Spain, Cranes and Expensive Broadband!

I had a very welcome 10 days in Spain, a place called Mojacar to be exact. It's about a 1 hour drive up from Almeria airport.

We rented an apartment in the village (not the strip by the beach) which was approx 2km from the beach. We found this online and were instructed to meet our British contact at a petrol garage. I did have the odd thought that said contact would not be there, but he duly turned up on time and took us up to the apartment, saving me lots of explaining in the process!

The village was very impressive as it is actually built into a mountain.

See here:

Mountain View

Balcony View

And don't laugh:

On The Beach

Loads of Tapas, sitting by the pool, reading many neglected books.

The perfect holiday!

I'd been back to work for only a few days and we (Graeme and I) were off to Bristol for the British Association of Oral Surgeons Annual Conference.

Graeme Urwin

We popped in to see Chris Barrow's newsletter editor (amongst other things) Alun Rees in Cheltenham on the way down. A great night in the local Italian.

A word on Bristol. It's been a few years since I'd been there, but from what I recall there was a lot of building work going on and lots of cranes.

Well, they're still there!

Apparently they're building a new shopping centre in the middle of town. I do think it'll be impressive when it's all done though.

We stayed at The Marriott, Bristol City Centre.

The staff really looked after us very well and as far as I could tell, the conference was a great success as well.

I have to comment on the internet charges though.

Condisering we were paying a tidy sum for our rooms, to be told that wireless access in my room would cost £15 for 24 hours seemed a bit steep. I did try and negotiate a lower rate but the manager was unwilling to budge. A black mark on The Marriott.

Especially when you consider that many of us are probably paying £15-30 per MONTH for broadband!