Amazing!

I visited this public toilet for £0.20p and it was amazing!

This is the one and only basin to wash your hands.  

But if you look carefully it's an all in one system.  You put your hands in a little bit and the soap comes out.  Push your hands right to the back and out spurts the water, then bring them back to the middle, without activating the soap for a second time and warm air flows out for drying purposes - what a crazy invention!

Having something like this however didn't quicken the toilet going experience for the ladies.  As you can see there's a lady behind me waiting for her turn at this unique contraption..... She didn't really understand my intrigue.

Party For Four!

After dinner I heard some music and singing and wondered whether the bus tour group were maybe doing karaoke and as I'm a huge fan of any sort of performance, I popped my head in to see what was going on.

Here is what I saw.

In all fairness, he was REALLY good!  So I sat and watched him for ages..... well until my bottle of wine ran out.  He even dedicated one song to:

"The girl who is up at the bar who stopped typing on her laptop for a moment to clap!"

That's the nicest dedication I've ever had.

Why?

I don't think this needs any more words.....

Wouldn't You Rather Be Beside The Seaside?

 My plan was to head south after Birmingham and visit some places that I had always wanted to, but never got around to before now.  

It has always amazed me that in England you can drive for only a couple of hours and you can be in a completely different region of the country.  Unlike Australia where you can drive for 2-3 hours and unless you live in Aubury/Wodonga, you'll still be in the same state!

This is a map of Kent in the south east of England.  It's sort of shaped like a dog's nose.  I used to work in Dartford, which is right on the border of Kent and London but because I always caught the train, I never went any further than Dartford, except for the one time that I fell asleep on the train and accidentally ended up in Gravesend! 

So this time, I had some time up my sleeve, a car and I needed to be in Sussex (the next county over) for Tanya's wedding on Saturday.  The timing couldn't be any more perfect.

I tried to take the coast road as much as I could to make the most out of the ocean view.  Unlike this couple ⬇  who were more interested in the sun than the view!  

At least they were outside.

My first stop was Margate, a seaside town, although I'm not sure if I would call this bit of seaside a beach as such.  That brown stuff you can see there is seaweed.

 They must get a bit of wind here off the North Sea as the horizon was littered with wind turbines.  

This was my little hotel.  The Smiths Court.  Apparently they like to "combine the relaxed informality of this century with the traditions and service of the last."

I can't complain about that philosophy, as the service was excellent, however the poor staff really had their work cut out for them with this funny, out of date hotel that Jack built! 

When I first booked with an internet company, the afternoon I was due to arrive there (not like me to leave things to chance!) and thought I was booking an ocean view room, however when I got there, the lovely lady at reception said, "Unfortunately it's not a sea view room."  So I was automatically disappointed, then she put me in a room that faced the back alleyway and had bird shit down the window - I mean those birds had gone to town!

So I called down to her and she wasn't fazed at all, she just gave me the keys to all the available rooms and said that I could choose which one I liked the best.

I chose the one above the original room.  It had the same layout, but a completely different feel about it.

 This was the view I could have had..... but instead I just sat in the bar (the only place I could get wifi anyway) and looked at it from there.  

Silver linings!

Keeping Up With The Joneses

When I lived in Birmingham I was lucky enough to have met and gotten to know one of the world's best families.  They are the kind of people that you just want to be around.  They are the Jones and for those of you who remember, I dated the son of the family, James.

Before when I've dated people, I never really took much time to cultivate a relationship with their families.  However, when I met James' parents,  Victor and Lorna Jones, something was different.  These were people I wanted to friends with.  They are caring and giving and oh so generous.  Together with James' sister, Rebecca, their Nanna, Joan and their Granddad, Oggie, they make up a picture perfect family.

Four generation of Joneses.  

Victor, Lorna, Nathaniel and Nanny Stick (Joan), who turned 92 in August. 

(I forgot to get a picture of the third generation kids!)

They love to potter in their lovely English garden and even though I'm not much of a gardener (at all), I love doing a walk around this garden to see what's new.

Rebecca's son, Nathaniel, who is 7 (and a half if you don't mind) and loves helping his "Grandy" in the garden and doing jobs around the place.  He spends a lot of time with his grandparents and is a gorgeous kid because of it.

Here is is ⬇ helping Victor build a new fish pond.

And finding bugs and things in the garden.  His Grandy is his biggest fan and his first teacher.  It's so lovely to watch them together.

 Thank you again for all your hospitality.

 It's always good catching up with the Joneses!

xxx

MK ROX!

About 10 years ago a friend of mine from Belgium, Christophe brought his then girlfriend, Kelly out to Australia and they stayed with me and I loved her immediately.  She's gorgeous and down to Earth and hil.air.i.ous!

