Posted by admin on 29/12/2009 under Uncategorized | 
My Swiss friends planned to return back to Geneva. Early morning planned by all. Yeah Right, 1130 and there was a mad dash around the house because they wanted to go to the porcelain factory in Le Dorat
We arrive 20 minutes before it was due to close and then decide we havn’t enough time, so we go to our friends in Le Dorat at La Petite Fountain and have lunch and drink and then return to Maison Laure (the porcelain factory shop) before we return to La Pouyade where out house Maison Bojac is located.
After a hot coffee, farewells adieu and our friends set off on their 6 hour drive to Geneva. We settle down watch the day of the triffids.
Posted by admin on 27/12/2009 under Uncategorized |
We awake to sub zero temperatures but light the fire and get the guest room ready.
Our friends arrive at lunch and then we go to Limoges to return the hire care we used to get us from Paris.
In Limoges the regional capital of the Limousin and our department Haute-Vienne. We show our friends the sights the town is we decorated for Christmas. We then have a lovely home cooked meal and drinks with our Swiss friends before going to bed.
Posted by admin on under Uncategorized |
It’s Christmas day, we awake at about 0900 having eventually falling into bed at about 0300. We had to make the bed light the fire but we are in our oasis of peace in Chateauponsac France.
We have been invited to our neighbours for lunch and we joined them for a lovely time. We come back around 6pm watch Eastenders and go to bed early.
We have friends joining us tomorrow from Geneva so have go get the house ready and we havnt unpacked fully.
Posted by admin on under Uncategorized |
And so the Easyjet saga continuity. We are back in Luton successfully checked in and depart a few minutes later than scheduled. This is one of two extra flights thy Easyjet put on. In fact they really DID put this on as extra as they had to lease an aircraft.
We eventually arrive at Paris Charles de Gaulle and find the car hire. Successfully check and leave. SatNav to the ready we drive directly into a jammed motorway. It’s now 5pm and shops close at 2000.
We get off arrive at a large supermarket and find we have 1 hour to shop. We successfully leave and takes us 45 minutes to get out of the carpark.
We finally drive the alledgedly 3.4 hours and get to La Pouyade some 6 hours later arriving on Christmas morning at 0115 on the third day of our Christmas holidays.
Posted by admin on 25/12/2009 under Uncategorized |
Hello from France where I am spending Christmas, so wishing everyone a safe and peaceful Christmas, and remember, have a walk today.
Posted by admin on 23/12/2009 under Uncategorized |
On the first day of my Christmas holidays (23rd December) I ran around like a demented outcast form Harry Potters’ weird yet wonderful film. Post office…. shops…. tidying house….. packing…. keys to friends…. then to airport; then the TRUE fun began. Our plan is to fly to Paris circumnavigate the Paris Peripherique (the M25 of Paris) and then drive to Limopges, as Ryanair’s fares would have taken me to Australia any other time of year, and these were booked in September!
As they say There’s Nothing Easy about Easjet is so true. We got to the airport, by the skin of our teeth; First Capital Connect decided it would slow down all the trains; for whatever reason no one knows. There was no snow on the tracks, a bit of rain and it was cold. Maybe the wrong temperature or wrong type of cold? Anyway we finally got to the airport while tracking my flight to Paris on my trusty iPhone. That god for today’s technology. Many argue it it is the ruination of society, it can be, but it has its purpose. I was also relieved to know that out flight was delayed by 90 mins. As we had checked in online all we had to do was negiotate security. A fete in itself!
We go to security to only find them to TELL US out flight was cancelled, yet the departure boards was showingdeparture scheduled in 75 minutes. A true British event then commenced, a orderly queue! Oh yes in a crisis the British do one of two things, either form a queue, or make a cup of tea. In this case the former with mutterings in various languages started; eventually, after 10 minutes a new queue was required. (Probably not the right type of queue in front of Easyjet’s customer services desk, bad publicity etc – have they not heard of Twitter?). We waited as is obligatory in a British queue were then presented with two options. There are only ever two options at an airport:
- Accept a refund
- Or accept the flight the next day some 18 hours later than planned.
