BT impress

Criticising big well-known companies is a popular pastime in the UK. British Airways, British Gas, BT, BP, all come under attack and I have been known to indulge in it myself.

But I have to give credit where credit is due, and BT have been very impressive lately.

I've always been a BT customer and my brand loyalty occasionally riles J when he decides we're paying too much for broadband and wants to go for one of the fly-by-night operators (Sky? Heavens no.)

To me, good broadband is very important because I work from home a lot of the time, download a lot of big files and don't want restrictions placed on usage.

Anyway, back to BT. I recently had a mailshot from them about their new service Infinity. 40mb broadband! I should have binned it without showing it to J but he saw it and was immediately on the blower to BT. He has this knack of bartering with them so we always end up getting a reduced price.

I tweeted about how I shouldn't have shown J the flyer and I was impressed to get a direct reply on Twitter from BT saying they were here to help if I needed them. Twitter is a great tool for companies to engage direct with consumers, provided it's not done in an irritating way.

Meanwhile the router turned up on the day promised, followed by an SMS confirmation that the engineer would call on a particular date.

And finally I was called by a very friendly BT call centre employee confirming he had changed my name, which was a separate request.

You might think this is all just good customer service, but to me it is exemplary and what all companies should be aspiring to.

Perhaps I should have waited until the installation happens and we test the speed of the broadband, but I'm fully optimistic it will all go to plan. Stay tuned!

Nostalgic return to Dawlish

Seagull at Dawlish

When I was a kid we quite often went out for a drive on Sundays. In the winter we would wear our car coats, brought back from Singapore by Stamps (my dad.) Strange concept - did anyone else have a car coat?!

Stamps was nicknamed because of his temper so quite often when we arrived at our destination, we came straight home, either because he couldn't park (he would never pay to park) or we had had an argument en route.

For some reason Newquay was a particular hotspot. We went there at least twice without getting out of the car.

Dawlish, however, has happier memories. We used to go there, wander along the canal looking at the famous ducks and put money into the Sooty & Sweep machine.

This weekend I was down in Devon to see my mum and we planned to go to Ashburton for the first time, having read that it's a foodies' paradise. Even AA Gill has been there! But alas, there was a summer show on and we couldn't park anywhere - and I always seek out pay and display, unlike Stamps - so we drove on and went to Dawlish instead.

The place hasn't really changed. There was a funfair  (Anderton's, minus Rowland) and the Sooty & Sweep machine has gone. We found a nice tea room and had a savoury team - cheese scones with tea.

And I took some pictures of the famous livestock. One thing we were surprised about was the state of the canal. Very dirty.

Loose cannons in Edinburgh

Imagine being kept awake at night by cannons (tethered one hopes, and not loose.)

This is the fate that has befallen J, my long-suffering spouse. For the last few months he has been doggedly commuting to Edinburgh first thing on Monday, returning on Thursday.

He is well known at his hotel of choice and they know his little preferences: extra bread, a beer voucher instead of a free bottle of wine in the room, etc.

Unfortunately, the Edinburgh Festival means that J has no chance of getting a room at his favourite hotel. The rates have shot up, and, every night for a month, the Edinburgh Military Tattoo gets going with those cannons.

Picture shows view from J's hotel room this week.

A 1930 wedding

I often think fondly about Kathleen Lovis, my grandma who died in 1991 aged 84. She was an indomitable character, larger than life. They never owned their house or had a car, and were never well off. But Grandma was a marvellous cook, made lovely clothes and highly prized birthdays and Christmas. My mum and her brother had a happy childhood. 

She was 81 and a widow when she finally went abroad for the first time, to Canada where we have relatives. Unfortunately the pace of sight seeing and catching up with relatives resulted in a stroke and she was kept in a Canadian hospital for two weeks. When she got home, doctors could find very little wrong with her.

I am very lucky that she wrote her life story and gave it to me in a red folder. I love her account of her wedding.

She married Jack Lovis in Plymouth, their home town, on December 29 1930. In her account, Kathleen wrote:

"Mother made my wedding dress, long in white satin. She also made the three bridesmaids' dresses, yellow with lavender accessories. We had a small page boy who wore a yellow satin blouse and purple velvet trousers. I borrowed a headdress and veil from a more prosperous friend. It was a lovely long one made of real lace.

