CoLJ 15 - A Day's Driving Not to be Forgotten!

We, Natalie and I, left The Conifers, our final holiday cottage on this trip, on Saturday 3^rd September for the drive through Southern England, France and Spain, in our trusty 2007 Hyundai Getz, and arrived home, in Orihuela Costa, on Monday 5^th September. The second and third days driving went without any problems and on schedule, cruising the motorways south through Europe. The same cannot be said for day one, which was predominantly in England, with a little section in Northern France to get from the Channel Tunnel to the south western suburbs of Paris.

Our aim was to get to our hotel for the first night at 20:00 hrs. including stopping 30 minutes for morning coffee, 60 minutes for lunch, 35 minutes through the tunnel, and a further 30 for afternoon tea. A stress free day was the plan.

It all started to go wrong after just an hour into our driving when we were delayed for a half an hour near Stamford in Lincolnshire by the multitude of vehicles clogging the A1, trying to enter the Burghley Horse Trials. The drivers didn't seem to understand the instruction “For Burghley keep in left-hand lane”.Once past this problem the traffic began to flow freely; that is until ten minutes later when we reached the beginning of the A1M section near Peterborough.

The motorway section was completely closed in both directions. Having taken 20 minutes to exit the slip road, as directed by the diversion signs, there was a distinct lack of any more assistance from the highways authority as to which way to go to continue south towards the A14 and M11, our route for the morning. It seemed to be a case of 'we've got you off the motorway – now you are on your own'. At first SatNavratilova was of no use either as she kept insisting on directing us towards the closed A1M. Out came the historical road map from the boot of the car, below the suitcases of course, a diversion route was determined, and we proceeded for some considerable amount of time along countryside A and B roads until we rejoined our initial route. Having put up with SatNavratilova telling me she was “recalculating” for some 15 minutes she eventually agreed with my old fashioned planned route and decided to take over the navigation again.

By the time we joined the A14, had had a very quick toilet break at some services, well can't ask a lady to go behind a hedge, we had lost almost two hours of our time. Never-the-less she, who doesn't like to have to recalculate, was telling us that we could still, if we didn't have any rest breaks, just make the channel tunnel before the departure gate closed at 14:12 hrs. and catch our planned for train departure at 14:42 hrs. When we left the M11 and joined the clockwise carriageway of the M25, heading towards the Dartford Crossing she was still confident, with our arrival time of 13:55 hrs. glowing in the bottom right-hand corner of her screen.

Having negotiated the many slip lanes to get into the flow of traffic, I was feeling confident, thinking to myself that the traffic on the dreaded M25 was flowing quite well and did the road really deserve its bad reputation on everyday. This was a Murray Walker 'Murrayism' moment. A few nano-seconds later Sally Traffic's week-end colleague announced on BBC radio 2 that traffic proceeding clockwise on the M25 in the region of the Dartford Crossing was not! There were delays of 45 minutes being experienced. It was an interesting time watching the lane swappers in their unsuccessful attempts to regain seconds of their time.

Eventually we had crossed the Thames over the impressive Queen Elizabeth 11 bridge, Natalie had accurately thrown our £1.50p toll fee into the urinal lookalike chute, to catch the pennies, at the toll booth, and we were heading for Folkestone our gateway to France, and freedom on the motorways. Of course there was just one problem. Our train would be halfway through the Channel Tunnel without us when we were now scheduled to arrive at the terminal!

As we neared the slip road from the M20 into the tunnel terminal I once more glanced a look at the fuel gauge which was registering that the tank was approaching only a quarter capacity left. Remembering the extortionate price of unleaded, sans plomo 95, sin plomo 95 petrol in France, and that there is not a petrol station on the entrance to the tunnel, because Euro tunnel prefer vehicles not to have a full tank of fuel on the trains, I decided to take 10 minutes to divert and call into the local Tesco garage to top up with fuel at the best possible prices. A saving of approximately £4.00p on 30 litres was worth a diversion of less than 3 miles. Time didn't matter as much now as we were already late. Mission accomplished we arrived at the check-in booths 1 hour and fifty minutes later than planned, having had no lunch, and only 7 minutes before our pre-booked train was to arrive in Calais.

