Category:Holiday

For all fans of the music of Alan Parsons, the forthcoming Album by his ex-music partner, Eric Woolfson, entitled ‘The Project that Never Was’, is eagerly awaited.       Spookily, a related item on Steve Martin’s The Avenue Online web-site talks of album covers that also never saw the light of day. Steve collaborated …
Read More

I had a productive morning revamping an old Course and fine-tuning one for later this week, so I was well-ahead. I used the time to start work on trying to solve the problem with Ann’s PC. It’s been suffering from random re-boots and ‘forgetting’ drive ‘e’. I know for certain, it’s not a software problem, …
Read More

Ian and Sharon are on a week’s break and were not too far away in St Neots. So, we drove over there catch-up with them and sample a local take-away! They were staying at Paxton Hill House which contains three self-catering units in the grounds of a large privately-owned country house. We arrived around 6.40 …
Read More

We left the gorgeous ‘Al Waha’ hotel today. We certainly won’t forget it – it’s been a superb stay – probably one-of-the-best hotels or even the best hotel we’ve ever stayed in. Service, food, facilities have all been first-class! We’re now heading for the Golden Tulip Hotel near the Airport in Muscat. 12.30pm. The taxi …
Read More

We got up about 8am and headed for breakfast at about 9.15. Looks like another hot day here in paradise but it’s our last full day here today. After breakfast, we asked for a tour around the rooms in the other two hotels. The other two nearby hotels are ‘Al Bandar’ (slightly posher) and ‘Al …
Read More

We slept well and woke at around 8am. Must have been the alcohol. 🙂 After some techy faffing-around with the NetBook and my mobile phone, we were ready for breakfast around 9.30. I couldn’t solve the techy issues – emails out were unreliable – sometimes they go, sometimes they don’t. Unlike Dubai where I couldn’t …
Read More

We set the alarm for 5.15am as we’re checking out today and flying to Oman. Neither of us slept very well AGAIN, so consequently, when the alarm did go off, we felt less than 100%!! Obviously, my theory that it was the air-conditioning keeping us awake proved to be false! The check-out process was pretty …
Read More

We both slept a lot better – looks like turning-off the air-conditioning in the room helped!  It’s our last full-day in Dubai today. I got up at 8am and Ann followed. Breakfast was less busy than normal and there was a lot of new faces. I guess quite a few had checked out last-night. We …
Read More

We both slept badly, waking up at 2am. Not sure why! 2am is 10pm UK time and were certainly tired when we went to bed last night. The chance of getting to sleep was further reduced because of the thunderstorm (but no lightning – is that unusual?) We finally got off, waking at 6am and …
Read More

By the time we checked into the Le Meridien at the Mina Seyari Beach Resort in Dubai last night, it was nearly 2am -so we slept well! I didn’t wake until 9am, which is really unusual for me! We went for breakfast at around 10.30 and it was packed – we had to wait for …
Read More

I’m typing this bit on the plane! We left home around 10am. It was chucking it down with rain, and it was cold – a perfect time for a holiday! We had a trouble-free drive over to Birmingham Airport and checked-in. The baggage allowance wasn’t particularly generous and we just scraped in (in fact, we …
Read More

So, here are then with my new toy! I think it is going to revolutionise how and when I use a lap-top. Wow! it really is small; It has a wide range of sockets to plug in USB devices and it’s even got a card-reader built in!- and a web-cam too ..and thanks to Vodafone …
Read More

In years to come, this will all be very common-place. However, today I’m feeling rather smug having made my FIRST digital download from Amazon. ‘Stairway to Heaven (Remastered 2007)’ by Led Zeppelin; ‘Run’ by Leona Lewis and ‘Chasing Cars’ by Snow Patrol. Steve PalmerI got into blogging quite late in life, not publishing my first …
Read More

After a cancellation by the first tour company and the us  cancelling the second because of an issue over prices, you would begin to think that someone was telling us something about Brits in India. Then, we heard on the news of all the trouble in Mumbai -so this time WE decided to cancel it!!! …
Read More

Just when we thought we’d got the holiday sorted, TrailFinders rang us and said that the price had gone up – another 240 quid!! We decided, to cancel it because we felt like we were being shafted – not by TrailFinders, but by the travel company they were buying it through. So it’s back to …
Read More

That was a bargain! I ordered a refurbed Panasonic Lumix TZ3 from Amazon over the weekend and it turned up today. It’s an excellent piece of tech with an astounding 10x optical (yes, optical) zoom. There is no other camera that can touch it currently for this feature – apart from others in the Lumix …
Read More

A major step forward today mating my PDA with my Dell laptop. I don’t know why I don’t think of it before when I’ve been working away from home – but I discovered the ‘Internet sharing’ option on my PDA. This means when I’m working in a hotel or somewhere where there is no FREE …
Read More

We popped down to see Janet. She had been re-admitted to hospital earlier this week, because the bolts holding her titanium rod in place in her leg had snapped – that certainly explains why she was in so much pain after the operation the first-time-around. She was in great spirits and let’s hope the job’s …
Read More

After the hassle of the original tour company cancelling the holiday, Ann spent a few evenings looking into alternatives. We wanted to keep the itinerary as close as we could to the original as well as flying with Virgin rather than anyone else. So, we got in touch with Trailfinders and let them sort it …
Read More

The booking agent we’re using for our next big holiday rang today to inform us that because of low numbers, they were cancelling the trip! Ann jumped on the Internet and did some googling and managed to find an almost identical holiday travelling out a day later. It was a bit more expensive, but at …
Read More

Breakfast was planned for 9.30, although by the time we all got up and were ready it was nearer to 10.15. We all got stuck into one of Andrew’s famous ‘full-English’ breakfasts and no doubt our waistline will suffer as a result! 🙂 We set off for Lee and Bertie’s around 11.30 leaving most of …
Read More

We awoke to a dry but breezy day and were both up by 7.15. It’s sausage and/or bacon sandwiches for breakfast. We were all sitting down and eating by 9.15 – by 10.30, we were ready for the traditional ‘yomp’ to the beach and back and then to ‘The Crown’ Public House. The walk on …
Read More

We travelled over to Mundesley, as we did last year to take part in Caroline and Andrew’s Children-in-Need weekend at their B and B. This year’s theme is Abba/The 70s, so Ann and I bought some appropriate clothing from eBay. Scary stuff! Shoes that you need oxygen to wear and lycra body-suit that shows off …
Read More

Yep, I admit it, I am!!! I managed to get hold of a 16Gb, – yes 16Gb – micro SD card for my phone from Expansys. Currently this is the largest capacity drive available. It probably means that I’ll soon be able to dispense with my separate USB stick for carrying data around with me. …
Read More

In preparation for the 30th Anniversary Tour in June next year, I’ve blown the dust of this very special version of Jeff Wayne’s ‘The War of the World’s’ CD and converted them to MP3s. A spectacular SEVEN disc collection (6 CDs + 1 DVD) featuring all permutations of the Album, including Spanish, German versions too! …
Read More