Too good to be true?

On a recent visit to Cornwall, a tourist took a photo of the rocks on Western Beach, Newquay, and when the picture was studied closely, an "apparition" resembling the Virgin Mary could be seen. Looking at the photo, the apparition shows clearly, maybe a little too clearly?

I am someone who loves a good ghost story, and always has (every holiday when I was a kid I would get an "Armada Ghost Book" to read while I was away) I was interested to read this story, but think it just might not be what it seems!

At last - a positive story about Rottweilers

The Rottweiler must be one of Britain's most maligned dogs. All too often we hear people calling for them to be banned on account of them being vicious, large, black and tan and other such pathetic reasons.

How nice, therefore, to read about Dave from Blackpool, whose owner runs a pet shop. Dave has "adopted" many different animals, ranging from kittens to rabbits and even birds. Dave is proof that, if treated and trained well, the Rottie can be a superb dog and a good family pet.

Any breed of dog can be dangerous in the wrong hands, and if incorrectly approached or handled (some adults should be ashamed for letting their children run up and grab strange dogs for example!)

Read Dave's story here.

Visit the Rottweiler Welfare Association here.

Finally got Linux to work properly!

After several failed attempts to use Linux on my PC, I have finally got it working properly.

My original attempts via Virtualbox, a live disc and then WUBI installer all failed miserably (WUBI had seemed most promising but after installing without any problem it turned out my modem was not compatible with Linux (contrary to what it said on the modem box!)

After getting a new modem I tried again with WUBI and this time success - Ubuntu 10.4 (Lucid Lynx) runs on my PC without any problems at all, and I have to say I am quite a fan of the free operating system.

The best pork pies

After reading this article about a butcher's in North Yorkshire, we decided we must go out there one day to sample some of these delicious-sounding pies. So yesterday we had a trip to Brompton specially to go to Glaves Butchers and try one of the pies for ourselves (and also to stock up on some meat and sausages).

We bought a couple of Barnsley chops (not often seen around here) and some pork and red onion marmalade sausages, but the highlight was the pork pie! We bought one pie each, initially to take home and have with mustard for tea, but, as they were still hot, we decided we would eat them outside the shop. A good decision!

This was the first time I'd eaten hot pork pie, I usually have them cold from the supermarket, with their rubbery, gristly fillings! But this was something else! Lovely, golden perfect pastry encasing delicious, hot pink chunks of pork and oozing liquid jelly. I have never tasted a pork pie as good as this!

This is one shop we will definitely visit again!

Faggots and Smash

I decided to have some cheap and quick food for Sunday dinner this week (by "quick" I mean food that didn't involve standing over a pan for ages - something which could just go in the oven while I got on with other things).

I had thought that faggots with creamy mash and gravy sounded quite nice. I think the choice of name is quite gross, as "faggot" sounds so unappetising! I bought a pack of two "Mr Brain's" faggots which only cost £1 and chose "Smash" instant mash which was also cheap, so this was the cheapest Sunday dinner I have had in ages!

The faggots took 35 minutes at 210 Centigrade, which ruled out having any other oven-cooked food with them, so I just left them to cook - the mash was ready in seconds, better than peeling, boiling and mashing a tiny amount of potato and just as tasty once I'd got the butter in. This was the first time in years that I'd had Smash, but it was as creamy as I remember it, only now it is made from powder and not chunks.

The faggots were soft and meaty and the sauce with them made a very good gravy to go with the mash and peas. Definitely something I will have again.

The legendary "Smash" advert with the Martians can be seen below:

Appalling hotel in Oostende

It was nice to actually have a holiday this year, and fly rather than trying to rely on the unreliable, appalling Eurostar train.

We stayed in Oostende, in a different hotel to our usual one, our favourite was booked on the dates we wanted and so we opted for a "four star" hotel, believing that it would be a good alternative.

We couldn't have been more wrong. Here is the review I posted about the dump on Trip Advisor (with no apologies to Hotel Europe in Oostende!)

Four star hotel? No star hotel more like!

When we selected this hotel, we believed that, as it was advertised as being 4 star, it would be a very good choice. How wrong we were.

We were in a "standard" room, which should still be a very good, above-average standard in a four star hotel. What we actually got was a room smelling of stale cigarette smoke, with cracked plaster around the door, dingy decor (including chairs with stains on and holes from cigarette burns), a shower fixed to the wall approximately two feet above the very narrow bath, so taking a shower was impossible, a bath which took around an hour to empty owing to the fact that the plug hole was clogged up with hairs (how often is this actually checked and cleaned?)

On the bathroom wall was a notice about re-using the towels to save energy, all very well except there was no heating and so once a towel had been used it was very wet and had to be replaced with a clean one every day - not very environment friendly but essential in a hotel with no heating on!

The bar was the most poorly stocked of any hotel I have been to in Belgium (I have been to Belgium many times) and the furniture is a real danger - the floor in the bar is polished wood, which causes the chairs to slide alarmingly and in some instances almost crash into other guests as soon as you sat down.

There was no evening meal available unless you were part of a pre-booked group, this is contrary to the Channel 1 on the hotel's T Vs which states that the restaurant had a choice of four menus including one vegetarian!!

The hotel lobby has two lifts - one going to the badly-kept section we were unlucky enough to be staying in, and another to the section which is obviously much better cared for. If this was a genuine four star hotel ALL the rooms and corridors would be in good order and quite plush.

If you are considering a holiday in Oostende, don't make the same mistake as we did and think that, by booking into this "four star" hotel you will be getting something special - you might get something special, but it will be especially awful!

We won't be going back there again.

Update

Apologies for the lack of posts. This is for several reasons - problems with my internet connection (now resolved), getting a full time job (which will end soon) and being away on holiday.

It was good to get a holiday this year after losing our Christmas holiday last year, and this time there were no unreliable French trains to spoil things. This year we flew from Leeds Bradford to Brussels on BMI.

It was nice to see Oostende again, but the hotel was not as good as our usual one (which was fully booked) but we hope to get the usual one next year. We had a trip to Aachen (on the bus from Eupen) and also climbed the 210 steps up Zeebrugge water tower on Open Monuments Day.