The Pryordurkins

Posts Tagged ‘holiday’

This week has me staying at the Holiday Inn Reading South for a couple of nights.  I turned up at reception around 8pm last night and the check in experience was fine.  They had all my details and all I needed to do was sign for my pre-prepared room card.  The reception area was smart and clean.  The bar and restaurant areas looked busy with business and tourist people alike.  It seemed like a fairly relaxed affair.  Not many stuffy suits sitting around.  I made my way to my room and it took a while.  This hotel is quite sprawling and the walk to my room must have took at least three minutes ( a long time for me!).

The room was as I now expect.  Clean, no character and functional.  The only immediate problem I could find was the TV remote control didn’t work and having reported this, was a little disappointed that it would take till the next day to fix.  I had to resign myself to the old fashioned way of changing channels and volume ie. getting off my ass and pushing buttons.

Room service last night was a bit of a disapointment.  The waiter nearly dropped everything on the floor and the food was barely warm.  I still can’t understand what the tray charge is for either, given the prices charged for room menu items are generally a whole pound more expensive than the same item in the restaurant.  Anyway I was too tired to worry about this for too long and after the guy / or girl upstairs had finished walking backwards and forwards across their floor for half an hour, I fell asleep. (what do they do to keep walking backwards and forward across such a small room?  I’d love to know!)

Anyway this evening, having got back from work, I decided to try the swimming pool out and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Clean and relaxed, it was nice to be staying at a hotel (unlike many in London) that actually has some space for a gym and pool.  Feeling virtuous I then made my way to the restaurant for dinner.

Surprise, surprise.  It was actually excellent food by hotel restaurant standards.  The starter of mushroom soup was freshly prepared and had fantastic taste and consistecy ( I do like a good soup).  My main was equally good; presented well and clearly cooked fresh by someone who cared.  With such good food coming out of the kitchen I then had for try (for research purposes) the dessert menu.  Again this was excellent.  The chocolate sauce was to die for!

All in all, I am very pleased with this hotel.  A great experience so far.  The restaurant food is very good indeed and it has a great gym.  To top all that, it is also moments from the M4.

Pryordurkin rating 4 stars.

We’re both thankfully back to normal now following our experience of the Norovirus over the last week.  Paul returned to work this morning having dropped his car off for the annual service and MOT and I take up another assignment later this week having finished my last one early December.

So with a reasonable holiday (especially for me and barring the bug!) we are both now firing on all cylinders again and looking forward to 2009.  So much so, we started to browse the holiday websites last night and are considering a long haul holiday around April/May time.  We’ll have to check the loose change bottle down the back of the sofa to see if it stretches as far as our likeness for five star treatment goes but will probably firm things up over the next week.

My new assignment is likely to have me spending time in London a few nights a week again, at least for the early part of the year, so expect the usual London restaurant reviews to start up once more!    In the mean time while catching up with emails etc I am going through the house top to bottom, with disinfectant, bleaching every surface and washing all our clothes and bedding with added Dettol to ensure no return of the so called winter vomiting bug.  Having checked the latest advice (read some here), we’re assurred we’ve now past the point of being infectious to others and look forward to welcoming Christine, Graham and the kids this weekend, where we are taking them to the local panto.

With the last minute shopping done, we’re pretty well set for a few days eating, drinking, sleeping and watching TV.  Some might say “How is that different to any other day at home?” but we tend to ignore those questions.   The last few days had us trying to second guess what the other might want as a little pressie from Santa.  We had said earlier in the year, that we would invest in the house instead, but at the last minute we bought a couple of token gifts to open on Christmas morning.  (Well I’m hoping they are token. Mine certainly are!)  Finally I had thought of donating some money to save the rainforests but apparently it is not as important as it once was!

The nice man from Royal Mail brought us a package this morning.  Marked from Australia we’ve resisted the urge to poke and prod. Instead it is safely nestling under the tree.   We haven’t quite decided if we will travel anywhere over the holiday.   We might just close and lock the gates our home and spend a few days locked up with just each others company.  However we are planning to start the onslaught on our digestive systems with a few drinks in town tonight followed by dinner at a (with a) small Italian we know on the Shambles.