"I was lucky that I was able to buy my 3 tiered wedding cake at a reduced price from Cummings, a lovely confectionary shop near us. It was a cancelled order and should have been £2, and I think I got it for £1.

Cut Price Engagement Ring

Kathleen recalled: "Jack had bought a nice 22ct wedding ring. I didn't have much of an engagement ring. We'd been told there was a shop selling off its jewellery in Union Street and we'd gone and bought one. It was supposed to have been £7 and we got it at half price. I often wished though it had been a better ring."

My Gran told her friends and boss in Woolworth's, where she was working behind the tea bar, that she was getting married. Her two friends cried and her boss asked if she was ready for marriage. After courting for six years, and 24 years of age, my Gran replied she was more than ready. But of course in those days firms usually chose not to employ married women.

On the morning of her wedding, Kathleen cleaned the brass step as usual. She washed and curled her  hair  and applied her face powder, kept in an orange and blue bowl.

Reception Buffet 

For the reception, Kathleen had bought long unsliced loaves of white bread. "My mother had boiled a large ham to perfection. There was a large genoa cake full of fruit and cherries, and a lot of really delicious fancies. "Needless to say it was a spread fit for a king and queen.

"We only had port or sherry for the toast. Other than that it was soft drinks or gallons of tea. We played games and it really was very congenial."

Grandma changed into her going away outfit, and she and Jack set off the very short distance from Embankment Road to Oakfield Terrace, where they were going to set up home in a top floor flat. It was to be their first ever night together. And Grandma's two sisters had both bought her a nightie for the occasion.

Food Glorious Food?

Is it too much to ask that our food is pure and unadulterated?
I ask the question in the week that cloned beef found its way into the foodchain, but that was really the tip of the iceberg. I read recently that bread is nowhere near as blameless as it looks. Those "baked on the premises" claims are often very wide of the mark because dough is made up, frozen and then shipped all over the UK.
But, an even more sinister development is that bakers routinely add cocktails of enzymes to bread, which gets them around the laws on using preservatives. These enzymes are just as bad, but they don't have to be declared on the packaging. This explains why the sliced loaf you buy on a Saturday is still soft and spongy a week later. And have you ever noticed how fat is added to bread? I can understand now why artisan bread is so expensive.
Bakers and farmers want to make profits of course. But I resent them doing it by stealth and subjecting us to unnatural chemicals, hormones and goodness knows what. I don't want to eat GM modified foods, and I'd like to think that when I study the labels I'm being told the truth.

Further reading:
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/the-shocking-truth-about-bread-413156.html

Things that bother me

Trending well on Twitter UK today was the theme "things that bother me".
Contributions included: printers running out of black ink first, bad grammar, people not showering and people who drive Range Rovers. All good fodder.
Off the top of my head, my list - not in any order:
1) People who, joining the motorway, try to overtake you on the inside lane when you actually moved out to let them get on;
2) When the tines of a fork get stuck in the cutlery tray of the dishwasher when you're trying to unload it;
3) Misplaced apostrophes;
4) People walking right behind you;
5)Websites which, after entering your order and credit card info, suddenly throw up error messages. Has your order gone through? Nah. In that case, I won't bother.
6) Websites that allow you to order when they are out of stock.
7) The Daily Mail
8) Christmas in August
9) People who ask you for URLs the whole time without using Google;
10) Being ambushed by charity collectors. As a responsible citizen, I support 2 charities by direct debit,  the Big Issue seller outside Budgens and numerous sponsored walks/silences/marathons by friends and relatives. I am forever donating clothes and books to charity shops. Yet when I go to Sainsbury's, not only do the cubs expect money for packing my bags (which I don't want them to do, as they put potatoes on top of raspberries), but there are two different charities outside the entrance. Stop already! And then people come to the door and look affronted when you won't put money in their tin.
11) Training courses which inevitably have some ghastly acronym you're supposed to memorise, eg: "TACIT" - tact and coaching impact training  (I made that up). Plus any reference to people being "authentic".

