Snow Hill

I am wondering whether the CMA should be involved they advised the top 100 package holiday companies to ensure their refunds policy adhered to consumer law back in May 2021 in respect of the pandemic. To make a decision to cancel someone’s holiday at the last minute solely on a tick in the box seems unfair, without further involvement of medical experts. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/985949/Open_letter_to_package_travel_companies_May_2021_HV_edit.pdf

I guess it’s unlikely we will see this monstrosity in Europe given size restrictions some ports are putting on cruise ships.

Ye gods that’s excessive, add the 2,400 crew and thats 10,000 people onboard, that will potentially swamp any location it calls at. https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2022/10/20/royal-caribbean-reveals-spectacular-design-new-icon-of-the-seas-cruise-ship

Our gas and electricity cost is £190 a month, we are currently in credit, our supplier returned the government £66 subsidy 3 days after the DD was paid. Our previous fixed deal which ended in early October was £120 a month, we were £300+ in credit at the end of the deal. We put the reduction down to a relatively warm winter in 2020/21, the new boiler installed in May and above average temperatures over the last few weeks, it was 20C here yesterday, greenhouse temperature was 26C, lowest overnight has been 10.5C, which is not normal, I will be picking last of tomatoes today, usually that’s at beginning of October, not the end, plus my late summer crop of lettuce is still going strong.

We have this one available on Amazon, it’s in colour and has U.K. Metric measurements. It’s a self published book, but one of few not written for the US market and it’s weird measuring system.

Still play our CDs either via Portable CD player, via the TV in Blu Ray Player. Also have music stored on phone and iTouch which replaced the iPod (which I still have) I copy CDs to the iTouch and Phone for use in the car when on long journeys or when we are holiday somewhere.

Our WB is under a service plan with our independent fitter, lead time on service is usually a week.

We had our 16 year old boiler replaced with a WM Greenstar in May, noticeably quieter and gas usage was down on same period last year, so certainly more efficient than the old one.

There is a new bridge under construction so possible that this may have some affect on movements https://www.marine-pilots.com/videos/329100-animation-weener-bridge-newbuilding

Sorry to hear it caught up with you whilst you were on holiday after you had avoided it for 2 years, glad they looked after you even with a few hiccups along the way.

Peel Holdings demolished a pub in Wolverhampton that was in the process of being listed in one Sunday back in 2001. http://www.historywebsite.co.uk/lost/elephant/elephant.htm A replica of the pub has been created at the Black Country Museum opening a few months back.

We have paid for a decorator, it would take me a week to do what he will do in 2 days, took me 3 days to strip the walls, with my dodgy shoulder it 1 hour onn1 hour off.

Day one of decorating of upstairs room complete, ceiling, architrave and door painted, all corner joints caulked, ready to start papering tomorrow, should be complete tomorrow pm. Then to move furniture etc between 2 rooms to create a craft room/office as not needed as a bedroom. The old office/craft room will eventually become an upstairs sitting room with a sofa bed.

They do seem to be mimicking some of the Ryanair approach for charging for something that was once free. What next charging for priority boarding and disembarkation, a charge for every piece of luggage you take onboard.

Have been to Bodnant Gardens a few times with our NT membership , they are always stunning

Just the 2 of us. We have this Ninja Foodi https://ninjakitchen.co.uk/product/ninja-foodi-max-9-in-1-multi-cooker-7-5l-op500uk-zidOP500UK Find it very versatile, so far have used the pressure cooker to cook a whole chicken finishing off with air crisp, the steamer for carrots and broccoli, fish (twice), slow cooker for a curry, air fryer for chips, breaded fish and chicken, bake option for croissants, plus a few recipes from cook book. The oven will only probably be used for when there are more than 2 of us, we are certainly converts to this way of cooking.

We go the cut down version of the brochure for Winter 2024/25, we haven’t even thought about our summer 2023 holiday yet, it will be landed based we already decided that. We had a glance through and nothing took our fancy within our budget, so it was filed!

Looks very cramped I guess P&O don’t want you sitting on your balcony when you could be sitting on deck and potentially spending money.

I agree, the burger looks 🤢

Using Ninja iFoodi it a lot, oven not been on for 10 days now, best home cooked chips ever, plus we have tried some of the recipes in the book we published to compliment the cooker.

With all these changes to availability of restaurants, change in menus etc, does anyone know what P&Os current offerings for coeliacs (gluten free) is? We used to get sight of next days Evening Menu the night before, so could chose options, is this still the case? What about specialty restaurants are there still g/f options? The buffet was always the worst place to eat for coeliacs as food could easily be cross contaminated by uncaring passengers, on the last pre Covid cruise you had to ask specifically for g/f options in buffet, is this still the case?

Finally finished the stripping of the walls in one of the upstairs rooms, took me longer than expected as steamer plate split yesterday, and I was remove a layer of wallpaper and a think lining paper, which seemed to be stuck on with super glue. Tomorrow a bit of filling work and blocking some stain marks on the plaster so doesn’t come through the new wall paper. Taking my OH for her Covid Booster & Flu jab tomorrow after seeing GP yesterday who believes as suspected she is suffering from Long Covid, a lung X-ray has been requested, plus she is seeing practice physio on Tuesday to work on an exercise routine to aid recovery, could be a long haul back to her previous level of health.

Hive of activity here this morning, recycling refuse collection day, so green bins (garden waste), Purple bins (plastic, metal & glass), blue bags (paper & cardboard), small grey bins (food waste) all emptied by 7:30, now the mechanical footpath sweeper has just been along clearing fallen leaves from paths, (we had the road sweeper yesterday) . All very efficient from the council.

I think this is part of Carnival/P&O commitment to reduce the amount of single use plastic rather than cutbacks.

No sure why they would want pull down beds as ships adults only. Some would say Iona & Arvia are not that attractive either, but that’s the way of new cruise ships today it would appear.