Arriving at the deserted booths, and selecting one with the ticket dispenser on the left of the car, so much easier for a left-hand drive, I input our reservation number. I was asked to confirm I was me via the console touch screen, which after checking myself in the internal mirror, I did. I was then informed that we had missed our train! As if we hadn't realized! As I pointed out to the inanimate touch screen, in a polite verbal manner of voice, I knew this fact, true to its advertised policy this wonderful computerised component offered a new selection of alternative train departures to choose from. We chose the train just one hour after our original reservation. At no extra cost. Take note Ryan Air of good customer service.

So, after all the problems of the journey to the Folkestone terminal we would arrive in France just one hour late. The rest of the day's, sunny early evening, travel on the French motorways and the Paris Western and Southern Périphérique to our hotel would be easy! There wouldn't be any need to stop for petrol, and as we ate our late packed lunch whilst travelling through the tunnel, there wouldn't be any need to stop for tea. We could be at the evening hotel by 20.30 hrs. just 30 minutes later than planned; so I thought!

Two hours of easy driving on a motorway and we began to notice the ash grey clouds building ahead of us. A quarter of an hour further they had changed to battleship grey with hints of lightning flashing across the sky. Five minutes later the clouds are a dark slate grey verging on a crow black, coal black, the lightning is forking to the ground, and the heavy rain is drumming deafeningly on the roof of the car. The windscreen wipers are on at the fastest speed and not coping with clearing the water. The drains on the motorway surface are not emptying the water away quick enough. The motorway has become a canal. We passed a road sign reminding us that when it's raining the maximum speed limit drops from 130 kph. to 110 kph. I looked at the speedometer; we were travelling at 65 kph., keeping pace with the red tail lights ahead, and struggling to see where we were going. We wondered at the kamikaze captains of the speedboats in the outside lane. For an eternity, probably almost 30 minutes, we drove into the unrelenting waterfall longing for the exit from the motorway. We wondered if we would be able to read the road-signs, through the deluge, telling of the right slip road, when SatNavratilova reassured us with her instructions of “exit right in 1 kilometre” then “exit right in 500 metres” and finally “exit right”. I wasn't going to doubt or argue with her. In a minor way I was like a pilot landing his aircraft under IFR(Instrument Flight Rules) conditions. Unfortunately though she didn't see the lake on the slip road, neither did the drivers of the two vehicles in front us. As they both hit the water it was like a water main had burst through the tarmac. The 5 metre scarlet fountains either side of them visible in my headlights and the red brake lights of the cars, a warning to me.

It seemed as though the rain weakened shortly after we left the motorway, helping drastically with visibility on the roads through the Paris suburbs making it easier to follow the calm, clear instructions from SatNavratilova, leaving me only to concentrate on the black wet shiny roads, the multitude of bright traffic lights, and the erratic lane changes of the Paris drivers.

At last at 21:30 hrs. her confident voice assured us that we were “arriving at destination on right”. The hotel sign a glowing beacon of safety from the coal black wet night.

We had had a day's driving not to be forgotten and hopefully never repeated!

CoLJ 14 - The Conifers is O.T.T.

During our trip to the United Kingdom we stayed in The Conifers, in Broadholme, near Lincoln for two one week periods, interspersed by our visits to Herefordshire and the Yorkshire Dales. We needed to visit Lincoln twice for business reasons.

As a **** rated accommodation the property was clean, except for the crumbs left in the electric toaster, and contained all the facilities that one would expect. In fact it contained far more equipment than needed for a holiday rental cottage and I doubt if much of the excess was actually used.

The interior space was smaller than anticipated to the point of giving the feeling of being cramped. Although the cottage website makes reference to the steep stairs to the upper floor nothing can prepare visitors for exactly how steep the staircase is and how narrow the step treads are. Parts of the fabric of the building are looking tired and in need of attention. There is a considerable sign of the effects of damp to the paintwork on one of the walls in the bedroom, and a small amount in the lounge.