As you can see, I have started to get into my stride with some of the big issues. What bothers you?

Grazia leaves the building

Those of you who have read my ramblings since 2006 will know that I love magazines.  The current roster consists of three subscriptions plus a weekly and a minimum of five monthlies bought in the shop.

One subscription that is ending right now is Grazia.

When I first started reading it, I was impressed with how it managed to cross the age divide. It seemed fresh and different.

But the constant emphasis on Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Aniston and Cheryl Cole, is getting me down. Every story about Angelina is either "fresh signs the marriage is breaking up" or "friends' alarm at how thin she is getting". I do wonder about the sources they use. I'm sure sometimes it's just the guy who cleans the pool.

For Jennifer they go along with her PR charades and subject us to "New love for Jennifer!" followed a week later by "Heartbreak for Jen." In fact Jennifer is simply promoting her new films by appearing loved-up with her co-star, and maybe going on holiday with him, and then it's all over after the flash guns have popped. Both stars pocket some cash and the film gets a boost. Get it Grazia?

Then there's the fashion. Now this isn't Grazia's fault, but the Groundhog Day nature of fashion is also depressing. This week Grazia showed us the autumn styles, and guess what? In a nutshell, Star Trek trousers, hiking boots, lace dresses, kilts and the midi. I hoped the midi had died a death never to return. It flatters hardly anyone and if you're older than 30, looks matronly and middle-aged.

As fashion is never new it's a shame we never go further back in time and have a fully blown 40's, 20's or even 18th century revival. If that happens, then I may start buying Grazia again. But at the moment, I'm all Jolied out and I won't be beating a path to Top Shop to look like Mr Sulu.

Why are women so nasty to each other?

An age old question, that.

I have been mulling over the savaging of Selina Scott last week by the harpies who have columns in the nationals.

Selina has, quite rightly, been challenging sex discrimination by broadcasters over the last few years. In 2008 she successfully sued Channel 5 who dropped her and replaced her with a younger broadcaster.

Selina was widely quoted discussing the ageism issue and the harpies turned on her, with one scathingly saying that Selina herself had been nothing more than an "autocutie" when she was a news reader a few years ago, implying that Selina had been hired for her looks and dropped when she started to lose them.

Except that she hasn't lost her looks. She is still a stunning woman and her age is irrelevent. I'm not going to give her age I get annoyed at the way the papers always give a woman's age no matter what the story, as if it enables us to form some sort of judgment. Kim Cattrall always get furious when people say she looks good "for her age". She just looks good.

I doubt if Selina ever considered she was hired for her looks. And by accusing her of that, the harpies imply that attractive women can't have other qualities, namely intelligence, wit, charisma.

I applaud Selina's efforts to highlight this issue. I am fed up with seeing grizzled male broadcasters when most women are bounced by the age of 40.  There of plenty of mature women still broadcasting in the US - Diane Sawyer, Connie Chung, Jane Pauley and Barbara Walters.


And as Gen Y is the majority now - there are more of us watching TV than young people - our views should count for something.

The demise of the autobiography

Biographies and autobiographies have always been a great pleasure of mine. I love the witty anecdotes, the turn of phrase, the remembrances of less hectic times and the odd bit of salatious detail about a celebrity.

Lately however, the whole genre has fallen into a steep decline.

Any two-bit celebrity feels obliged to rush into print. Consider for a moment the Top 10 bestsellers. Two of those are books by the minor celebrities who make up the TV show "Loose Women". Against my better judgment I downloaded Carol McGiffin's book "Oh Carol!" because I find her amusing and like her robust views. She admits in the book that she was urged to write a book by the publisher of Denise Welch (actress, fellow Loose Women pannellist.) The McGiffin book is very badly written and the chapters which I think are supposed to be amusing simply aren't. The chapter on life with Chris Evans is the only part of the book that seems to have been given considered thought.

Oh Carol! indeed.

I won't even mention all the books by WAGs, Z list celebrities and footballers all under the age of 30. What can they tell us about life? Much of what Katie Price actually does in life is manufactured purely so she can update her turgid autobiographies and her ITV2 TV shows.