Anyway have a good one yourselves and don’t forget to eat all your greens!  P&M  xx

Parking our car at the University we walked into the City on Saturday morning primarily to get some fresh air, but also to take in the sights and sounds of Yorks famous Christmas Market Fairs which start early December with the famous St Nicholas Fayre which runs for four days.  We first came across this annual delight when we were looking for a house in York.  At the time we needed a hotel room and because of  St Nicholas fayre, everywhere we tried was fully booked.  It was only at the very last minute with a bit of string pulling that we managed to blag a room at the local Holiday Inn.  St Nicholas fayre is a traditional Christmas market affair and runs from early December to then be followed by the International Christmas fayre.  This year St Nicholas Fayre started on Thursday and by the time we walked along the river we could see with the coach park full, that it was going to be very busy again.

It was manic. Crowds of tourists flocking through the streets of York.  The queues to get even the most basic of coffees were huge.  Even the normally quiet hot dog stands (most Yorkshire folk know not to buy from these) had queues stretching between 15 to 20 people.

The usual Christmas gifts stalls were much in evidence but to be honest, we’d made for a favourite local eatery of ours (1331 Gastrobar – read latest review) to get out of the way of the crowds.

St Nicholas fayre is clearly popular though and as we headed back the University later that day, we passed quite a few shops in the City of all which seemed to be doing a roaring trade.  Who said there was a credit crunch.  There isn’t if York Christmas Market Fairs are anything to go by.  Ignore our grumpiness though and give them a go, you won’t be disapointed by what is on offer.

Pryordurkin rating 4 stars.

Evil Edna and I went into this Greek Restaurant on Cleveland Street around 9pm on Wednesday gone.  A small cosy restaurant, we were shown to our table by the friendly owner.  We opted for the set Metze meal (£15.95pp) along with a bottle of Aphrodite wine (£13.95).  To say we left satisfied is an understatement.  The service was excellent, the atmosphere warm and the food great tasting and very good value.  It just kept coming!  More and more plates of traditional Greek fayre cooked to perfection in the small visible kitchen.  We had to tell them to stop in the end!  This is by far the best Greek restaurant I have been to in London to date and I would certainly go back again.  Close to the Holiday Inn Regents Park it will become a regular haunt. Highly recommend. 

Pryordurkin rating. 4 Stars.

 Tel: 020 7387 0704

The last month or so has seen us both spending quite a bit of time away from our home in North Yorkshire.  This has been for both good and bad reasons.  The good reasons being holidays, the bad reasons being working away from home; in London for me and in Switzerland for Paul.  This week however has been different in that I got home on Wednesday evening and have finally spent more than one night in my own bed for what seems like a very long time.

Wrapping up from work today a relaxing weekend will lie ahead.  As we have no social engagements planned (no invites if we’re honest!) we’ve decided to join an organised walk on the North Yorkshire Moors early Sunday morning.  It’s eight miles in total and covers some of the area I used to explore and camp on as a member of the boys brigade in my youth.  This time however there will be no supervising adults stopping me from going into the locals pubs to get warm, have a spot of ale and maybe a ploughmans lunch

We decided to stay at the Crowne Plaza at Gatwick-Crawley both before we flew out to Cyprus and after we returned.  We paid around £79 per night and for this had an excellent room.  Recent renovations have made this hotel very stylish and modern indeed.  Our room was clean, crisp and very comfortable with a good sized bathroom and flat screen TV.  The hotel has recently returned to the Holiday Inn family having previously been a Crest Hotel and Quality Hotel.  The lobby, restaurant and leisure centre have all had a makeover to great effect.  The only thing we worried about were the steps from the men’s changing room to the swimming pool.  They were steep, sharp and when wet, very slippy.  Despite the warning notice telling you to take care, we fully expect someone to come a cropper on those stairs.

The food served up in their restaurant named Cube, was adequate.  Breakfast was fine and with the two ‘experienced’ ladies working during the morning, it had an air of a comfortable friendly B&B.  We really enjoyed it.

If Gatwick airport itself was not so god damn awful, we would not hesitate to stay at this hotel again, especially with their little extra touches like fresh coffee served up early morning for people travelling to catch flights and the variety of complimentary newspapers and friendly service from happy staff.

Pryordurkin Rating. 4 Stars.

Our holiday in Cyprus ended as it had begun; in style.  We finished our final day with a four hour session in the Spa. Two Pampered Poofs having the full works (Thanks Lee  ), we started with the full Thermai Experience that includes a variety of heat rooms and ice rooms followed by a deep tissue Indonesian Massage for Paul and a Australian Aboriginal Kodo Massage for Michael, followed by an early evening dinner where to our complete joy (Marg will understand why), we met up again with Thomas, the stunning waiter we met working at the resort last year.  We pointed out that we remembered him for his good service (and stunning good looks – but we whispered that bit!) and we think he remembered us and our Australian friend! Our week was complete   We will load the photographs into our gallery soon.