Not only is there the unnecessary amount of kitchen equipment but there is an unnecessary quantity of instructions of dos and do nots in each of the rooms. So many in our (Natalie and I) opinion to the point of being non-user friendly in so much as it felt we were an inconvenience by using the property.

I've mentioned the bread crumbs left in the electric toaster which is ironic because there is an instruction that after using the toaster the tea towel found on top of it is to be replaced after each time the toaster is used. It seems it doesn't matter if it is full of old crumbs as long as the tea towel is in position when the toaster is not in use.

When we first entered the cottage the blinds on the lounge and kitchen windows were pulled down, and the curtains in the bedroom and the bathroom were drawn making the interior even dark than it already is with them open, to protect the furnishings from the sun. As can be seen in the notice on the lounge window sill it is permissible to open the blinds when inside the cottage, that's good to know

In the lounge there are several other 'Polite Notice' including one referring to the use of the dinning table. Perhaps it would be better not to have put a "William Bartlett Strongbow mahogany dining table (retailing in excess of £600)" in a holiday rental property. It would save having another laminated notice.

On a similar line of thought perhaps it might have been better not to have installed an antique looking and fragile “classy French style console hand basin”, that the owners are so concerned may get damaged, that yet another notice is printed, laminated and prominently displayed. Only our desire to maintain our personal hygiene persuaded us to tempt fate and use the sink. Unfortunately the glass fibre bath alongside doesn't quite match the image created by the delicate basin.

Too much of the limited storage space in the cramped cottage was taken up by items of the owners for ongoing storage. In the bedroom the result being that we could not unpack the majority of our clothes from our suitcases. There was no drawer space in the bedroom and of the two wardrobe spaces one was completely full of owners items.

Overall our experience at 'The Conifers' was not satisfactory. This was because of the lack of space and we felt the owners, with the deluge number of polite notices throughout the property made the atmosphere feel non-user friendly. We felt uncomfortable in the cottage. Had we not already reserved and paid for our second week stay, and needed to be in the vicinity of Lincoln, we would have chosen an alternative location for the last week of our UK visit.

In my opinion the owners of 'The Conifers' have gone over the top, with the amount of polite notices and the unnecessary excess of equipment and owner storage in the cottage, to the detriment of customer comfort. The continual use of the expression "Thank you in anticipation of your co-operation" becomes galling!

Simple blood test at optician's office could help to diagnose diabetes

A simple finger prick test during routine eye examinations at high street opticians could help to identify millions of people with previously undiagnosed Type 2 diabetes, according to new research. The researchers suggest earlier diagnosis could set people on the road to better management of the disease, which is the leading cause of blindness in the working age population, and that this could ultimately result in cost-savings for the NHS.

Read more in ScienceDaily: Simple blood test at optician's office could help to diagnose diabetes

CoLJ 13 - Owl Cottage is not a flight of fancy.

Our week in Owl Cottage, in Thoralby in the Yorkshire Dales has come to an end. It is a week we have thoroughly enjoyed.

There has been so much written about the beauty of the Yorkshire Dales, by 'proper' writers unlike myself, and even that cannot do justice to the scenery, that I need not try to add my bit. Only a visit shows the reality.

Having written about our unfortunate experience in Camp Cottage it was with some considerable trepidation last Saturday (20th) that we negotiated the rough roller coaster bridle track, entered the drive and approached the front door of Owl Cottage. Remembering the description “Luxury Converted Dairy in the Heart of the Yorkshire Dales National Park with Spectacular Views' Beautiful Scenery and the Perfect Place to Get Away from it All” about the cottage from the website we were fearful our hopes for the week would be shattered, as they were last week.

The spectacular views and beautiful scenery statement was already proven but what of the inside of the cottage we wondered. As we pushed the door open our apprehensions immediately left us and smiles beamed across faces. I was relieved that I hadn't reserved another duff cottage. A quick tour around, well it's only a one bedroom cottage, showed that the inside exceeded our expectations created by the website information.

