I love flying. I have been doing it since I was little and have been flying with my children since they were six weeks old. In fact as they were born in the Middle East both C and J had been on more planes than buses and trains put together by the time they were five. Our main family holiday for the past three years has been a pilgrimage to
GrannyBarrow
Customer Service, and how to get it right
I am passionate about customer service. In fact more so than anything else really. It is what drives me at work and when I get shoddy customer service I often let companies know about it. Equally when it is oh so right, I also like companies to know. Good customer service is rare these days. In fact any kind of service is a rare thing. Ask where something is and
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Musings
Burning Out.
Before I can start this post I have to make a confession to you all and I expect to get some stick for this. I read the Daily Mail. There, I have said it. I don’t buy it, mind you. I have a quick stroll through online every morning just to see what is going on with people I don’t really care about. I should get therapy, I know, but
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Musings
Let’s get “enthused”
If I say vinegar, what do you think about? Sarsons on your chips? Yes me too. Until I came across Womersley Foods at the Real Food Festival when I was introduced to Rupert by Kate from Gower Cottage Brownies. Since 1979 this family run business in Yorkshire has been making foodies think differently about vinegars. Started by his parents, Rupert took over the running in 2009. Now it is well
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Musings
Random Acts of Kindness
Ever been on the receiving end of one? Hopefully you have carried one out before. Sure you have. Handed a car park ticket to the next person coming in because it still has an hour left to run? Held a door open for somebody? Helped somebody pick up all the money that has just fallen out of their purse all over the floor? I was reminded today of on
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Musings
Friendship — What is it?
How many friends do you have? Can you count them on one hand? Two hands? Both feet, too? Or are you thinking about your friends on Facebook and count them in the hundreds? What is a friend? The dictionary definition is: a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard. Well that sort of makes sense, so I guess the 200+ friends some of us have on
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Musings
I got all the London 2012 Olympic tickets I wanted
Not that I am feeling smug or anything, you understand but I got all the London 2012 Olympic tickets I wanted. I registered, along with millions of others and applied through the first ballot system. I wasn’t greedy and knew there was no point applying for the events that everybody wanted to see: opening / closing ceremonies; men’s 100M final; women’s beach volleyball etc. So I kept it simple: some
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Musings
An open letter to “National Locations” about your scam
Dear ………….. hmm what can I put here You see I can’t use the word “Sir” as you are not. I can’t imagine you are any kind of gentleman at all actually so even using Mr is hard for me. And you didn’t sign the letter you wrote to my grandmother back in March. The footer of your letter says that the Principal is G Fryer. So we did
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Musings
My Guest post on kingsroad.co.uk
As some of you may know I was asked by the lovely Jonathan Lloyd who is in charge of the Kings Road website to write something for them recently. He had read my blog post on here earlier this month about “my” Kings Road vs “The” Kings Road and asked if I would write something for them based on my memories of the Kings Road in Chelsea and why it
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Musings
An Open Letter to HMV
Dear Sirs We found ourselves wandering into the HMV store last night as we had ten minutes to kill before a dinner reservation. We made a beeline for the iPad section and found a young chap busy turning them all off. “Hello, I wondered if you could help me” I asked of the young chap. Without even looking up from under his fringe or removing his large headphones he
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Musings
Twitter does it again — #Alicebucketlist
I think it was on Tuesday afternoon that I first saw this: “15 year old girl with terminal cancer has written a bucket list. Let’s see if we can make some of it come true“. Alice Pyne is indeed a 15 year old girl, from Ulverston who has been fighting cancer for four years. She started a blog on Monday saying a little about herself and posting her “bucket list”,
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Musings
Sometimes face-to-face is best
Due to the fact that I am a really important high powered business woman lazy, I do nearly all of my dealings with the outside world on the internet. Reasearch / work / shopping / travel / liaison with school / arranging social events etc, all done via a website or email. My tweet feed is testimony to how I interact with the outside world remotely. Today though I was