And then there are the appalling misery memoirs. What does it say about us that so many are in the book chart at any one time?

Among the books I have enjoyed the most are several by people who aren't remotely famous. "Where did it all go right? Growing up normal in the 70s" by Andrew Collins was a refreshing antidote to the misery memoir. "Misadventures" by Sylvia Smith was an eccentric hit, recounting many incidents in the life of a career secretary but none of any significance. The deadpan delivery is somewhat fascinating. I loved also the books by actress Liz Smith. She didn't become famous until she was 50 and her book "Our Betty" is a poignant account of a hard life of struggle.

Lynne Featherstone causes a flap

Hendricks

Featherstone

Lynne Featherstone is a Home Officer Minister in the coalition government. When male journalists want to be patronising about her, they refer to her accolades as "most attractive MP" (voted by whom?).Yesterday the Sunday Times reported how she wants action to combat the growing problem of body image for men and women. It quoted her as saying that Christina Hendricks from Mad Men, a size 14, is the sort of shape we should be emulating: not the skinnies like Victoria Beckham.

Today predictably a number of writers and broadcasters have been getting in a flap, misconstruing what she said. Featherstone says in exasperation "oh for goodness sake!" on her blog. She wasn't implying that we should all look like Hendricks as the new role model but that's where most of the newspapers have put the focus.

Watching the Gok Wan programme How to Look Good Naked, I've been shocked at how young people are conditioned to think about body shape from the age of 10 or even younger. On another programme, The Ugly Truth about Beauty, many said they would consider all manner of plastic surgery to get the body of a celebrity. The Gok  programme is trying to get the government to include body image in the national curriculum. And bearing in mind how many young people are depressed and bullied in the UK, we clearly need to deal with this. It's often to do with body image.

So I'm glad to see Featherstone taking up the cudgels. The fashion industry needs to get real and stop using size zero models. Magazines should role-model using "normal" sized models (those referred to as plus size, who are usually a size 12 - 14).  But I don't think we'll ever see an end to celebrities being airbrushed and Photoshopped, which Featherstone wants to see. It's too prevalent. Even magazines like Woman & Home do it. The difference is that when you're older and wiser, you know darn well that the various 40 and 50 something celebrities don't really look so radiant and wrinkle-free. When you're a youngster, you don't have that perspective and it's seen as normality. 

Variety is the spice of life

It's been the most amazing, informative and varied fortnight.
It started with a few days in our Prague office. An evening of beer tasting fed my curious mind with all sorts of nuggets about top and bottom fermented beers.
I then hot footed it to Oxford, where we were a sponsor of TEDGlobal. This is a week-long conference, attended by people with a hunger for knowledge. The university stream presented speakers from all walks of life and gave them seven minute slots. Perfect! Seven minutes is just enough to share the idea and it's not long enough for death by Powerpoint. I'm going to champion this at work. The longer sessions were panel discussions with very diverse speakers and topics. And I must mention the goody bag. Absolutely awesome, everything you need for your physical and intellectual needs: eg the Bobble water bottle; an umbrella (how pessimistic!), David Attenborough's Life dvd set and some gizmos including a worldwide sim card and wifi adaptor.
One of the pitches I enjoyed most was about the hurdy-gurdy, because although I vaguely knew it was some sort of musical instrument, it had never really crossed my consciousness.

Then on Friday the Creators project began. This is a collaboration with my company and Vice and it's aimed at young people. The two-day event in London featured amazing installations, music and dance. Now I didn't go yesterday - I went to a wedding - but at the press preview on Friday it was great to see how excited our younger team members (under the age of 24) all looked.

Today it was back to more mundane pursuits: gardening, the roast dinner, and bowing to J's whim of dashing off to Comet just before closing to look at TVs.

"Creative" dressing alert

I'm going to a conference this week in Oxford. We're sponsoring the coffee lounge and as a result get some sponsors' tickets. It's a highly sought after event but I confess to feeling a bit flummoxed at the "attire" guidance which states business casual but goes on to say that suits should not be worn and in fact it's better to go for "creative casual" but no shorts.