Our week long stay has confirmed Owl Cottage as a clean, comfortable, cosy, homely, tastefully renovated cottage from what was originally a dairy. Within the property there is almost everything that visitors need. It is an idyllic place to stay in, with the fantastic location and complimentary facilities making it a pleasure to rest here. The excellent value for money is an added bonus. The owners, Jeanette and David, should be proud of the holiday cottage they have created.

Should the opportunity offer itself we most certainly would stay here again.

The anticipation of the ambience of Owl Cottage as “ the perfect place to get away from it all” is not a flight of fancy; it is a reality.

Kettlewell Scarecrow Festival 2011

I mentioned in my previous article, about our journey to the Yorkshire Dales, that our route passed through the village of Kettlewell. As we approached the village there was a higher level of traffic congestion than we expected. As we passed over the bridge over the River Wharfe to enter the village the sign above gave the answer to our speculations as to the cause of the slow moving traffic.

Not having the time on Saturday to stop and view the festivities we decided to return Sunday the final day of the event. We remembered that we had seen an article on a past BBC Country File about the annual Kettlewell Scarecrow Festival when the residents make their many excellent creations and then display them throughout the streets, gardens, and nooks and crannies of the village.

Natalie and I had an enjoyable afternoon strolling along the viewing trail through the entire village. The many photographs I have taken of the creations we saw can be viewed here.

CoLJ 12 - Camp Cottage to Owl Cottage.

On Saturday ( 20^th August ) we moved again, this time from Camp Cottage to Owl Cottage at Swinacote Farm, in Thoralby in the Yorkshire Dales.

Owl Cottage - the righthand part of the farm house

 The journey was uneventful and quite boring for the majority of the time being on the M50, M5 & M6 motorways. However everything changed in the final hour from just south of Skipton, Yorkshire, to our new location for the week. We travelled along the B6265 and the B6160 going north through Wharfedale and Bishopdale in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, passing close to Grassington and through the pretty village of Kettlewell and smaller quaint hamlets. The road twisted and turned along the valley bottom and edges, following the course of the riverbeds, climbing to get over the moorland separating the two dales and descending into Bishopdale. At many locations it becomes nothing more than a single track road with a lot of stopping and manoeuvring to pass oncoming traffic. Interesting driving. The scenery through these dales is fabulous, with Natalie constantly commenting on and saying "look at that view", but I declined from looking for the vast majority of the time, instead concentrating on the next twist and climb of the road.

Northern end of Bishopdale

Once we arrived in the village of Thoralby my faithful SatNavratilova couldn't guide me any more, as the final half a mile access track to the cottage is along a public bridleway, which the cottage owners advise “is not suitable for low bottomed or sports type cars”. They are not wrong with that statement but the bumpy, tyre juddering, car swaying last half mile is worth it.

Click here to see the exact location of the farm, shown to the South West of the village centre, and the off road section.

CoLJ 11 - Camp Cottage builds up your hopes and then lets you down!

Camp Cottage, Brockhampton, Herefordshire

Having passed through the less than elegant gate to the driveway to Camp Cottage, and made sure it was closed properly behind us, to keep the sheep in the field, I drove slowly and steadily along the gravelled track for the last 100 metres across the pasture to the cottage.

Cottage is behind trees in the centre

At last I could recognise a hint of the image that I remembered from the internet website when the reservation was made. It was not until Natalie and I walked round to the front of the cottage that it was confirmed that we had arrived.

We were anxious to get ourselves, luggage and recently purchased groceries into the cottage, and get the kettle on for a well deserved cup of tea.

Having viewed the cottage website we had a reasonably good idea of what to expect, with regards to layout and furnishings, when we entered. If first impressions count, from the outside it was looking good, but was it to be a case of not judging a book by its cover.

There cannot be any doubt that from the outside it has a good 'pavement' appeal; it has a high degree of location appeal; the views of the surrounding countryside from the cottage are very picturesque, verging almost on beautiful; it has a sense of tranquillity; but you cannot live outside.

On opening the bright red front, stable, door our first impressions of the inside were not too favourable, entering the hall come dining area was dark, cold and uninviting.

