Terry and Pat’s travels and more

There are lots of reasons for returning to this hotel and these are a few of them: Forget Ozempic,  and lose a stone a week. If you don’t like showers that’s fine because they don’t work here Not keen on hearing aids? You don’t need them here. Why the Spanish need phones is a mystery. Flies don’t drown in your soup because their feet reach to the bottom of the plate. Come here to train as a Monk or a Nun as it’s remote and no WiFi If you like games here are a few you can enjoy: Play ‘spot the bartender’ Play ‘spot the table in the restaurant’ at weekends when the Spanish Armada arrives Guess the ‘water displacement’ in the pool during the Armada If you like to play ‘Charades’ this is the place because hardly any of the staff speaks English On D.J. nights the music is so loud you can play ‘spot the túne’ from your balcony I would like to continue but I need a drink from the bar but don’t know how long I will be or what day I will return Good job I’m easy to please

I have been staying here now for 4 days and I have formed my opinion of the hotel already. Shall  we start with the pluses. If you want peace and quiet and a hotel that is very remote, then this is the perfect location. To be fair this does not cut you off from the area around the hotel because they run a free shuttle that will take you, on specific days, to a few of the closest towns including Salobrena and Almunecar both of which I visited. The hotel is nicely laid out and has a big pool and plenty of sun beds and shades. The food is of very good quality but …. (see minuses). My balcony has a full sea-view, catches the sun perfectly and I can sit out on it until 11p.m. (Spanish time) very comfortably. The minuses Oh boy, this is going to take some time.   Most of the staff, including the maintenance man, speak little or no English so it becomes a game of Charades when needing to convey any message. Whilst the food is high quality the choice is dreadfully restricted and there...

  I was eating my dinner of sausage and chips, which I had just cooked  while Pat was on one of her holidays to Spain and my only companion was Arnold the dog. Arnold is a lovely dog and we get on really well but conversation with him is rather stinted and one sided so it got me thinking who I might have enjoyed sharing this meal with. I decided it would be fun to imagine having a dinner party with 7 guests of my choice. My parameters would be that the guests would all have been successful in their chosen careers and would be sufficiently opinionated and outspoken to make for a lively debate on any subject. Many names came to mind but I had to try and create an even balance not just of opinions but also in the seating arrangements. This is what I came up with and I leave it to you decide whether my choices of dinner companions would have been successful or a ‘car crash’ waiting to happen. My very first invitation would go to BORIS JOHNSON. Boris is a ‘Marmite’ person, you eith...

  Part Two finished on a bit of a down note so let’s get back to Happy.  For the best single night’s entertainment  whilst on a holiday we have to go back to 1988 when we stayed just outside Puerta del a Cruz on the island of Tenerife. Our hotel Rep had advised us of the various extras we could book and the one that seemed very appealing was an evening at the Tenerife Palace where we would get dinner, see a top class international bill the stars of which would be The Drifters. We booked immediately and Pat was advised to wear flat shoes because the track leading to the venue was a bit rough. Just a tip but it did raise an eyebrow or two. We had a week to go before the evening and in that time we walked into the town almost every day by the same route but somehow we never took the same route back. This was not intentional but did allow us to see something different each time. On one return trip we were on a track on the edge of the mountain which was hard going úntil, to o...

  If the number of holidays were difficult to count then the number of people who I have met during my travels is an impossible task to ascertain. Many have been just nodding acquaintances but there have been some very notable people that I’ve gotten to know quite well. They range from Nashville musicians to a Canadian author and various others but once again the choice of the nicest and most interesting person was an easy one. Her name (yes, a woman. Isn’t that a surprise?) is Anna-Marie and she lives in Surrey and was, and still is, a school teacher of English. Pat and I met her and her companion Michael when we were on a Two Centre holiday, one week in St.Lucia and two weeks in Barbados (even now it makes my mouth water. The holiday not Anna Marie. Okay, just a little bit). Our hotel in St. Lucia was quite small so it wasn’t difficult to get to know almost every one on some level or another, although it was nearly to the end of that week before we made proper contact with h...

  When I decided on this topic I thought that it was going to be very difficult to choose the  highlight of highlights given the number of holidays I have been on and the wonderful experiences I have had over the years, but I was wrong. Some things just stand out head and shoulders above all others and I am now going to share these with you. Please note that this may not coincide with Pat’s choices because she has been on more holidays than me and to places I have never been. Isn’t she a lucky girl. Let’s begin with the singular most awesome  sight I have ever seen. It took me less than a second to make this decision. It was on the fourth day of the tour of Australia Pat and I went on in 2011. We had landed in Perth and spent 3 days there before flying to Alice Springs, pretty much the centre of Australia. We were coached to a hotel some miles from the small community known as Alice Springs and just had enough time to get booked in and changed before we were back on the c...