?????!!!!

I would rather they'd gone with business casual. What's creative? Floaty kaftans? The tribal look?

For anything work-related, I find it much easier to wear something smart and classic. Skirts and trousers with fairly plain tops, jazzed up with bold jewellery, is what I normally wear. I loathe wearing jeans or going casual with colleagues. The reason is that you can commit so many sins, unwittingly, with jeans, immediately catapaulting yourself back to the 80's if they're the wrong cut, length or colour.

I get Grazia every week but I don't buy any of the outfits. I sometimes take a trend and add it in a tiny, subtle way - for example, they recently featured little evening bags with feathers, and I've been looking out for them ever since. But I avoid a) high fashion for fear of looking mutton and b) going into Top Shop where I feel 110, or designer stores where the shop assistants look down on anyone bigger than a UK size 8. 

I was never much good at fashion. The party held with Maddie Grigg in the early 80s was the high point of my fashion sense, when I wore, in homage to Spandau Ballet, knickerbockers, a white frilly shirt and a head band. I had some truly hideous outfits in my 20's. A few examples:

This monstrosity (left) - jade green trousers & jacket with red shoes - was bought in Milton Keynes and worn to see David Bowie. I don't think I owned a pair of jeans at that time. I don't know what possessed me.

Even worse is this "track suit" horror - right - which was bought at one of those clothes parties that a friend of my mum's had.

What have been your fashion faux pas and successes?

Fun in Prague

Had a great few days in Prague - business not leisure, although there was a lot of fun. I thought I had been to Prague before but I couldn't remember it. As a team building activity we had a scavenger hunt around the city, armed with map, pack and tram tickets. We started off at the Castle - what a magnificent cathedral! - and walked back, gathering historical clues on the way from characters such as Charles IV.

One of the tasks was to draw the team, with a view of Prague in the background. My team cheated and got one of the artists on the bridge to draw a caricature. Our ingenuity won us the challenge.

We also had a lot of laughs about Paul the Psychic Octopus. You must check out his Facebook page. Very funny comments. When one of our team forgot to meet us for dinner, we left him a message in the lobby "from Paul," but he somehow missed it.

Prague has a marathon in May so I am now trying to talk J into it, as it's such a great place (and such good value after Euro zone countries!) I would love to go back.

The Vuvuzela Won

Many pages have been written and many theories aired about the failure of the England football team in the World Cup.

I can't let it go by without adding my two pennorth. Heaven knows, I had to endure enough of it.

Here I am in my England t-shirt looking forward to the England v Algeria match. First of all, tell all the knee-jerkers to stop calling for Fabio's resignation. He's the best man for the job, always was, and still is. The words "silk purse and sow's ear" come to mind when thinking of his task with the team. I won't go on about pampered players earning too much money. That's a fact, we have to live with it. But the team is very weak. Too many key players were injured. And they were too old and slow. But where are the youngsters? Herein lies the rub.

Germany had an old team last time round but they've rebuilt themselves and at this stage look like eventual winners. They have 35,000 coaches to train young players. We have fewer than 3,000. I gather the FA spends £1m a week on grass roots football but clearly it's not enough. I'd like to see the big retailers get behind the game with some serious investment.

Then there is the FA themselves. And FIFA. Two useless organisations run entirely by men. FIFA: ignoring complaints about the ball. Rejecting the need for technology until they had to do an embarrassing u turn. The FA is run entirely by businessmen, some of whom have featured less than favourably in the News of the World. I am with the late, great Brian Clough and Lord Sugar in their withering assessments of the Football Association. I'm not saying you can solve the problem by adding a few women to the board, but it would make a difference. For example, the panicked reaction before the World Cup to news that AC Milan were trying to lure Fabio away. Instead of letting it lie and riding the tournament out, what did they do? They immediately locked him (and them) into a two year deal. Now if I had been on the board I would have urged them to apply common sense. It's not something men necessarily have when they're in a collective.

I would like to think that Fabio can now rebuild the team along the lines of what happened in Germany but according to the Sunday Times, the next generation of players is even worse.

But no doubt by 2014 we will have put it all behind us and will go through the usual anguish and agony when we watch England play.

