No. 1 Middle Street

This shop has been, over the past twenty five years, a framer's, a pop up house clearance shop, a skateboarding shop, several types of gallery, and even a pop up selling only navy coloured goods! It is next to the former newsagent's I blipped recently. This area, called Old Stroud, is part of the conservation area and was once the heart of the town..The centre has shifted downhill now, below the crossroads named The Cross. The shops in Middle Street don't do well, being too far uphill, but I don't see why a local independent one- of -a -kind alternative funeral director's shouldn't succeed, since any visit there will be planned. The air is cleaner in Middle Street than the Merrywalks end of Gloucester Street, where the business was located until last week.

Today was the first of my two free days. I managed a lie-in; did a tiny bit of sorting out clothes; two loads of washing; made some Polish fruit soup.Last week I'd borrowed three DVDs from the college library, but it has taken us six days to find the cables to connect the (old) DVD player to the (new) TV! The DVDs were due back today, so I decided to watch The Book Thief, since I can get Revolutionary Road and the Wolf of Wall Street streamed from Netflix/Amazon. Watched the movie (it was good, but somehow didn't touch me) then walked to the college and back, via the supermarket. The crows were doing their murmuration routine as I strode through the park: we also witness this scene at school every evening, in the same Stratford Lawn/Stratford Park area.

Back home, I made a sort of coconut and prawn dish, but Steve rushed off to a meeting without eating, since we were both running a little late. Right now I'm settling down to watch Revolutionary Road. This is more my cup of tea.