Our first task having brought everything from the car was to put the groceries away in the kitchen and have that cup of tea. This task did not lift our level of disappointment. The kitchen is a darker area than the hall. The cleanliness of the kitchen was unsatisfactory, cobwebs, some inhabited, hanging from the walls and below the kitchen cupboards, concrete dust on the work tops from the uncovered stone walls. The tiled floor seemed to be sticky even though it had been moped prior to our arrival. The floor was still wet and the sodden smelly mop was in the kitchen cupboard.

Cobwebs on the wall by the cooker

The groceries that needed to be were put in the refrigerator, not as clean as it should be, but our dry goods could not be put away in a cupboard, remaining on the worktop surface, because the food shelve within the cupboards was full with other peoples leftovers, probably the owner's and previous renters, so no space for the current paying guests. Why does anyone assume that we would want to use their food leavings, that have been there for an indeterminable period of time.

Dust from the walls.

The wall and base cupboards are in a very poor state. The kitchen utensils are basic. I have found that a litmus test of how clean a kitchen is in holiday rentals is the condition of the electric toaster. It failed the test, containing a very large quantity of old and almost mouldy bread crumbs. Another area to consider is the kitchen sink and this lets the property down. The chrome around the drainage hole has almost gone, there is a broken hanging plug chain with the plug missing from the end of it, and there was not a plug to be found anywhere. A badly scratched plastic bowl was provided as a substitute for the missing plug. Would it have taken much to fit a new chain with plug?

Example of cobwebs under kitchen wall cupboards

It is important that a kitchen should be clean and hygienic as food is prepared in it but we did not feel this in the property. It is important that all surfaces should be suitable to be wiped clean but this is not possible because of the exposed brickwork walls, with crumbly pointing, above all the worktops. Would it have taken much to have had a few rows of tiles and a splash back behind the cooker?

concrete dust continually falling on the work tops from the uncovered stone walls

The studio lounge offers a contrast of light, to the hall and kitchen, having two large windows and a pair of patio doors leading to the garden. The furniture is basic, drab, tired, stained and ready for replacement. The views of the garden and countryside beyond do not make up for the lack of comfort.

The bedroom is basic. It has a lack of storage space for clothes with a very small built in wardrobe outside on the landing at the top of the stairs. Given the small window in the room there is insufficient and poorly located lighting.

The final room is the bathroom. This is small and functional with surprisingly a bidet. There is a walk-in shower which completely eliminates any plus points for the room. It is a disgrace for a rental property. The whole installation is very poor.  Some of the floor tiles are cracked, the silicon sealant and grouting is dirty and marked with mould, the shower head is heavily scaled up. The taps, shower connection, and water temperature control were dirty and need considerable attention or replacement. The hanging shelve for shampoos and shower gels was filthy.

On a health and safety matter, we noted that the portable appliances within the property such as kettle, toaster, oil filled radiators, television etc. do not carry a 'Portable Appliance Test' certificate to confirm they are save to be used by the public renting the property.

The design of the property seems to have the objective of creating a chic rustic appearance and atmosphere with comfort. In our opinion it fails drastically in its current state. We get the feeling of run-down, rough, and ready for a well needed refurbishment, to bring it up to standard for a holiday rental cottage. Unfortunately our conclusions, as the week has gone past, are that the inside of the property does not come up to the level of quality that we expected for the rental we have paid. It had not been cleaned properly, it was dirty!

We do not find a multitude of cobwebs, fluff and dust in every room an appealing feature. We left them in-situ for future renters as we did not rent the cottage to be cleaners. Having said this, those items that we used were cleaner when we left, where possible.

Our week long stay in the cottage was a great disappointment. Camp Cottage builds up your hopes with the location and views and then lets you down with a very hard bump when you go inside.

In case any reader might think that we are are exaggerating about the lack of cleanliness, when on our departure we removed the bed linen provided, to help the housekeeper, this is the condition of at least one of the pillows we were supplied with to sleep on; disgusting!

Note: Click on the photos to enlarge.

No lunch at Talgarth Mill

Having seen the Talgarth Mill featured in the BBC 1 series 'Village SOS' on the 10^th August 2011 Natalie and I decided to visit the mill today (Monday 15^th August 2011) with the intention of having lunch in the “Riverside Café serving local seasonal food and drink” and then a tour of the mill.

