Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Miscellaneous’ Category

I read one time on a high profile blog that they recycle old posts if they can’t think of anything new to write on the basis that a) the content of the old post was still valid and b) nobody would notice because they had so many posts on the blog already.

Whilst I don’t do that myself, it isn’t such a copout as you might think on first reading that. Some of my older posts get quite significant amounts of traffic and bringing them to the attention of new subscribers might not be such a bad idea now and again. There’s also the reference nature of some of them and it would probably be useful to do a tidy-up now and again in some cases that takes account of the various comments made.

What do you think? Is it a valid way of moving the blog onwards or is it just a copout?

The theory was that we would consider the Christmas break to Valencia as everyones’ present to everyone else.

However, we’re finding that this is one theory that doesn’t hold a whole lot of water. Already the demands for not one but two PSPs are getting incredibly loud and we’ve still a good three weeks to go before the present cut-off time arrives of course.

Buying in Valencia isn’t really an option. In principle, it would be a good idea but realistically we’re not going to be there until late on the Saturday and I don’t fancy our chances competing with Spaniards in the shops on Christmas Eve.

Or, to put it another way, we gotta get the PSP ordered pronto if it’s to be here before Christmas!

Wow. This year has flown in for us alright.

The Open University course, as usual, makes time really fly. Somehow or other I managed to go from being one month ahead in January to a bit of a rush in the final few weeks even though I managed to keep that one month leadtime right through to August. I’m sure that the final course next year will be no different although studying a course in English will be a little peculiar after six years of foreign language courses.

Then there was the three or four day trip to see my parents which turned into a month due to all sorts of administrative hassles that needed sorted out.

And now we’re within four weeks of heading off to Valencia for our Christmas break!

Between one thing another we didn’t get around to seeing the rally at all yesterday.

The morning went in a bit of a rush to get the rooms sorted out for all the race officials who were staying with us last night. Since they generally book the whole building, we were using a few rooms that hadn’t been used for quite a while which usually turns up a few minor problems that have arisen since their last use. That in turn meant a rush out for a few bits & pieces which took up the afternoon and then we’d to sort out the couple of things that turned up.

They weren’t using our neighbours as a pitstop this year so we didn’t even see the cars there!

Anyway, we’re hoping to get away this morning to see them on the next leg which is just up the road from us.

As regular readers will know, I’ve been getting going on my direct mail campaign aimed at increasing the number of entries on the B&B and self-catering listings sites.

The second use of the mailing list for Scotland pulled in quite a considerable number of properties over the last two weeks. So much so that I’m going to have to implement the planned restructuring of the site well ahead of schedule.

For reasons which escape me, the England mailing hasn’t pulled in anything like the number that Scotland did. Something to explore the reasons for before I do the next one in 2008.

However, for the first time, I’ve targetted Northern Ireland. Early days yet of course, but it looks like the takeup will be relatively low. The size of the mailing was pretty much similar to that for Scotland but, so far, I’ve only received about 1/4 of the response. Still, perhaps some more will come in over the course of the weekend.