Usually people staying in Travelodge hotels are just after a hot meal and place to rest their head for a couple of nights.

But sometimes visitors like to make specific requests to improve their stay – and occasionally they are a little bit odd.

The company has just released a list of some of the strangest requests asked of its staff across the country, including ones from hotels in Suffolk.

Amongst them are gems such as “how many beans are served in your breakfast”, “does the bed come with pillows” and “can you look after my plants”.

On another level entirely were requests to read a guest a bedtime story and help a customer design a website because they thought the Travelodge site was created by someone in the Ipswich hotel.

One visitor even asked for an interview – not to work there, but because he had one the next day and wanted to practice. His instruction – “be tough”.

Shakila Ahmed, a spokesman for Travelodge, said: “Our annual bizarre requests audit of 513 hotels reveals over 200,000 unusual requests by our business and leisure customers, with some of the more unusual ones coming from our hotels in Ipswich.

“Our hotel teams will always try their best to accommodate customer requests but there are just some requests that we just can’t help with, such as changing the weather or counting the stars in the sky.”

Elsewhere in the country, staff at the Gatwick airport Travelodge were asked if the plane pulled up outside or if someone from the hotel drove them to it; in Lutterworth a receptionist was asked when the 24 hour reception closed, and the team at Stafford met someone who wanted to know if his jaguar counted as a cat in their pet policy.