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 […]
With a Little Help From my Friends
So how do we top our last thrilling blog post with talk of breakfast from Greggs on The Nook? Well first lets recap.. We mentioned a family who had travelled from the other side of the world. New Zealand to be precise. They needed a place to stay in an emergency. The accommodation originally booked for them […]
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 […]
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 […]
Necessary Evil Versus the Power of Social Media
Until the last year or so I have been busy building our small family business up. Literally almost brick by brick. But not quite! We’ve went from 2-3 places to 8-9, 250 miles apart in the last 2 years or so. Make that 258! South Shields to Aberdeen, a trip I’ve made a hundreds of […]
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 […]
North East England Local Lockdown
There are new restrictions in place for South Tyneside as of today. South Shields earlier this summer on our family holidays This is what these restrictions mean for our self catering business and our great guests: – Residents and visitors to the area are only able to socialise with those from the same household or support […]
Sunday Afternoon Family Walk
This afternoon, well yesterday but you know what I mean, I managed to drag my teenage son and daughter out for a walk. I wanted to head into the highlands, or maybe along Deeside but the script from my daughter was to “walk into town.” So given that she accompanied me for a wee trip […]
Fox and Matilda’s Home from Home
These 2 little bundles of energy are called Fox and Matilda! Do you want to hear their story? Fox and Matilda enjoying a wee picnic in our back garden after the intense heat of Houston it must feel such a releif to be exploring outdoors! Well the story starts when Sonny, Lola and myself were […]
Staycations
The reintroduction of the quarantine rule for Spain has reinforced that STAYCAYTIONS are the way forward for UK holiday makers for the foreseeable future. Who needs to go abroad when we are blessed to live on such an island so rich in natural beauty? We have so much to discover right here on our doorstep. […]