Tewkesbury and around

Quiz

I have just returned from a short break in Tewkesbury. I stayed HERE with a friend.

Now, what sort of place do you think it was? Make your judgement from the photographs. What kind of building is it, what are the rooms like and what is the quality of the bedding, food, and so on?

Do that now and then read what I write lower down.

Sadly it rained hard the day I drove down (Tuesday) and I got very wet walking about the town looking for lunch. However I was able to catch an organ recital at the abbey which was extremely good. (More later, perhaps)

On Wednesday we visited Ledbury which is a very nice town; we contrasted this with a visit to Evesham in the afternoon which is not as nice. Finally we decided to find a teashop in Broadway but we arrived at 5.05 and ALL teashops shut at 5pm!

Back to the quiz.

No, it isn't a Tudor building - I thought it would be. If you look carefully at the website you see that, underneath the photos, is text saying 'The Abbey Hotel bed & breakfast is surrounded with astounding Tudor architecture.' I have to say that this is not clear from their Home page; I thought that image was one of the hotel - I will tell them this! The rooms were furnished with sad looking furniture and looked old and drab. Cobwebs were visible and there was precious little hot water. I did sleep well so the bed was fine, although the pillow case on the other bed was iron-stained.

I do have problems with dogs roaming where food is consumed. Many areas of the hotel were untidy and simply showed a lack of pride. I would not recommend this place to anybody who likes to visit quality establishments although I do suspect they had better rooms than the one they gave us.

So THIS was the hotel and NOT the place pictured below. I shall be more careful in future.

At least it was cheap.

Cinema

The whole family went to see the Harry Potter film yesterday. We arrived at 7.11 just before the adverts and trailers; the film started at 7.45. While the lights were still up we could see hoards of people arriving clutching enough food to feed an army. Huge boxes of popcorn, crisps, coca-cola, the lot. When the lights went down we could hear the rustle of plastic bags as folk delved in to stuff their faces.

Then I heard words I never thought I'd hear in a cinema. In the row behind me there was a family; the mother asked, "Anyone want a cup of coffee?". I didn't turn round, I just assumed she had brought her thermos flask.

Honestly people, have a nutritious meal before you set out. By all means take in a few sweets or a bar of chocolate as a treat, but the cinema isn't your personal TV lounge where you eat your TV dinner. Bloody 'ell!

I thought I'd blogged about this before, some time ago, but a search for 'cinema 'revealed only one post.

A bee in my bonnet

Mrs TS has received the Hillside Summer 2009 Newsletter. I do not generally rush to support animal charities as such because a part of me thinks some people care more about animals than our fellow human beings. On the other hand the way we treat all forms of life says a great deal about us; who am I to judge?

I was angered by the page in the newsletter which claims to expose the Freedom Foods accreditation as less than satisfactory. I don't mean I was angered by the fact that there was such a page but that it takes the bravery of a small outfit such as Hillside to blow the whistle on the RSPCA. Apparently, evidence of poor standards at a well-known turkey farm was taken to BBC's watchdog but - after an RSPCA investigation - no problem was found and the BBC could not proceed with their exposure. The YOUTUBE video is here. There is another HERE.

In my mind, this is the kind of thing our politicians should be putting right rather than claiming expenses for themselves.

Do join the Facebook group or make a donation if you see fit.

Bygones

A stumbled across this website today which has many black and white photos of places from yesteryear. Worth a look.

230 not 240

I went bell ringing today as I am on holiday and can do so. At Rothwell they recently installed an electrical winding system for the clock.

I had grabbed hold of the Treble rope and was waiting for others to join the circle, so I glanced at the apparatus behind me (not shown on the link above) and saw a sticker stating that it required a supply of 230v. One of the ringers works for an electricity company and was able to explain that we no longer have power at 240v as I had thought. This brings us into line with Europe and has had a beneficial effect because there are far fewer voltage problems (supplies had to be +/- 6v or something).

It makes no difference to me. However one would have thought the public might have been aware of it.

Did they make Mars bars smaller without anybody noticing or did I imagine it? It's all part of a plot to reduce things until the country shrinks away to nothing. I blame the aliens.

Worst verse in the Bible

Hop over to Rectors' Ramblings who has just posted a video from Ship of Fools.

Take a look at the Internet Explorer 8 one too.

The plumber has been back to look at our new boiler. In the course of his visit he said I have to have my hot water set at 60 degrees to kill the salmonella! How many raw chickens are there in my hot water tank? I have tried to Google this to check but so far have come up with nothing.

Shopping

I have done too much shopping over the last few days both online and in real shops. If you are really interested there's a list at the end of this post.

What annoyed me today was my visit to Sainsbury's. Over the tannoy came,

"Colleague announcement: Sharon to Till 4 please". Whatever happened to "Staff announcement"?

What sad git sits in an office and thinks up politically correct tannoy announcements? I am now used to British Rail (if they are still called that) and their "Customer announcements" which replaced "Passenger announcements".

What's next I wonder?

Shopping List

• Epson Printer
• Ink for printer
• Croquet clothes (waterproofs, white V-neck pullover and a fleece)
  
• Slippers
• Pajamas
• Food (twice)
• Petrol
• Booking a holiday
• Tyre puncture repair (thankfully a new tyre was not needed)

New printer

I now have a new printer/scanner, an Epson SX200. Truth be known I bought it because it was cheap (not the cheapest) and I can get cheap compatible cartridges to go in it. I've just printed a test page and I think it is a bit noisy, so the review I found was, sadly, correct. We have a DX3800 with the family PC downstairs, which is fine, and the cartridges I bought for my old D68 fit that so that's good.

This printer/scanner cost me just under £50 from Argos. The local Tesco stock Lexmark printers and, yesterday, they also had one Epson SX200 in stock for about £73: I ask you! Today they had a dozen or so but I couldn't see the price; no reason to suppose they had lowered it.

Our first ever printer was an HP 640C but we never had any joy with refilled cartridges; they were always rubbish so we had to buy genuine ones. If I ever get to rule the world I shall dictate that there will be - at most - only half a dozen types of printer in the world; they will all take the same cartridges and be environmentally friendly by virtue of the fact they can be refilled and used many times.

Darn

My printer has just stopped working; it was OK yesterday. Having looked at Epson's website I find the problem is simply the sponges inside which soak up excess ink are full and need replacing. Do I want to pay to have them replaced when a new printer/scanner (which I do now need) is around £50? Well no, but I do detest the throw-away society in which we live. I shall Freecycle it in the hope somebody will want to fix it.

End of Term

We broke up today so it was prize-giving and sports day. We have various colleagues leaving and changes in the timetable from September.

One friend of mine - in a one-man department - knows that a new (female) colleague will be doing some teaching in his department next year. Until now he has obviously not had to hold departmental meetings. He has a dry sense of humour and seriously quipped that he would not longer be able to hold his departmental meetings (during which he talks to himself) in the shower after sport lessons. "At least" he said, "I shall not mention - for a week or so into next term - that this is where I hold department meetings." I thought this very funny and put forward a suggestion that they could take it in turns to bring the shower gel.

It is always sad to see people leave; this year I was sad to see a few boys leaving. Next year will be worse because the leavers will be boys who arrived at the school when I did.