She's grown up a little since then, having had 2 kiddies, but she is still the exact same lovely lady she was all those years ago.  I had seen her in the last 10 years when I was living in England but we worked out that the last time we saw each other was about 6 years ago.

We've both gone through some life changes since then.  Kelly has since, very bravely gone out on her own as a single mum and is raising 2 beautiful kids - Lily, who is nearly 4 and Callum, who is 18 months and she's also met this absolute spunk in the photo with her.  This is Mike, her new beau and let me tell you...... he's every bit as gorgeous on the inside as he is on the outside.  

Mike cooked us a spectacular roast dinner with better mash potato than I make plus Yorkshire puddings and crispy stuffing and amazing gravy.... and most people would know how my I love my gravy!  Then we played Scattergories..... which I won fair and square!

                                          Callum                                                                                       Lily     

    

It was so lovely to catch up with Kelly and meet her kids and her new lovely beau.  It's always nice to be with people when it doesn't matter how much time has passed between visits, but you can just pick up where you left off.

Big kisses to you Kel

xxxxxxx

Saint George!

To get myself from place to place on my Midlands Tour I hired a car from the local car hire place near Tanya's.  Tans and I have both used them before and they were dodgey, but fairly reliable and much easier to access as they are located around the corner from her house!  

So this time I got a Citroen Picasso

Mainly because I feel safer driving a bigger car.

I had made it to Rugby fine, albeit the long way thanks to my TomTom!  Apparently he likes to go via all major motorways rather than the quick way through A roads and back streets!

The next day, I was packed and the GPS was set for Nottingham, but when I pulled out from the Rugby Hotel, the car did not feel right.  There was a thumping rattling kafump sort of noise.  I pulled into the nearest petrol station, which was just around the next corner, so I couldn't have gone 100 metres.  When I got out...... this is what I found!

I was only slightly devo'ed at this point.  I thought how lucky it was that I was at a garage and that they'd be able to help me because as independent as I claim to be, I have never changed a tyre.  I've got a vague idea of what should probably happen.  I know you have to jack up the car and I know that nuts have to be unscrewed and I generally know where to look for the spare tyre.  However..... in this hire care, which has 7 seats - doesn't have a spare tyre.  Once I figured that out, I started to panic, but only slightly because as I said, I was in a garage and they would surely help me.  So.... in I walk.  I approach the counter and say to the lady, "Hello, I was wondering if somebody could help me, I have a flat tyre."  Her reply overwhelmed me.... "Oh, well, the guy who's here, well he's hurt his back and I've got a sore elbow, so......"  I stared blankly at her for a minute and furrowed my brow for a bit, raised my eyebrows and then just thanked her for all her help and walked out. 

I tried to pump up the tyre, which cost £0.20p for 2 minutes of air!!!!! but the thing just wouldn't go up!  So that had pretty much exhausted all my tyre changing expertise, and I even had a couple of helpful people who tried to give it a go just in case I was doing it wrong, but still to no avail......so I resorted to calling the RAC, it came with the hire car, so it wasn't going to cost me a limb as far as I knew.  I rang the ever so helpful lady who asked me a whole batch of questions that I wasn't able to answer and she informed me that someone would be there within the hour.

Enter George - My Hero in High Vis!

(Not the real George, I thought it was a little creepy to ask for his photo!)

George did a little more than just walking around the car kicking the tyres and got straight onto the problem...... the biggest being that it was a Sunday and he wasn't sure if we could get another tyre that day!!!  It wasn't all doom and gloom, It wasn't as if I was in the middle of nowhere I could have just left the car there and walked my suitcase back the hotel and stayed for another night, but George was determined to fix this problem for me.  Bless him! He got chatting and I learned that he was married and that he keeps in contact with a couple of exgirlfriends via email rather than Facebook because his wife doesn't want him to do that.... !  It's funny what people will tell you in those sorts of circumstances.  All I said was that I keep in touch with people on Facebook and away he went!  He assured me that they were just friends, because they were exes for a reason, right?!  I had to assure him that I didn't really care about that part of his tyre changing skills.

Anyway..... a Tyre Plus type shop came up with the goods and I had a brand new tyre, free - thanks to RAC, and was ready to go.

The funny thing was that the lady from behind the counter kept coming out to see me and offer me cups of tea and coffee and advice.  I must have made her feel a bit guilty or perhaps she saw just how helpless I was before George arrived.  She suggested the most unusual ideas to fix the tyre.  She even told me, at length, about how her sister's car (not a Citroen Picasso, I might add at this point) has a foam dispenser for when she gets a flat tyre and you spray it into the wheel and it inflates.  It ruins to tyre mind you, but it gets you to where you need to go to get a new one.  I stared at her blankly waiting for something unsarcastic to come to mind, but when nothing came, I had to just reply..... I think I'll just wait for the RAC.  She was my new best friend, I don't know who was working behind the counter..... maybe the man with the bad back?