South Tyneside Self Catering at it’s finest
It’s been a tough year for us all. And as many know the hospitality industry has been hit hard by lack of travel. So we’ve been busy keeping our heads above water. Improving our existing places and setting up 4 new ones since lockdown started! Quite a feat. And we’ve been busy telling you the […]
Property Wisdom – One in One Out
People say to me “I don’t know how you do it.” “You never stop” “You need to learn how to chill out” Well, I’ve finally found the solution. Wisdom teeth extraction! Last Friday I got mine taken out. Well my two left ones. By a current guest of ours. But he is a dentist! He […]
An Old School House
After reading our last blog post just over a week ago an old school friend of mine of over 30 years got in touch. Our South Shields self catering places were doing well. Really well. We’d been fully booked for weeks. And with Boris allowing the nation out to play we are expecting a boom of staycations. […]
Hospitality Engineering
I got asked if I wanted to do the Safety Engineering on a Scottish Space Centre yesterday. I kid you not! A guy I worked with 20 years ago in my first job in Aberdeen first contacted me 2 years ago about it on LinkedIn. Before I did my masters in Safety Engineering I worked […]
Landlords: We need your properties!
Hi everyone, just a short and sweet one today from me! What a lovely message from our newest owner last night. We’ve managed her place in Aberdeen after a few minor improvements we made since last summer and as you can see she is delighted with the arrangement. We are expecting a large booking in […]
South Shields Guide: Where next? You choose!
Who recognises this view? I do. The KILLER Marsden Bank! If you’ve ever done the Great North Run (worlds biggest half marathon) you’ll know as the final mile of so is after this killer bank! If you know you know… We’ve been busy today working on our properties so haven’t got round to wiring our […]
South Shields Guide: Littlehaven Beach
For todays blog I have done a straw man structure, hoping to provoke some comments and discussion and will flesh it out a bit more tomorrow before adding it to our South Shields guide on our website. Input welcome. I’m not really sure where to start with Littlehaven Beach (sorry ‘little beach’ guys, it’s what […]
Our South Shields Guide: Introduction
Although we cannot take leisure guests right now due to the lockdown, this is the start of our South Shields guide for inclusion in our new website so we aim to issue a blog a day this until the guide is complete. It is being prepared to give our guests, and anyone else we can […]
Survival, Separation and Soften up
Well we are out of the old year and into the new. The quasi respite of the festive period is gone and it is back to this new constantly changing norm. The restrictions are becoming tougher again. In Aberdeen, Scotland anyway where I now call home. Where I live, and where my 2 teenage kids […]
Aberdeen City Winter Woodland Walk
During the first lockdown, like many we slowed down. My kids decided to start spending half their time with me which we still do. We bonded more. And much of that was done in our family walks round our local area. The COVID rules were that we couldn’t leave the house apart from essential reasons […]
Togetherness
This is a story about togetherness, Christmas and community spirit. Right here. In the heart of a hard working class town in the the North East of England. A special town. That is called South Shields. But it could equally have been Aberdeen! Which, despite some of the negative stories, a spirit which remains stronger […]
Thanks South Shields and Aberdeen
Great news folks! Our overseas guests who over for a training course made it to the UK today. Despite the flight closures which started earlier in the week. So ALL of our South Shields self catering places are helping guests who are in the area. For work or training over the next few weeks and […]
COVID Levels and Guidance for Aberdeen and South Shields – our interpretation and application
Background: We have had some, let’s just say ‘unusual’ booking enquiries recently. Or to use a good Aberdonian phrase folk who are ‘at it.’ A 2 week enquiry to have some ‘time out over the Christmas period’ which then turned into ‘take it for 1 month and if my work is longer will take it […]
Fish, Chips and Saveloy Dips!
How is everyone? I hope you are all well and managing to stay sane throughout the craziness. Wow! It’s been a whopping 11 weeks since our last update. We’re the world worst spammers! At the start of September (how long ago does that seem now?!) it was my birthday, it is every year! So I […]
22/9/20 Update
Well since the weekend when I wrote our last update we’ve received the first batch of photos from Adam and they are GREAT! We took more photos today, and a video walk though of all of the places so can wait to see and share them with you all. The vote to help us choose our […]