A weekend to forget!

What a lousy weekend.
I was really looking forward to seeing my youngest son and his partner for the weekend and to having them help me celebrate a belated birthday. What happened? Well not only was I still suffering with the remnants of my previous throat problem, on Saturday morning I started to go down with the 'flu that my colleague had in Portugal last week. By the time Sunday arrived I was feeling like all I wanted to do was to lay down and die!
I pushed through it as best as I could and managed to keep it together for dinner on Saturday night but the weather on Sunday stopped us from going out (which may have been a good thing).
As soon as they left yesterday afternoon I fell into bed and stayed there until lunchtime today. I still feel shit, coughing, sneezing, a headache and a head full of blocked sinuses. I am just waiting to hear from DeeJay number 2 that he and his partner have caught it as well - that will really make my day!

For all of you suffering the teen years!

A father passing by his son's bedroom was astonished

to see the bed was nicely made, and everything was picked up.

Then, he saw an envelope, propped up prominently on the pillow.

It was addressed, "Dad." With the worst premonition, he opened

the envelope and read the letter, with trembling hands.

Dear Dad,

It is with great regret and sorrow that I'm writing to you.

I had to elope with my new girlfriend, because I wanted to avoid a scene with Mom and

you.

I've been finding real passion with Stacy, and she is so nice, but I

knew you would not approve of her because of all her piercings, tattoos, her

tight Motorcycle clothes, and because she is so much older than I am.

But it's not only the passion, Dad.

She's pregnant.

Stacy said that we can be very happy. She owns a trailer in the woods,

and has a stack of firewood for the whole winter. We share a dream of

having many more children. Stacy has opened my eyes to the fact that marijuana

doesn't, really hurt anyone.We'll be growing it for ourselves, and trading it with the other people

in the commune, for all the cocaine and ecstasy we want.

In the meantime, we'll pray that science will find a cure for AIDS, so Stacy can get better.

She sure deserves it!

Don't worry Dad, I'm 15, and I know how to take care of myself.

Someday, I'm sure we'll be back to visit, so you can get to know your

many grandchildren.

Love, your son,

John.

P.S. Dad, none of the above is true. I'm over at Tommy's house. I just

wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than the school

report that's on my desk. I love you!

Call when it is safe for me to come home

Business trip to Lisbon

Phew! thank god that is my travelling over for the next few weeks. Three consecutive weeks travelling to Austria, Netherlands and Portugal seems to have really lowered my resistance to colds etc. I was suffering with a throat infection and have now come home from this trip with a hacking cough that I just can't shift. Damn airplanes!
Not only that, but this trip was a bit of a nightmare with colleague 1 only making it as far as the airport departure gate before having to cancel due to a phone message that her son had been taken ill, followed the day after by colleague 2 falling ill with 'flu.
The only positive things from the visit are that it went well from a business perspective and I managed to deliver my colleague's part of the presentations effectively and we stayed at probably one of the 3 most fantastic hotels that I have ever stayed at.
It was the Pestana Palace hotel in Lisbon here which used to be a real palace and still has many of the original features. The cost of a room should start at 370 Euros but our company has a discounted rate of 130 Euros!! What a result.

Tagged - 3 Songs

I have been tagged by Further on up the road.
If you had to pick three songs to listen to before never being able to listen to music ever again. Please note - you’re not dying or going deaf or anything like that.. you can just never listen to music ever again.

3 songs.

What would you pick?

It can be anything you like. For any reason."

He was right that The Quo would feature here!

1. Gerdundula - Status Quo - Just to prove that they don't always rely on 4 chords!
2. Little Girl in Bloom - Thin Lizzy - The eternal romantic in me
3. Here is the surprise entry - Barber's Adagio for Strings. - This ALWAYS brings me out in goosebumps and on some days if my mood is right it has been known to actually bring tears to my eyes!

So I will tag Cynnie - I couldn't even guess what her choice will be

Fine Dining, Skiing & Cycling

What a great birthday treat Mrs DeeJay gave me this weekend (stop those smutty thoughts!!).

