Home from the holiday

And what a holiday it turned out to be.

Now I need a new plan - where can I go that isn't going to turn into a natural disaster zone two days after arriving?
Suggestions anyone?

It looks as though we would have perhaps been better off running the potential pitfalls of Frank Bainimarama's current escapades in Fiji than visiting our next door neighbour over the ditch.

Surfers Paradise turned out to not be quite the paradise we were hoping for.  In fact, it became a natural disaster zone some two days after arriving thanks to a rather nasty low off the south Queensland coast.  A man even lost his life just a kilometre up the road from where we were staying.  Nasty freak accident involving flying debris and smashing windows.

From our 16th floor vantage point, facing away from the sea (thank goodness), we could see all manner of deck furniture whizzing along the footpaths and roads.  No flooding near us, but the beach decided that the footpath might be retaken from man's interference.

Then one day, having ventured out in the rain to the nearest shopping mall in an attempt to fight off the cabin fever that comes from being stuck in an apartment with an energetic toddler, I discovered that our accommodation was situated on one of the worst wind tunnel corners in the neighbourhood.  This would have been fine, but for the fact that when I got off the bus with the toddler's push chair something in my brain did not register this potential.  And while crossing the road I found to my horror that it could become something of a windsail if I actually unfolded it.
Mercifully the breeze had dropped to just gale force and the rain was slightly less than horizontal meaning that I made it across the road only slightly worse for wear.   Quickly finding the least damp place I folded said windsail back down and proceeded to attempt "the corner" only to find that the gale force winds had gained a bit of momentum and the rain had resumed horizontal service.  Even folded down the windsail proved to be a problem.  Ducking around a large real estate sign flapping in the breeze I found myself confronted with "the corner" and barely made it across still on my own feet.  I genuinely thought that I was going to do a comic turn for those watching from the safety of their hotels or apartments.  The only unknown factor was: would I look like Mary Poppins or a very bad mime act doing the old "bear walking against wind" chestnut.
All members of the Oh Waily household made it safely to their digs, wet and windswept, but grateful to be indoors again.

And there really isn't much more to say about the holiday - wet, windy, expensive (talk about fleece the tourists) - and it is the first time in my memory that I actually looked forward to coming home much more than staying where we were.

***

Just a note on Q1.
We booked through a third party, so the following comments may not apply to the Q1 managed apartments.

1. Definitely not luxury apartments.
In fact we decided, based on the real estate information in their own retail area, we were staying in a 1 bedroom plus study not the "2 bedroom compact" described.
2. Nothing to do indoors, so when bad weather hits it's your room or the lobby for undercover entertainment. Or a fairly long dash across the open pool areas to the games room (arcade games of all descriptions) and the indoor gym.

I have stayed in much nicer hotel and resort accommodation.  It was tidy and had we spent lots of time outside at the pool, would probably have seemed a lot better than it actually is.  However, the apartment amenities were just in fair condition and certainly don't deserve to be raved about.  (Nasty weather aside.)
It was the worst place I have ever slept.  Frosted glass doors meant light leakage from everywhere to the extent that I could have almost read in bed without a single light turned on.  No lock on the bathroom door - makes for interesting possibilities should you be sharing the accommodation as we were. The second bedroom sounded like an aircraft hanger when the air-conditioning was turned on and there was an unexplained background droning noise that we couldn't discover the source of too.

So, if tempted to stay here - don't be.  The marketing pictures are beautiful, but the stated costs per night do NOT warrant the quality of facilities provided.  Go to the Sheraton or the Westin in Fiji - they've both been done up in the last few years (one is more modern in style than the other), and on the whole provide a much better quality of experience.  At least they don't promise more than they provide.

Right, that's negative reviewer mode off.  Hope you were all well while we were away.

Holiday Time

This is just a quick note to say that the Oh Waily family will be on holiday from tomorrow until the same time next week.

We are all looking forward to it, and if I have the time and am able to, I will try to drop a short note here. Otherwise, if we do anything other than lie around reading books I will give a full report on our return.

Handy Home Hints - I

Okay, so I'm not Martha Stewart nor Delia Smith.   Normally I don't even venture into the land of handy household hints.  However I caved in to my personal gazingus pin about a week ago and purchased an Australian magazine called Notebook.

I reached the Home Life section and lo and behold there was a little informational section on how to select the best linen and have it last a lifetime.  I won't bore you with tales of thread count, sources of cotton or the ever increasing eco-interest in bamboo alternatives.  What did catch my eye enough to have me re-organising my linen storage was the suggested method of keeping all those pesky fitted and flat sheets together with their pillowcases.

I try, honestly I do. But somehow pillowcases decide that they don't want to stay with their sheets, or their duvet covers.  Sometimes they burrow down below a whole different set and hide amongst the florals and bows.  Don't laugh - I added that for artistic exaggeration - as you will know I am the least flower and bow type person you're likely to meet.

So here are the little gems that I picked up and implemented:

• Three sheet sets are all you need for each bed in the house: one on the bed, one ready and waiting in the cupboard and one in the wash.  The same applies for towels.


• Keep sheet sets tidy by folding one pillowcase and the fitted and flat sheets into a small square the size of half a pillowcase and then slipping them into the remaining pillowcase.  This way, king, queen and even single sets are folded to the same length and width, just a different depth, and can easily be stacked.

Okay don't laugh.  It's simple, it's obvious, but it didn't occur to me to keep everything together in a pillowcase.  I have used the same methodology with our duvet covers and matching pillowcases.  I'm sure it will be a vast improvement over the hit-and-miss storage in a box that I was previously using.  It may even weed out some useless and lonely singletons that should be put to other uses or, better yet, chucked out.

Just so the lovely folk at Notebook don't get the hump with me reproducing this snippet here - here's their website for you to visit and browse.  No doubt there will be lots of other nifty ideas to implement around the house.

And for those of you who may be unfamiliar with the term gazingus pin, let me introduce you to Your Money or Your Life.
The definition of a gazingus pin is:

A gazingus pin is any item that you just can't pass by without buying.

Magazines fell into the gazingus pin category for me pre-YMOYL.  You know how tempting they are at the supermarket checkout - pictures of lithe, sporty women on the fitness magazines; pristine, pretty, tidy rooms on the House and Garden magazines.  How can anyone resist them?
Well, at nearly $10 a  shot now, they have moved into being occasional treats instead. Otherwise the Oh Waily household would be moving inexorably towards bankruptcy and a house full of piles of glossy magazines with tiny winding trails between the stacks.  Ah, to have averted the "old lady's house" syndrome.  ;)