 2012. We then went to T.G.I. Friday's which was a few doors along from the Odeon cinema and had a meal.

Road Re-Surfacing Chaos

We wanted to go for a swim at D.W. Fitness on Tuesday. Having picked up Carol from the Academy at 4.45 we drove towards M.K. Stadium (the gym is within the precincts of the stadium.) but we first got caught up in heavy traffic, caused by re-surfacing work on some of the Milton Keynes grid roads. There was a long tailback from the roundabout just beyond Oldbrook and then we had to put petrol in the car at the Shell station in Grafton Street. There was further traffic chaos as we neared the stadium and by the time we drove into the precincts of the stadium near the McDonalds and K.F.C. restaurants it was clear that there was going to be something going on within the stadium, no doubt a football or similar event so we decided it wasn't such a good idea to go to the gym after all, as it was likely to be difficult to get out when we wanted to leave so we thought it best to just go home and forget it altogether. Mind you, it's probably be a good idea to just grin and bear all the inconvenience of the re-surfacing of the roads around here, because there are paces where the condition of the road surface leave a great deal to be desired. They have patched up some of the road around Eaglestone, and in particular the gaping chasm that you encounter when you drive in from Saxon Street. It's a wonder that more people don't try and claim some sort of compensation from the local council because all the pot-holes must cause a great deal of wear and tear on cars as they drive over them.

We had another go at a visit to D.W. Fitness, but this time it was very crowded. The changing room was over-flowing and by the time we got into the pool there was a children's swimming lesson going on. A lot of noise from that. Then the jacuzzi was full up. The thought occurred that at such times as this they should have opened the second spa pool, which was closed and with the cover on. It may have been out of order or they hadn't done a water test before allowing people to use it. Also there were a lot of people taking over the pool. I sat in the hot room for a while but even that was over-crowded. We didn't stay too long and left after barely 45 minutes. Unfortunate timing for our visit.