On Friday evening she guided me to a restaurant that is reasonably local to where we live for dinner followed by an even more circuitous route to our destination for the weekend.
This is a fantastic old English country house styled hotel that only has ten rooms and is furnished with antiques. There is a fantastic home from home (I only wish mine was as sumptuous) atmosphere where you really are encouraged to make like it really is your home. There is a superb library / drawing room overlooking the beach which has a telescope for watching the ships etc passing in the English Channel.

On Saturday Mrs DeeJay then led me once more on a secret trip to a place that I didn’t even know existed – a ski simulator, where I was treated to an expert lesson to improve my parallel turns. And believe me it did! I didn’t realise that 45 minutes on a hydraulically controlled rolling ski slope could be such hard work and at the same time so beneficial to improving skills. The literature maintains that an hour on this simulator equates to 5 hours on the slope and my legs can vouch for that – ouch!

We then returned to the hotel to borrow two of their ‘mountain bikes’ for a pretty exhilarating 8 mile ride along the sea front to Hythe and back, declining to take the easy route home via the RH&D miniature railway.

The whole weekend was topped off by an absolutely superb 4 course dinner on Saturday night cooked by the 5-star chef Clinton Lovell. All together it was a terrific birthday present even though I still have this horrible cold and sore throat it made me forget it for 48 hours.

Feeling sorry for myself :-(

Just got back from another work trip to mainland Europe and had a lousy experience throughout the trip this time.
It was cold and wet for the whole 3 days, the hotel was pure crap with lousy service, a really uncomfortable bed and it was noisy. What with the noise and a bad head cold since the weekend, I got virtually no sleep and I feel even worse today, so I have stayed home sick.
I didn't get up until midday and feel a little better now. Let's hope the worst is over as it is my birthday at the weekend and Mrs DeeJay is taking me away for a surprise weekend.

ID Check?

I have just remembered an amusing incident in the hotel in Vienna that I forgot to include in my previous post.

I went to the gym in the hotel before breakfast on the two mornings that I stayed there. The first morning was not a problem. However on the second morning I was half way down to the basement from my 6th floor room when I realised I had left my room key in the room! No problem, I thought I will simply go to the front desk and get another one (one of these electronic / credit card types).
So I was stood there at the desk waiting in line while another guy checked out (I'm always polite like that) and when he had finished I explained my predicament to the clerk and asked for another key. "Have you any ID?" he asked.
Do I look as if I have any I replied standing there in only shorts T-shirt and a pair of trainers!!!!

I think he then saw the funny side as he gave me a key

Vienna Trip

Had a pretty good trip to Austria this week from the point of view of a good business meeting and also seeing something of a city that I have never visited.
Vienna is a fantastically impressive and obviously once opulent city. The architecture is stunning.

This last photo is of a very classy restaurant called the Vestibule that is actually in what used to be the Queen's private entrance to the Burg Theater. However classy it may be, but I just couldn't believe the 'aiming point' in the porcelain in the gent's loo!!

Irregular Postings

I know I am not a very frequent blogger, at least not as prolific as many of you that I read, but I do try to post at least a couple per week.

However over the next 3 weeks I will be travelling on business for 3 days each week so I may not get too much of a chance to post very frequently anyway.

The good bit though is that I will be visiting Vienna, Lisbon and Rotterdam, so besides having some anecdotes to relate from there, I will hopefully have some interesting photos as well.

At the very least I am betting that I will have some ‘people watching’ material from the airports to post!

Wish me bon voyage

Important News Item

The BBC (UK national broadcaster) run a 5 minute news bulletin every hour on the radio station that I listen to in the car on the way to work.
This morning the 3rd item was that Tiri Te Kanawa is being sued for pulling out of a tour with John Farnham (who he?). The reason - She has seen a dvd of one of his performances and is concerned that his fans seem to throw their underwear at him on stage and what is more he picks them up and brandishes them as trophies!

Come on guys aren't there more pressing newsworthy items in this ailing world of ours? Do we really care about fans' knickers, Kiri Te Kanawa or even John Farnham? I can't even be bothered to find out who he is!

I got an unplanned additional workout in the gym this morning as the sound system wasn't working in the Spinning Studio so we all had to wheel our Spinning bikes into the other studio. What a farce that was with 15 of us wheeling them through the gym causing havoc to all the other users on the way.