Category: Life: Personal

I’ve watched some of Channel 5’s “The Hotel Inspector” about Walpole Bay Hotel in Margate and I thought I’d go to their website to see if they were still in business and they are. However, I then saw their Rooms and rates prices which offered “Prices below are per room per night including breakfast ” – but then said “In a double or twin room is £50 per night increasing to £60 during high season” (note a “Standard double” during “Low season” is £60 so you are nearly doubling the price – and also note that they don’t actually offer single rooms, nor is there a single supplement charge on their sleeps 3 Family Rooms or sleeps 4 Family Suites!).

If you are charging by the room, why does it matter how many people are in it? And if you are including breakfast in the price of a double/twin room and there is only one person staying, doesn’t that actually *save* you money? And what happens if you actually book it for two people, but one person is ill and can’t make it or has to go home half-way through.

I wish this practice would stop – either charge per person or charge per room: don’t do both!

My first bad idea was on Tuesday when we all (at work) had a glass of wine to celebrate moving to the new office. Not such a bad idea – until after I took my sleeping pills (yep, I’m having trouble sleeping and had forgotten I was taking them when I had the wine). Sleeping pills + alcohol is a very very bad idea – my partner said that I was “vibrating” during the night, couldn’t stand up straight and I was disorientated most of Wednesday.

My second bad idea was leaving the pub for the celebrations when I did (after the glass of wine, I was on orange juice). It was absolutely pouring down with rain for the 5 minutes or so it took me to get to the tube, and 30 minutes later when I got home I was still drenched.

My third, and so far, final bad idea was this morning. I thought I’d save myself a walk from Euston Square tube station to work by changing tube lines and getting off at Goodge Street station. Silly bad idea. I had to change at Kings Cross station, up a flight of steps across and down to the southern-bound Northern Line – where I had to change again at Euston for the southern-bound Northern Line (as it branches at Euston) which involved me going up 2 escalators, across, down, across down another escalator to end up at the opposite end of the same platform. Up 2 escalators again, across and down 2 got me to the correct southern Northern line. I then exited at Goodge Street station and, seeing the lifts were very crowded, decided to walk up the steps. 139 steps later, I was even more out of breath and sweating then I was. Lovely!

Anyway, I am beginning to get a little bit of free time back after work so I should be able to resume blogging and twittering in a few days! Woot!

I’ve just tried to send an item by Royal Mail’s “Special Delivery 1pm” service only for the Post Office to say “We can’t accept that – that address doesn’t exist on that postcode and we can’t accept wrong addresses”. However, checking Royal Mail’s own “Postcode Finder” service on their website, checking PostcodeAnywhere’s service, checking 192.com and even checking Google’s StreetView service all show that that address exists at the postcode(!)

I have been wondering why so much post goes missing, but the fact that the Post Office denies addresses actually existing when their own website (amongst others) admit they exist may contribute to it…