Wrapping up we headed off to the airport, content with our lot and having completely forgot about how cruel the pyordurkin effect can be at times.

The plane boarded on time; we had good seats and we set off ahead of schedule.  We even landed in Gatwick 15 minutes ahead of time.   This is when it all went horribly wrong and we just knew the pryordurkin effect was now also back from it’s holidays.

It started with us having to wait 15 minutes on the plan while they found some steps for us to disembark.  The heat and temperature of the passengers was rising when we eventually started to move.  The babies and kids by this point were tired, crabby and playing up. We got onto the buses to be hearded back to the airport terminal to find massive queues at passport control.  Thirty minutes after landing we eventually got through passport control to then discover a problem with EasyJet baggage handlers. Apparently they were ’surprised’ by the arrival of six ’scheduled and on time’ flights arriving within the same hour and were therefore unable to off load the luggage from each plane as it arrived.  Utter chaos….  By this point there were screaming kids, it was 2.30am and my temper was well past its best.  Having landed at 12:50am we eventually got out of Gatwick baggage pick up area two hours later to then discover…. wait for it, there is more…. that the first shuttle bus to our hotel would not leave until 3.16am.  So in the freezing cold (5 degrees) we stood around waiting and waiting and waiting.  I was cursing and swearing under my breath by this point.  Of course the shuttle bus was late!.  When it did arrive I was ready to draw blood as we took our seats.  The driver then gently informed us that he would be making a small diversion on the way to our hotel, via the depot to change drivers.  Apparently he had finished his shift.  I was incredulous..

Falling into our hotel beds at 4.00am having landed at 12:50am I was too wound up to sleep, so tossed and turned for the next few hours eventually giving up and jumping into the shower at 9.30am telling Paul to get up, it was time for breakfast.

A brief respite over breakfast was had.  It was served up in the hotel which I’ll review later, by two nice ladies and we checked out ready to continue our journey home…..

We got to the railway station at Gatwick to discover the trains were not running through to Kings Cross today due to engineering works.  Instead we would have to get off at London Bridge and drag our cases through the underground, which of course, was jam packed by other miserable looking travellers.  Eventually getting to Kings Cross, now hot and sweaty, we boarded the train to York and took our first class seats (by this point I was ready to pay anything to avoid people and get home in comfort).

The train arrived into York having sat outside for five very long minutes while a platform became free. As soon as it did crawl in, we legged it to the taxi rank and joined what seemed like tens of thousands of other people trying to leave York by road.  It was a long journey that hit pretty much every red traffic light on the way out of the City centre.

We finally arrived at home sweet home……  Wait.  That is not the end of it…..

Opening the letters that had piled up while away I spotted an invoice for the windows we’d recently had repaired.  Instead of the £300 we were ‘verbally quoted’ it was now asking for £800!  Words cannot describe…….

So anyway, there you have it, we’re back home from a wonderful holiday in a wondereful hotel on a wonderful island, to find life returns to normal with a bang.

Clearly feeling guilty having caused so much trouble in Switzerland, the Pryordurkin effect has taken a holiday as well.  With it safely out of harms way we arrived at our holiday hotel to be greeted in style.  Discovering champagne on arrival and another freshly chilled bottle in our room, got us off to a great start. Monday was therefore a joy and the evening ended quite early with a nice Italian…meal.  Tuesday has been quite busy so far!  The day started late with breakfast in the club house, followed by a little stroll before a light lunch poolside.  We then endured a couple of hours in the Spa, having a double Swedish Massage before retiring to our own private pool, to take a little sun while drinking a drop of the complimentary red wine.  This evening will see us joining the general manager who is throwing a cocktail party for (we like to think) a select few guests

All in all the holiday has been trouble free, very relaxing and going to plan.  Here’s to the pryordurkin effect taking more holidays itself.  Hoping the weather back home is great for you

Welcome to my morning wake up call at the Holiday Inn Regents Park in London this morning.  Thank fully it was at around 7am.  On previous occasions of which there have been many while I stay in hotels in London, the alarm has been known to wake me up at varying times between 1am and 5am.  With a hangover, I can tell you this is no joke.