General Chat

No error message.. zilch and then find there is three of them when I step out and then step in again.. it gets more and more like an Irish dance. ;-) :-S :-S

I was watching May Day last night where the weather plane was following the eye of the storm... this was when the cyclone was heading for and caused a lot of damage in Florida.

I rather like Florida spent quite some time there.

I used to come on to GR via this thread now it comes on via Greaders in the Hobbies and when I click on my threads or watched threads this one and all the others I have been on don't come up just the Greaders ones forever..

I think GR is winding down, well based on their accounts for the year one would think that could definitely be on the cards. :-S

Oh Persie - you can't live in one house and dream of the one over the road :-0 I hope you find your home soon - it must be very taxing doing the rounds.

I always get the green error message but my message is still posted. Not sure what's going on there.

No plans to come over for a holiday Linda so you are free to go on your trip ;-)

We will indeed be going over to Florida later in the year - looking forward to it.

It's going to be a warm day today so I'm getting jobs done before the heat sets in. There are many bush fires in various areas - sadly homes have been lost.

Poor Persie, I am not sure that the house you described would be good for you, if looking across the street would make your blood pressure rise

I usually get the green sorry there has been an error message when I post, but I know the post will actually be on the thread, so I just come out and go back into the site again

I wouldn't send our rejects to you Persie, they are destined for Australia :-D

Now I am cross :-| GR told me submitting did not work to back arrow and have another go or words to that effect..

Then I got kicked out, came back in and doh two postings of the same..

GR probably did not like my attitude and that I should have better standards on Sue's thread.

Good to see Tec popping on the thread from time to time.. even if I am not.

I saw your comments on Facebook re your hotel Linda. I thought you might be sending them to the colonies as well. They can't come here we have refugees from all over the place, asylum seekers and we still have overstayers.

We have been looking at more houses over this last week. There was nothing over Christmas and New Year.

Have been feeling rather glum over the whole business, hence me staying off GR for a while. The humid weather isn't helping and Aussie keeps sending any storms they can find, over to us as well. ;-)

We are looking at a weather board art deco house at present. We will have to do it up. It is handy to town as in walking distance. Not that many weather board Art Deco homes around usually stucco, however I do know of one street in Auckland that has a few and they are fairly horrible. This one does have good street appeal, trouble is I would be looking out the front windows at a house I really fancy (not for sale) across the road.
ho hum.... :-)

You have been neglecting us Sue, so get yourself back here :-D

I am sorry that you have lost your friend Sylvia, but it is good that she went quickly, despite her wishes, I am sure she would be pleased if all of her friends could get together to celebrate her life

when we came to leave the hotel, the bill was wrong, only about £20, which I normally would probably have ignored. They were trying to fob me off, but I was like a dog with a bone,so you can guess who won

I have spent this evening sorting another holiday out, we are going to Crete for two weeks in June, so you cant come then Sue, you will have to go to America to see your son instead. I am pleased that he has arrived safely. I am sure he wont mind the cold, he has someone to keep him warm!

Hello everyone - 89,000 + not bad :-D

I'm so sorry to hear about your friend, Sylvia but she certainly passed away on her terms. No more suffering <3

The whole weekend at the hotel sounds dreadful, Linda :-( We stayed in Corbridge a few years ago in a lovely B&B. A very nice village. I also get annoyed when a hotel or restaurant is supposed to be of high standard but let themselves down with awful service. Tell me what OH said :-D

Our son is now in America. He sent a message when he arrived in Houston and again when he reached Pensacola. Its very cold there but I don't think he's too bothered as he doesn't like the heat.

Thanks for your concern about the storm. We had a torrential downpour with hail and high winds but nowhere near as bad as some areas of Sydney. Daughter and SIL had some water run into their garage but they were able to pack a load of old towels that SIL uses for his dog wash business in front of the garage door to keep the water out.

Now that things have settled down I hope to be on more often. I have neglected the thread and I miss you all :-(

Our friend died very peacefully at 5:15 am this morning, about 9 hours ago.

Interestingly, she had told someone months ago that she would like to die alone, and that is exactly what happened ......... it was the first night that no-one had stayed in the room.

Her express wishes were no service and no obituary.

I'm now waiting to see who will organise a Celebration of Life :-)

I love Full English, black pudding and all ............ it was the grease swiming in the bottom of the plate that got me! The food itself had not tasted that greasy, thank goodness!!

it sounds awful!

and I can understand why OH could get you in trouble if you'd quoted him :-)

Ah well, lesson learnt???

It certainly doesn't sound like what I would expect from an upmarket place

We like hotels and restaurants where the service is friendly, prompt but inconspicuous!

I'm currently favouring hotels run under the Fairmont and Westin names, especially in off-season, but we have had luck at some others.

So we are back from dinner, taken in the same large restaurant used for breakfast, which despite its high backed leather benches and stag antler lights still manages to resemble a cafeteria.

It was staffed by two men in suits who wandered about, but did very little. Women in skirt suits who showed you to the table, handed you a menu, then waiters/ waitresses at the bottom of the pile who had waistcoats.

