Category:Holiday

After yesterday’s mega-tour of Havana, we planned to take things at a much slower pace today. We took breakfast in the ‘right’ restaurant (and collectively decidied we preferred the ‘wrong’ one that we ate in yesterday), and made a rough plan for the morning. We decided to re-trace the steps from yesterday’s official tour, but …
Read More

We slept well, and maybe not surprisingly with the time difference, were awake very early. We headed down to breakfast just after 7, and Ralph and Karen joined us not long after. Actually, locating the restaurant was surprisingly difficult and we ended up in the ‘other’ one on the other side of the hotel, after …
Read More

After the 9 hour Virgin flight (very nice!) from Gatwick, and the twenty-minute taxi drive (very scary*), here we are, having just checked into the rather splendid 427 roomed Iberostar Parque Central Hotel in Havana. First impressions are good – a free glass of bubbly, air-conditioning and all the staff seem to speak English! The …
Read More

John dropped us over to Bedford station this afternoon, and we jumped on a direct line to Gatwick. I think this was the slowest train we’ve ever been on! Still, it didn’t really matter as we’re not travelling until tomorrow. Two hours later we arrived at the Hilton Gatwick (where we’d also stayed back in …
Read More

We caught up with Gill, Chris and Denise tonight – we all know each other from our days based in Sainsbury’s Romford Area Office in the 80s. It’s been a while since we last got together with the gang, and it was our turn to host. I did most of the food preparation, whilst Ann …
Read More

When it rains, it does it in style here – and it was evident, looking out of the window first thing, that they’d had a bucket-load overnight. And yet, minutes later, it was 14 degrees outside – that’s Dublin weather for you!!! Up until now, we’d avoided the hotel’s buffet breakfast offering, not because of …
Read More

It’s our penultimate day in Dublin and it’s a rare treat today, as no rain is forecast until 6pm! However, having learned that the predictions here can be a bit hit-and-miss, we dressed accordingly – and that included an umbrella each!  We decided to make today, a day of culture, but not before we found …
Read More

After a great night’s sleep, we were both ready to take on the World – but maybe NOT Dublin’s changing weather! Looking out of the window suggested that we were going to enjoy a blue sky, but 5 nano-seconds later, having emerged from the hotel looking for breakfast, we had the unique combo of: heavy …
Read More

  My new(ish) Windows Tablet developed a fault last night, that even I couldn’t solve – the firewall turned itself OFF and no matter what I did, I couldn’t get it to start again. My AV program refused to run properly (so I couldn’t check to see if I had any ‘nasties’!), and what’s more, …
Read More

Twenty months is a long time in the world of technology – especially when it comes to Tablets. Back in February 2014, I spent a King’s Ransom on the (then) all-singing-all-dancing Asus Transformer – a sort of Tablet/Laptop hybrid running on Android. Fast forward to now and this shiny bit of tech is being donated …
Read More

The Table Awaits…In what my be considered by some to be an example of poor planning, we hosted a dinner party tonight for Jo, Janet, Valerie and David – whilst David and I were on Day 2 of our Eat-for-£1-a-Day-Challenge! Talk about temptation!!!!! Whilst the girls tucked into Nachos & Dips, followed by my homemade …
Read More

An unusual evening tonight – but it did include our three favourite subjects: wine, food and chocolate!! Gill and Chris’s daughter, Francesca, is off to Tanzania in the new year for three months (as you do!) to work with some of the poorest communities there. The deal is that in return for her travel and …
Read More

It’s our last full day here today, before we take the two-hour train journey tomorrow, to Hamburg. The weather forecast is cloudy but at least dry, and we’ve got a few cultural places to visit, so we’ll probably spend most of the day inside. As the day turned out, the weather held, and we did …
Read More

We were up with the birdies to ensure we got a good run to Birmingham Airport – leaving the house at 5.30am. Weather was atrocious (so, a good week to be leaving the UK), but being a Saturday, at least the roads were fairly quiet. We checked-in at Brum without any problem, but as boarding …
Read More

It’s our last day here in this most beautiful part of France and whilst Steve and Helen are concentrating on getting ready for their new guests for the coming week, that leaves us to do some more exploring of the surrounding area. We’re off to Villefranche-du-Perigord and then onto the Castle at Bonaguil. Even though …
Read More

What a warm night! – even with all the windows open, and because there was no breeze, it just stayed sweaty! It’s only 8am (ish) and just look at the temperature below. As the Sun rose, surprisingly, it actually got a bit cooler, but we could hear thunder in the background. The updated forecast for …
Read More

After getting up at ‘silly-o’clock’, we jumped in the car and headed for East Midland’s Airport, and our flight at 7am to Bergerac Airport, courtesy of Ryanair. On arrival, the airport was heaving – much busier than I remember it back in my working days! In turn, and this added to the pressure at Security. …
Read More