Blogger bitten by fish

We're back from our Greek honeymoon, two blissful weeks spent in Rhodes. We were in Rhodes two years ago but this time were on the north eastern side of the island at a place called Kolymbia. Having ascertained it was a dreadful village built for tourists we upgraded to all inclusive at our luxurious resort hotel, and it was well worth it.

The sunbathing was perfect with a choice of spotless beach (it was awarded the Blue Flag while we were there), immaculate lawns or the lagoon shaped swimming pool.

The Blue Flag arrives (John saw it coming ashore in a boat, as if it was the Olympic torch)

We went on the obligatory trip to Rhodes Town, the oldest still inhabited medieval town in Europe, and didn't bring back one tacky souvenir. Result!

And the fish in the headline were tiny Garra Rufa fish. For 15 euro you could plunge your feet into their tank and enjoy the pleasant sensation of tiny fish kisses as they allegedly sucked your hard skin away. I say "allegedly" because my feet didn't look any different afterwards, but the owner said there's a big difference after three sessions. And he was a born salesman. Interestingly there's an article in today's Times about the first London salon offering these natural pedicures. Price is £45.

The fish have a nibble

The beach

Happy honeymooners

Just a perfect day

J and I have now done the deed and Got Married.

It was a perfect day: everything went smoothly, we were relaxed and happy, and our 18 guests - family and one of my friends Wendy - enjoyed themselves.

I woke up at the Paddington Hilton, adhering to the tradition that the bride and groom don't see each other the night before. After a slap up breakfast (no nerves!) I was relieved to hear J was in the cab on his way to the hotel, writing his speech on the way (!).

We were a little early at Westminster register office - Marylebone Town Hall - so we went round the block a few times in our white London taxi with ribbon.

The service was charming, conducted by Tracey Zimmerman (we think she was South African). We then had photos taken in the beautiful building and outside, and went to the reception at a nearby bistro where we had a private section. I loved the fact we could offer a menu and choices to the guests. Angel Flowers really surpassed themselves. My posy was freesias and sweetpeas, and at the restaurant there were goldfish bowls full of purple and lilac sweetpeas, stocks and freesias and a tall arrangement including purple hydrangeas.

A very enjoyable lunch ensued: both the bride and groom gave a speech. We cut the cake, from London Cake Company, and in late afternoon sunlight bade farewell to our guests. In the evening we went to see Jersey Boys.
The official photos are great. Here are a few taken by myself and others. We're off to Greece now. Kalispera!

Come On My Son...

As Mrs Doyle memorably said in Father Ted, the one where she and some other redoubtable ladies were watching the clerics' football championships.

I was determined this time to try to get with it. To try to watch the football. At the time of the last World Cup, we were in Ischia, an Italian island. J dragged me along to see a match in a bar and I zoned out, so that when he turned excitedly to me and said "did you see that?" I had to admit I hadn't, and he got quite annoyed.

So this time I have been eagerly reading the breathless prose, wondering about the 4:2:2 and if Fabio will use it, and wondering also how Sven-Goran managed to get another international gig (this time with Ivory Coast.) None of us, least of all the players, could probably take SG seriously after the Ulrika Jonsson accounts of his stacked heel shoes left neatly outside the bedroom.

Anyway, back to the football.

I promised J last night I would sit in the same room when the England match was on, but I would be reading because I find watching England too stressful.

Sadly dear reader, I was right.

The early Gerrard goal, well, even I put my book down. Was this a sign of a newly reinvigorated Fabio super side? One that would get the goals in, fast and confidently?

But then it all limped into the usual tragedy, where you hope desperately someone will get their act together and score, and all you get is a goalkeeper's schoolboy error and that dejected look we remember so well from years gone by.

I feel so sad for all the fans who got so excited.

J keeps stoutly telling me that they could still finish second in their group and go through to the next round, but I'm thinking that Brazil, Spain and Germany are hardly quaking in their boots now that we can't beat the USA.

Next week we will be watching the Algerian match in a Greek bar and I will try to pay attention. Maybe Fabio will try the 5:2:1 with Rooney on his own up front (he sometimes seems like the only one that can be arsed.) But I'm having one of my premonitions that Slovenia are going to do quite well, and this doesn't bode well for England......

