Category:Holiday

The girls popped in to see Lee and Bertie and we forced cheese and biscuits on them – it wasn’t too difficult!!! 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 …
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Val and David popped round to see Lee and Bertie – a perfect excuse for a cuppa and some cake! 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 …
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Ann finalised the details for our holiday to Japan later this year. 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 writing seemed to …
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…actually it’s NOT. I ordered a wireless router and a basic Internet package from O2 last week. The communication process has been excellent to date with regular texts and emails to keep me abreast of the progress of my order. The Router arrived on Monday as promised, and ‘766’ line went live today as promised. …
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Lee and Bertie have joined us for a week of R and R 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 writing seemed …
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Demon our ISP, announced a week or so ago that we’d been upgraded to ‘ADSL2+’. Being so far away from the Exchange, I expected it to make no difference at all, so I binned the letter. Then, towards the end of last week, I noticed that things were indeed faster. Time for a bit of …
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5.05 am. A great start to the week! The Demon connection went down this morning. Demon’s help desk couldn’t work out why even after re-setting the Router. It shouldn’t make any difference, but this is also the week when the second line in the house is activated for broadband by a different supplier – coincidence? …
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We’re off to Nicki’s for the weekend. We left just after 1pm and stopped off at Basildon Park on the way there. This was an interesting National Trust property and one that we had not visited before. We had something to eat as soon as we got there (we were both starving!) and then had …
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I drove over to Fosse Park to meet up with Dave Barthorpe. No specific reason apart from a catch-up and a gossip about the state of the profession. Dave also took me through his i-phone – an impressive bit of kit! We decided to eat in the Food Court there and pigged-out on McDonald’s! Steve …
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We travelled over to Ian and Ann’s for a social get-together. We don’t see them often enough, and it was good to catch-up with all their news. Ian was the chef for the evening and we enjoyed home-made potato and leek soup, chicken casserole and lemon cheesecake to finish. Super scrummy! Caroline and Dermot popped …
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Roy and Susan and Janine joined us for supper primarily for the five-of-us to plan in some detail, how we’re going to take photos of Roy when he runs in the London Marathon on 26 April. Ann made two pizzas – one vegetarian and one spicy-meat – all accompanied with salad and washed down with …
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We realised that with Ann’s redundancy looming she’d have to give her company mobile back – a rather antiquated Nokia. A perfect excuse then to look for a replacement! Slim, attractive, easy-on-the-eye and brimming with technology – but enough about me 🙂 – what about the new phone? We settled for the ‘Nokia Classic 60 …
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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 …
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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, …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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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