 13th May Apologies for the delay but the days after a return from a holiday can be pretty hectic. The second week of my holiday was no more exciting than the first week but, in truth, that suited me fine. I did another trip to the local town but only because my holiday friend, Jean, wanted to revisit a particular beach bar that she had been to before and liked. We had a nice lunch there and a leisurely walk round. Another afternoon was taken up doing the ‘board walk’ which was a reasonably long stroll beside the nearby river. A trip to Tivira on the eve of our departure from the hotel was more enjoyable than Seville where Jean and I found a nice cafe for a drink and I did some shopping, notably two tops as I’m running out of clothes. Other than that it was another nice rest. The weather improved but was still unpredictable but I’ve known worse. The journey home was uneventful and I arrived to a joyous welcome from Arnold the dog that Terry had been looking after for the previ...

  7th May Okay, okay, it was Paul Young I knew that, I was just checking to see if you were all awake (see ‘home sweet home’). Who decides on names? My impression is that it depends on what’s being named but there must surely be a ruling body in case of impropriety. Parents name their children but can be overridden in some cases but by whom? Retail goods can be named by their makers but can fall foul of patent laws etc.  Who names diseases? I ask this because of the absurdity of some names we all take for granted. Who named Chicken Pox and why that name? Why not Rhinoceros Pox? What is the relationship between Chicken Pox and Chickens?  Is one of the symptoms of the sufferer that they lay eggs? Who decided that people who struggle to read, write and spell should be called Dyslexic? Why choose a name that not only the sufferers can’t spell but neither can a large proportion of the rest of the population? Someone, somewhere is having a good chuckle at hoodwinking the popula...

  5th May I’m back again on yet another two week holiday. Aren’t I lucky?       My journey here didn’t start too well. My plane was delayed (no official reason given) so embarking was late, only for all the passengers to have to disembark as the pilot wasn’t well and we had to wait for a replacement. Fortunately it wasn’t  one of Terry’s white van friends (post: Alua - Day one (part one)). Confusion over seat allocation arose because of the delays and I was given, at various times, three different seat numbers. Eventually we got under way with no further problems except we didn’t arrive at the hotel until 10.30p.m. By then the restaurant was officially closed but the time was temporarily extended so we could get a decent meal. A big plus  to the hotel for that gesture. The hotel has approx. 300 rooms, is clean and reasonably spacious and my room is perfectly acceptable. The hotel design is a bit confusing but that’s probably just me because Terry has always...

  I feel a controversy starting to brew.  There is a line in a song that says “wherever I lay my hat is my home”. I think the singer was Nick Ainsley but I’m not sure (letters on a postcard) but what a sad line that is for any person to feel like that as I’m sure many do. It’s completely incorrect. What it should say is “wherever I lay my hat is where I live”. It’s my humble opinion that your home is ‘where your heart is’  and that can be anywhere at any given time. When I arrived at the place where I live after my holiday at the Alua hotel, Pat was already in Spain starting her second holiday at the Rompido hotel having left before I arrived at our little house which we both love. I didn’t feel like I was home. It was just a brick built structure that contained furniture, many memories and, yes, a hat too. It didn’t contain the one thing that turned it into a home, Pat, because a ‘home is where your heart is’ and wherever Pat goes she carries my heart with her, whether s...

  30th April It’s doesn’t matter how much money you pay there really is no such holiday which is all things to all people. We are all individuals and ‘one persons meat is another persons poison’. It’s not about right and wrong but about preferences. For instance, lively evening entertainment is what many like in a hotel so they can get up and dance and let their hair down but others may prefer to sit and talk and their ears are offended by too much noise. Bearing this in mind the following are my opinions as to the rating I would give to the holiday and hotel that I have just experienced based upon my own personal preferences. The Alua is a Hyatt hotel and is set in a purpose built small town. It is remote and there are only a couple of supermarkets and restaurants you can walk to. It is ideal for Walkers and Twitchers but the nearest town, Mahon, is only a bus ride, hotel shuttle or cab ride away. The hotel itself is spacious and the rooms well appointed although, like so many oth...