We would have had lunch, sampling the local produce, except that the Riverside Café is closed on Mondays. During the months of May to September the mill is open daily from 10am to 4pm, according to their publicity leaflet, and we thought, foolishly it turns out, that the café would have been open during these times. Nowhere on the leaflet did it indicate otherwise!

The mill markets itself as a tourist attraction. August is a major tourist month in the United Kingdom. Where is the logic in not having the café open on a Monday when the mill is open? What about bank holidays, is it closed on these days?

We couldn't have lunch in the Riverside Café so we didn't bother to waste any more time or money paying to tour the mill. They not only lost two entrance fees but also payment for two lunches. We were not the only ones to be caught by the closure of the café as we saw other visitors turn and walk away in apparent disappointment.

Note:

Having checked the mill's website on our return to our holiday base it is mentioned that the café is closed on Mondays, but how many people have internet access when on holiday to check on details given in publicity leaflets. I only checked after the event because of my annoyance of having our time wasted.

CoLJ 10 - Lincoln to Camp Cottage.

Last Saturday our first week in Lincoln was over so it was time to travel to the next holiday cottage.

During the week we had checked out a tenant from one of our rental properties, because he had now purchased his own home. We have given a set of keys of the property to our decorator to repaint both the external and internal painted surfaces. Inside it is the usual silk sheen beige for the walls, white for the ceilings and of course brilliant white for all the wood surfaces, except the wood stained window frames. These are to be re-stained both inside and outside. The sun really does play havoc with the external window sills. We always use the same regular reliable suppliers so a set of keys has been given to the flooring suppliers so they can renew all the floor coverings throughout, once the decorator has completed another masterpiece. A total spruce up, including new curtains and lampshades, which we will sort out during our second week in Lincoln at the end of the month, for the next tenant. It is comforting to be able to rely on regular reliable suppliers to carry out the work whilst we're away from Lincoln.

We also visited our other tenanted rental properties to check for any maintenance that is needed.

We vacated the holiday rental by the required 10:00 hrs. The journey to Camp Cottage, our location this week, was, I'm very pleased to say, as hoped for, with only one slight delay, of no major consequence, on the A46 west of Newark where the road is being upgraded to a dual carriageway. A very much needed improvement. No delays on the A42, M42, M5 and M50. There was a large quantity of traffic but this get moving at a reasonable pace. Having called into a local supermarket for fresh provisions we arrived at Camp Cottage in the region of 16:00hrs. Because of the secluded location of the cottage the owner had emailed a hand drawn map to take over from SatNavratilova when the tarmac roads turned to gravel farm lanes and ultimately a field track. It was a good to have my laptop with me to be able to check with the downloaded map. We would not have found the cottage otherwise.

The ornate gates to the drive to the cottage, peeking through the trees in the centre of the photo.

CoLJ 9 - Roman Way to The Conifers

After two weeks at Roman Way, Friday was time to move on to a new holiday cottage location, The Conifers, in Broadholme, near Lincoln.

We left Roman Way at approximately 10:00 hrs. in, we believe, a cleaner state than when we arrived. During our stay we became aware of a few more incidents where the level of cleanliness was not what we had expected. A few more percentage points off the satisfaction scale. Having said that overall it was comfortable and cosy though.

SatNavratilova told us that it should take us about 4 hours driving, and allowing for two, 30 minute, driving breaks be in Lincoln in the region of 15:00 hrs. We finally arrived at 17:15hrs. What she didn't take into consideration was a 30 minute wait to get through the Dartford Tunnel , and she couldn't have foreseen the 90 minutes that we were delayed on the notorious A14 road north of Cambridge due to a serious road accident which caused massive tailbacks of traffic. What was surprising was that our anti-clockwise journey on the dreaded M25, apart from the Dartford section , went far better than we expected. At one time on the A14 we were only 10 miles from the Cambridge services area and 25 minutes later we were still 5 miles from the area. Not a problem in itself except that the Costa coffee medium size café latte we drank earlier was having its affect! What would come first a visit to the services or to a farmers field?