I've been out 'on fieldwork' this week and spent today in Coalville in Leicestershire. Hmmmm.

The day has been bizarre to say the very least. Our recruiter found us this very strange place to hold our group discussions. It was supposedly an hotel - but I have to say I would not have stayed there for 'all the tea in China' as they say. It was very crumbly and odd and the owner was a strange lady indeed. My colleague and I were promised a vegetarian meal each and we got two biscuits each - not what I'd call hospitable considering we left for work at 7.30am and worked until 10.30pm in the evening.

Because we were unable to get into the 'hotel' through its front door (locked) and we were unable to raise anyone using the bell, we wandered around the side of the house and found a kitchen door. These wonderful old servant bells were along the wall of the kitchen from the days the house was a private home. The whole place felt like a trip to the Addams Family home, I kept expecting Morticia to wander round the corner at any moment!

My Spurs were playing in the Cup and I was 100 miles away, working and hungry. Still, one of the benefits of text messaging was that White Hart Lane Sarah was able to keep me up to date with our progress so at least after finishing work I felt in celebratory mood at the 3-1 scoreline.

We jumped into the car, headed back to Coalville town centre and the hotel, jumped out and asked the hotel receptionist if there was anywhere in the town where we could get some supper at 10.45pm. He directed us to a curry house that had no alcohol licence (no Cobra? Whatever next!) so we ended up nipping to the pub while the curry house cooked us some strange brown gloopy stuff purporting to be Vegetable Dansak - for those of you who don't know your currys - it's supposed to be fairly firey, full of lentils, chunky vegetables and a quite dryish sauce. This was not in the least like anything I'd eaten before!

Ah well, that's life on the road. The worst bit of the day? An incredibly scary, eight foot high concrete horse's head in the lobby of the hotel. Not a place I'd go back to unless at gunpoint!