I'd been In Cheltenham

I'd been In Cheltenham only once before, a few years ago, to do a reading at the Literary Festival, and was hardly there long enough to acquire much sense of the place. This morning I drove helplessly round the one-way streets for some time until I spotted the neoclassical hulk of the Town Hall where they hold the Festival events ( a building of dingy brownish stone, with a pompous oversized portico, that looks clumsy against the surrounding Regency terraces of white stucco) and then I knew where I was. I left the car in the first car park I came to, and made for the town centre. It was a cold day, but dry and sunny, and I spent an enjoyable hour hour or so strolling along the Promenade, browsing in Waterstone's buying a blouse in Laura Ashley and a pair of trousers in Country Casuals, having a light lunch in a café served by waitresses in old-fashioned uniforms with white aprons. I briefly explored a long , two-storied shopping mall discretely hidden in a parallel street, but quickly retreated from its airless atmosphere and tinkling muzak. I followed a sign to the Art Gallery and Museum, which specializes in the history of domestic art and design - appropriately enough because everywhere you go in Cheltenham you see restoration and refurbishment of the old houses and terraces going on, inside and out, a kind of collective cult of the House Beautiful.
From the book "Thinks" by David Lodge