Foreign Perspectives

It sounded like a good idea at the time that I booked it but flying over to Belfast on Friday (an all day affair due to the connecting flight), then needing to drive down to Dublin on Sunday for my Spanish exam on Monday, back to Belast on the Monday night only to go back to Dublin on the Tuesday for the flight to Girona wasn’t quite such a good move in practice.

The trip worked out fine though it’s pretty much knocked me out today and I’m only starting to recover now!

This is the first of the posts on the new computer which I’ve been setting up today. Just had a pleasant surprise when I checked the mail: for some reason it’s been a very popular time for people to pay me money. I’ve several new premium listings on the directory, a whole raft of paid post money from last month and to top it all, a paid entry for the listings sites.

Perhaps I should go away more often!

Just as we were assuming that we were back down to lower paid opportunities and not a great selection for that matter either, today happened.

Whilst it’s always possible that a particular paid post outlet could have a run of opportunities, today just about all of them seemed to be full of opportunities whereas only a few days ago they seemed to be drying up.

So much did this take us by surprise that we stuffed ourselves with them today and hit a new personal record of postings of 16 posts in a single day!

A pretty unbelieveable number, eh? Still, no more posts from now ’til Wednesday for me ‘cos I’m off to do the final Spanish exam of my Modern Languages degree.

One odd thing in this Internet age is that it’s becoming more and more common for people to phone up for a booking rather than doing it online.

Now, we always expected that from the French as, until fairly recently, they just didn’t trust the Internet and certainly didn’t trust it with their debit card details. However, recently it’s becoming rather common among the English and Spanish. Why, I don’t know, but there you are.

In summertime it’s something of a nuisance as it can be quite difficult to reconcile phone bookings with online availability without ending up with double bookings. In fact, we often need to confirm that rooms remain available before saying OK to people on the phone as bookings come in at a fair rate at peak times in the Summer.

What should you pack to go on a short trip?

One thing’s for sure: don’t think that you can just replicate your packing for a full-scale holiday because you’re just going to run up a bill for excess baggage for no reason at all. If you’re going for a long-weekend it’s just being silly to even consider a full-sized case that needs checked in: carryon is the only way to go.

What should you bring though?

In terms of clothing, that depends on the temperature difference between where you live and where you’re going. Clearly if it’s Winter at home and Summer at the destination (or vice versa) that will dictate you having an extra change of clothing above what it would otherwise.

Essential items should be trimmed down to the minimum. That minimum should include:

1. passport;
2. credit card, debit card and cash card, all international versions (ie with a Visa/Mastercard on the credit/debit cards and Plus/Cirrus on the cash card). Make sure one is Visa and the other Mastercard as acceptance isn’t equally widespread in all countries and max three cards in total in case they’re stolen.
3. driving license (even if you don’t plan on driving);
4. plane tickets (or their electonic equivalent ie the booking number);
5. electical adaptor for foreign electrical sockets (get a “world” version rather than just a “european” one to cover all the bases);
6. guidebook (sometimes they’re not available locally in English)

And, of course, personal items such as contact lens solutions, glasses, sunglasses, womens items, and the like.

Ideally, all the stuff you’re taking should fit in a supermarket carrier bag. Any larger, and it’s definitely too much for a weekend break!

Whilst we had loads of housebuyers staying with us in 2004 and 2005, 2006 saw none of them at all.

Who knows why? The UK interest rates weren’t much higher than they were the year before nor did there seem to be a big difference in the UK house prices.

It’s the same this year too ie no big difference. Yet, we’re just into the main house-hunting season (usually October to March) and already we’ve had three separate house-buying families call in with us. Whether this is the sign of a major buying spree is a good question but at least it’s a sign of the start of a movement in the French market.