450 Mile Trip.

Today's journey to collect Romas from Keele University was a round trip of 450 miles, took 8 hours of driving and cost about £50 in fuel. The things we do for our children's education. Keele University is a sprawling collection of modern-ish buildings set in the largest self contained university campus in Europe.

The buildings verge on the ugly but I can imagine that in the spring and summer when the many mature trees are covered with leaves it is a very pleasant environment. There are also woods, lakes and trails which being an outdoors sort of person, Romas enjoys exploring.

There are large car parks (paying) and a network of roads linking the various parts of the campus.

The whole campus is just outside Stoke and Newcastle-under-Lyme (not to be confused with Newcastle upon Trent or Newcastle where Geordies come from). The 2 towns are merged together in one urban sprawl. I am so glad I don't have to live in that sort of environment.

I find this Midlands city quite ugly and Romas assures me that the rest of it is the same. (Apologies to any inhabitants of Stoke who love the place.)

I could probably take just as grim pictures in Barnstaple but there were also many ugly tower blocks and examples of horrible 70s urban development.

The actual journey wasn't too bad and we had a welcome break an hour and a half down the road at our friends in Tewkesbury. Before leaving Tewkesbury we had to fill up with fuel at Morrisons (large store) so we popped into the supermarket to see if they had any bargains. Arrived at the right time to pick up bagels, fresh croissants and muffins reduced by about 85%. When we got back to Barnsataple we did another supermarket check at Tescos and found them selling store baked loaves of bread,pastries and sandwiches for 10p. Our freezer and cupboards are now bulging.

After all the non-lovely urban development of the Midlands it was a welcome relief to see the rolling hills of North Devon. No wonder people flock here for their holidays.

Hooray, The video of Ben finally uploaded. I left it uploading when I left the house to collect Romas. At the time I didn't realise it was Belle and not Coral. Coral was not out in the field tonight when we came home so maybe she's had her foal too.