OH pointed out that he thought the woman in the skirt suit should not really have bare legs, especially in January, she also gave him his menu before she gave me mine. The same woman took the orders , again asking OH first. Picky of me I know, but standards are standards.

The friendly waistcoat waitress greeted us with " Hiya, how are you?" Hmm...

As well as other choices of main course, there was a carvery which you could opt for. Bare legged suit lady explained to us that as we had opted for this,after the starters were cleared away, that we should wait, until a waiter came to get us.That would ensure that our dishes of veg would arrive at the table at the same time we retuned with our meat.

A good idea, so eventually a young male waistcoat approached the table and said "Are youse both aving carvery" When I confirmed we were, he said "Youse can get it now"

And so it proceeded. For goodness sake this place is marketing itself as an upmarket international golf resort and spa. I wish I had read all the dreadful reports about the service on its Facebook page before I booked. Needless to say we won't be troubling them again. There are so many really nice hotels out there who manage to have well trained staff and uphold standards which make the experience special. After all they charge enough.

Rant over lol

You can't beat a full English Sylvia :-D

We went out and about today with no particular plan in mind.

We visited Corbridge and Allendale, both of which Feature heavily in my family history. I have been before, but it was nice to go back and walk the same streets as my ancestors, knowing the buildings were there when they were.

Corbridge is a very nice Roman village, it has gone up market and has lots of small independent shops with not a high street name or charity shop in sight. I bought some very nice glass angels in the tourist office, they were Xmas tree ornaments which they were selling off for half price

After we got back, I decided to use the leisure facilities, but OH wimped out. The swimming pool is very nice and I used the sauna and steam room as well. It was let down by the changing rooms. the woman's only had one private cubicle, all of the lockers bar one were full. I managed to nab that, but had to leave it unlocked as like half a dozen more, the key was jammed in the lock. By the time I came out, people had resorted to leaving their belongings in piles in the corridor leading from the changing room to the pool

It is almost time for dinner,so we will see what tonight brings. After breakfast OH said the problem with this hotel is............. And I agreed with him I won't post what he actually said as someone is bound to take umbrage. I will pm you Sylvia to tell you what it was

Congratulations indeed Sue

You can't beat a full English breakfast Sylvia :-D

You can tell a lot about a hotel by the quality of its scrambled eggs. Here they were very pale because they had been watered down so much with powdered milk. I opted for fried, the added chunk of egg shell was a special bonus :-(

89,000


:-D :-D :-D :-D


Congratulations, Sue xx

hmmmmmmmmm


best Full English swimming in grease :-S


we had one like that in a pub in a small village in Yorkshire ........... tasted delicious, until we saw all the fat that had collected in the "bowl" of the plate/

Having just read the comments on their Facebook page, I don't think it will get any better. It is a shame because the setting and grounds are very nice, it seems to be the staff who are clueless

Never mind, we will make the best of it . We will see how they can mess breakfast up in the morning

Linda ................ that doesn't sound at all good.

I would be complaining vociferously!

I hope tomorrow is better!

Not at all impressed by this hotel. It looks good but the staff training is not good enough.
We are booked for a two night dinner bed and breakfast deal, at no time during the booking were we asked what time we wanted dinner. So when we turned up at 4pm, I asked if we needed to book a time She looked at her computer and said that they were busy tonight, so the earliest we could eat was 9pm.

Needless to say that went down like a ton of bricks, she said that we could eat earlier in the posher restaurant but we would have to pay an extra £30. When I expressed my displeasure she said we could walk down to the restaurant to ask if we could get in earlier. I suggested she could pick up her phone.

In the end we had to pay the extra, it isn't the money, but the principal. If they can't feed people in a timely manner then they shouldn't be offering these special winter breaks

So we went to the posh restaurant and were shown to a table with a trail of black splashes right across the white table cloth. I pointed to them and the restaurant manager said, they had splashed black candle wax across the table when they had lit the candle. Apparently that was fine by them, personally I would have expected them to put a clean cloth on.

The poor chap was all on his own, trying to cope with a room full of people . The service was slow of course, partly not his fault, the kitchen was obviously understaffed as well, he kept phoning them to see where his food was

There is supposed to be wifi all over the hotel, but it has only just started working in this room, oh and the lift is out of order.

So over all Slayley Hall in Northumberland is not up to my standards :-|

It wasn't very pleasant Sylvia, but I managed to sort the phone out. Luckily I was able to use my mobile to google the problem and come up with the answer. This is the second week in a row that one of our volunteers in her mid eighties has messed the phone up by jabbing at random buttons. Lovely lady, but she simply can't cope with anything which vaguely resembles modern technology

We are off for our hotel break tomorrow, as it is in the wilds of Northumberland, I may have no mobile signal, I don't know it here is free wifi or not

That seems to be a long wait for an appointment Sylvia, considering they said it had to be done quickly

Hope you didn't become a walking snow(wo)man, Linda :-D


I have an appointment with a gastroenterologist, the same one OH sees .............. it's on April 4

I'm thinking that means they don't think that what I have is too serious.