Sorting things out...

My Mum and Dad were going away for the weekend to Bournemouth this morning and had to be in town for 7.30am to meet the coach that was taking them there. I got up with Keith at 5am and helped him "encourage" Mike to get ready for work and while they were gone I showered as I was going straight to work after we'd dropped them off.

They were all ready when we arrived so we put their luggage in the back of my car and set off for Northampton in the dark. I still can't get used to these pitch-black mornings! We waited with them until almost 7.30am but I was worried about getting to work on time so we had to leave them there, but there were quite a few other people also waiting for the coach, so that made me feel a bit better!

As it turned out, I was early for work and Mum called me at 7.50am to say the coach still hadn't arrived! As she was talking to me it turned up but it rather set the tone for the weekend...

Work was busy as Kathy and I tried to sort out the bookings I'd been looking at the day before. I'd had to list all the various "outdoor" bookings we take care of and sorting it out took up most of the shift!

Keith picked me up at 2pm and we collected Mike from work. Back home the phone rang and it was my Mum to say that she hated the hotel room as it was poky, smelly and dingy. I told her to go down to Reception and complain and ask for another room, which she did, with little success. She called back in tears so I phoned the telephone number of the hotel chain and managed to get through to a woman who was in charge. I explained that my parents weren't happy and that they'd been looking forward to their break after all the health problems they'd been having and that I wasn't having my Mum phone me in tears.

I think she put the phone down on me, but when I called my Mum back I could hear the telephone in the room ringing and after half an hour it was all sorted out and they were in a better room. My Mum seemed a lot happier but she said that they'd never go back to that hotel! I did ask whether she'd looked at the reviews on Trip Advisor (as I had) and she hadn't...!

My Friday evening was relaxing and the three of us (Mike was out) enjoyed a Tesco Chinese which certainly wasn't as good as I'd been expecting. It did mean that we didn't have to cook, though!