They has convienently forgot to remind us that we have three other entitlements when one has a cancelled flight;
- a meal
- overnight accomodation
- 2 phone calls/faxes/telexes to anywhere.
However we did eventuallyremind them of uor entitlements as we were 3rd in the queue we made sure everyone heard what the EU requirement states. That said, this was the 4th day that they had this problem and I am sure all the staff ( and it was obvious the airport staff had had enough) were now tired of handly disgruntled passengers whose flights were now affected by the adverse weather. except this was not adverse wether, this was a crewing problem so entirely within the control of Easyjet.
We went and had some food, and eventually found that we had a room in the local Holiday Inn Express in Luton airport. A 5 minutes walk away on a normal day; however this was not a normal day. The path all the way to the airport was not cleared. This is now 4 days into a snowy spell and there had been no snow for 2 days. So people struggled with luggage and bags. Even our well travelled sturdy cabin sized bags were deciding to do a Thornville and Dean 9.0 scored show on the way between the airport and the Holiday Inn. Added advantage of walking, sorry, read skidding in the rain which was like a downpour. So we ended up on our first night of our Christmas holidays in a hotel.
However, the kindness of the staff and helpfulness was overwhelming… people seemed to came together to help each other, and there was a joyful feeling as people put into a situation they couldn’t change but were safe, warm and looked after. So to bed and await tomorrow’s dramas.
Posted by admin on 21/12/2009 under Uncategorized |
Yes, it looks good, it is nice to see, but today I’ve seen three people requiring an ambulance following the severe ice and snow we’ve endured this weekend.
Ice and snow present a nice Christmas card effect; it also presents a major hazard especially for the elderly who will often struggle to the shops to get the basics. So this Christmas/holiday or whatever you belive in, check on your neighbour and see they are OK, prevent an unecessary drama by offering to get milk, check they are warm and not cold and you might reduce an unecessary visit to A&E.
Posted by admin on under Uncategorized |
It’s been a tortorous week for me and others; firstly I got stuck in Geneva due to adverse weather in London. However my 11 hour delay is nothing compared to the Eurostar drama.
My previous posting talks about the need for good customer service, well Eurostar, read my blog! You go it sooooooooooooooo wrong! over 10,000 passengers now stuck in theree major cities some in excess of 48 hours. The worst of it, poor communication and inappropraite responses. I mean, telling people to go to Dover and get a ferry and NOT provide any transport is utterly contempt if nothing esle.
Then to add insult to injury, they put an advert while 2,000 passengers are stranged on 5 trains in the Channel tunnel encourging them to use their services. Now I’ve used Eurostar and its a fabulous service; especially whn you get a £59 single ticket (for non UK readers I can’t get to Manchester for that!) BUT the insensitivity of it says it all. I know it’s a computer generated email blah blah blah BUT someone musy have thought of stopping their promotion campaign and get into damage limitation mode. To help Eurostart, The idiots guide to damage limitation is between d and e in any good library shelf; clearly not something they have had to do before.
Merry C hristmas; Bonne fetes; Nollaig shona dhuit (English/French/Gaelic)
Posted by admin on 12/12/2009 under Uncategorized |
I’m writing this posting in a cafe in central Prague, Czechoslavia. It is a beautiful city and this time of year it’s is attracting tourists, like me, to their Christmas markets.
The city is clean and pristine and with it is am amazing focus on customer care and customer services. This is not what I experience in London. We talk about food customer care but do we live it? I believe we get second-class customer care and customer services especially in large mult-chain organisations. You are either ignored or rushed to choose and buy.
So why do we tolerate it? I don’t know but I know that we need to improve if we wish to attract tourists as we aproach the Olypmic games as people won’t tolerate and won’t accept/pay for poor services.
