Category:Holiday

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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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!!! …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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. …
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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! …
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Woke up to discover that we lost all Internet connectivity! I guess it just goes to show how we (err, I) have come to rely on it!!! It was off from 7am until lunchtime. Steve PalmerI got into blogging quite late in life, not publishing my first post until 2004 – well into my 40s! …
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Picked up a couple of Albums by Cascada from play.com Lots of good tunes as well as a few slow versions of the dance tracks. “What Hurts the Most” video is HERE Latest video “Everytime we Touch” on YouTube <img src="https://www.stevepalmer.com/blog/uploaded_images/MusicCascada_BFD6/video65ec8b53a237.jpg" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('5597ec18-db78-47ab-9e5e-b98c850df557'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = " https://www.youtube.com/v/GUsb5HP7Ajg&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6&border=1″;” alt=””> Cascada’s web-site is HERE …
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Stumbled across this artist whilst surfing the music channels on Sky and on impulse, bought the album – ‘Year of the Gentleman’. Loved it!!! (and I’m not normally a fan of RandB) The single – ‘Closer’ can be seen on YouTube HERE Wiki info HERE  and the official Ne-Yo site is HERE Steve PalmerI got …
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Hhmmm…this is strange. Over the last few weeks, I’ve noticed that randomly, I seem to be losing the ability to connect to other PCs on the network. The biggest problem is that it is random! I thought I’d narrowed it down to a faulty router-modem, but having taken delivery of a new one today, it …
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Julie popped round. She wanted some help with the pdf promotional leaflet for her web-site. Steve PalmerI got into blogging quite late in life, not publishing my first post until 2004 – well into my 40s! My lifelong love of technology and communication (in all its forms), together with a fondness for the art of …
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I ran all of the spyware software I could get my hands on overnight – and they found nothing – so it looks as though we’re back up-and-running. Thanks Dell! Steve PalmerI got into blogging quite late in life, not publishing my first post until 2004 – well into my 40s! My lifelong love of …
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Bugger! The laptop started playing up today – very slow and then it wouldn’t boot at all! Those very helpful people at Dell helped it to boot again, but it was still very sluggish when loading programs. I also found some suspicious activity in the start-up routine (various dll files with random letter-strings as their …
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Being a bit of a ‘completist’, this was very satisfying! I finally got hold of the remaining remastered Alan Parson’s Project Albums – so, I have them all now. From the first – ‘Tales of Mystery and Imagination’- originally released in 1976 right up until ‘Gaudi, his last in the Project series, released in 1987. …
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