A good year for the roses

The roses are magnificent. In full bloom and untroubled by any diseases or pests, they lift my heart every time I come home.

J shows his romantic streak

Now with just over a week to go before our nuptials ("a step in the right direction," said Uncle Teddy), J has often felt unfairly maligned in these despatches for his unromantic nature. Although he is quite fond of rom coms, he is not the type for spontaneous or lavish gestures. He has never sent me flowers although he did once buy me a spade for the garden and he is methodical about working his way through a Christmas list.

He has always been at pains to point out that lavish gestures are often meaningless, whereas he is a man of action who will do things, or buy things, thoughtfully for me. And do you know, I think he's right. I can imagine that Sgt Troy would have been the type to send extravagant but essentially superficial bunches of flowers, whereas Gabriel Oak did more vital work like saving Bathsheba's hay ricks and sorting out her sheep when they had bloat.

Back to J.

On Sunday he was very excited about a surprise he said was heading my way. Yesterday he was crushed when the postman failed to deliver.

Today two jiffy bags arrived and I asked if I was supposed to open them. Out came an ipod charger for a car and a strange looking cable which, on closer examination, had an iPOD wotsit too, for connecting to the "aux" in my car. J assured me that I would be able to listen to podcasts at normal volume with this road warrier kit. I've been omplaining bitterly that when I'm on the motorway the volume of podcasts becomes too low to listen properly (and no I'm not mutton.)

By jove he was right so I'm now able to enjoy my favourite podcasts: Woman's Hour, Learn French by Podcast and Claudia Winkleman's Arts Show.

J is cockahoop about his thoughtfulness, and I think he's hoping that I've forgotten the observation in Wedding magazine that the bride and groom normally give each other a present......

Back to the 70's: Bournemouth, 1974

I'm very glad that I was an inveterate documenter of my childhood and that I managed to hold on to "my archive" despite my mum being an inveterate thrower-outer.

In 1974 we stayed in a hotel for the first time for a week's holiday in Bournemouth. Mum had started working part-time and she used her wages to fund our holiday treat.

I faithfully documented everything, from the colour of the wallpaper and carpet in the two bedrooms to the menu for the week and the impressions that Mike Yarwood did.

We had a very busy time in Bournemouth. Every day is filled with activity, from going to three shows and the cinema for The Three Musketeers, in the evening to taking in the delights of Corfe Castle, Tucktonia and Compton Acres by day. We only had one day on the beach and it was a grey overcast day with just one person swimming: me.

The hotel was called the Hollyhurst. There were no TVs in the rooms or en suite bathrooms. Guests were summoned to breakfast and dinner by the sounding of a gong by the waiter we named "Carlos Alberto," on whom I had a bit of a crush. I was devastated to see him hanging out in the park with his girlfriend.

The menu highlights were: orange juice starter (!) followed by roast chicken and trifle for pudding. Very 70s.

Everyone watched Top of the Pops in those day and  remember all the guests crowding into the communal sitting room to watch The Three Degrees, who were number 1.

EXTRACT

Time: 8.45am. Destination : Bournemouth

The intrepid party climbed into their red Ford Cortina eager for the off. They had ample luggage, four suitcases plus bags and buckets. The journey took six and three quarter hours. The party passed through Exeter, Honiton and Axminster. Unfortunately the anxious holidaymakers were held up at Dorchester for over an hour. They also had to push the car, which was in a very stubborn mood.

Once in Bournemouth, another incident befell them...they couldn't find the hotel! After half an hour of map poring and arguing, they found the Hollyhurst Hotel in West Hill Road, firmly sandwiches between the Kiwi and the three-star Tralee, famous for its clanking of dishes in the kitchen,
Opposite was the salubrious four-star Savoy, complete with pool.
"Looks better than it did in the book" remarked wise Mrs Tyler, a woman of medium height with hair of an undecided colour.
Out came the cases and in marched the Tylers. They collected their keys - no 19 and 22 - and climbed up the two flights of stairs......