Wednesday 18 January 2012

Mair galavanting, Glasgow returned...tardis's, towels and tweeting

Now, you might actually think I do nothing BUT galavant these days, having given up the 'gardening'. But, let me assure you thats not entirely true. However, I am prone to a galavant, that bit is entirely true. I blame my wanderlust blood and Flybe (not the tardis), I mean 15 flights a day from Orkney to elsewhere in Scotland, whats a girl to do but try a few out. I salve my carbon conscious by telling myself I plants trees, tend things 'green and chloroplasty' to suck up my carbon pedi-print  and by recycling everything I possible can (except the children, which I now know by working for our local recycling charity is wrong, you can't recycle children, well not easily or at our site anyway).

I digress - I've been off learning about social media, the two biggies (Facebook (FB) and Twitter), I've learnt that FB is able to keep all you data (did you know that?, I didn't) whether you delete it or not its there forever in a 'virtual filing cabinet' some where clogging up the 'cloud'. I had no idea. That left me a bit perplexed and I learnt a whole heap of stuff about privacy settings and FB algorythms........to get the message (whatever it is) out there.

I've also learnt that 'tweets' are the new language of life and 'retweeting' the new 'recycling'. Whilst I have a twitter account (I entirely blame Kininvie and the gorgeous Linnew for their 'Uncanny Death' adventures,) I have yet to tweet. (most of you will be glad to know my lack of twittering). Its been an interesting few days, very work related and very much some goodly social media and networking tools now grasped and techniques learnt. Thank  you to all teaching and organising the training.

Glasgow now - busy and vibrant. Not a city I've ever really got on with, we've never bonded really, but the architecture is breathtakingly beautiful. I'm lucky, I've met with a few chums, old and and new for lunches and dinners whilst I've been here - the hours off have been jam packed with chatter and grub. A rather lovely meal in Jamie's Italian in George Square and quite reasonable for a starter and a 'small' pasta dish. All ingredients annotated for their origin in Scotland (where relevant) and the staff warmly welcoming and passionate about the food produced there. Worth a visit.

One question though, utterly unrelated to food or social networking or architecture or friends. Actually, two questions.

Firstly I had no idea Glasgow had 'Dr Who' police boxes in the city. I have a photo - and when I get home I'll pop one on here of it. No Dr in sight I have to say but a joy to behold - OK running up and hugging it (above dog pee level) and taking photos of it, may have been a step too far but hey, I'm being a tourist. That really did make me giggle. They really do exist and they are in Glasgow - perhaps he was out adventuring too? Pity we didn't tweet/text/mail and tie in a date in our diary together, shame on him for not thinking of it.

Secondly, I'm in a nice hotel in the centre - although in the middle of the night the revelry of Glasweigans (on a Monday and a Tuesday night, they DO know how to party) from the hours of 1am onwards was a bit of a surprise - but hey ho, live and let live. To be honest its not like I could actually understand a word of all the shouting and laughing that went back and forth. And, gotta love old fashioned single glazed sash windows, you don't lose any of the action through those. You can hear a mouse walking by, or even tiptoe-ing.

Anyway aside the night life - why isn't there an unwritten etiquette or unwritten rule in perfectly nice hotels about your towels? I was here for two nights, I didn't need clean towels each day so like in some more 'chain' hotels I assumed if I hung up (and quite neatly for me) my towels they wouldn't be changed. Bearing in mind I'm not a tidy person, (which would have been demonstrated by the carnage in my room, my bag exploded to fill every nook and cranny), so when I went to moderate effort to hang them up, with the hope of an 'unwritten' understanding that if they weren't on the floor in a heap or in the shower, or cataputled around the room with my belongings - then I didn't want them to be changed. Remember with all this galavanting I'm trying to reduce ever so slightly my carbon foot print. Nope, despite my best folding and efforts - clean towels were mine when I returned from my facebook/tweet training.

Surely a towel in a hotel hung up is a 'please don't change my towel' message? Saves both money and the planet all at once. I'd kinda thought like retweeting being the new reycling, a hung up towel gave a similar 'I'm happy with this one message'? I guess I could 'tweet' them and tag them and tell them of my woes and maybe they'll do something about it. However, I dediced on a more direct approach - I talked to the lady at the desk who says she'll pass it on.

Oh well, maybe one day eh, the towels hung up will be an unwritten green intention, saying, please let me recycle my towels?

[edited in - If anyones interested, (I do like me food!) we had autumnal bruschetta to share (divine), small pasta plates, gorgeous wild ragu pasta plate for my friend and heavenly mussel/chilli linguine and a selection of breads, water and a glass of delicious house white.] YUM YUM YUM Affordable and yummy, lots of local/seasonal produce and lovely atmosphere.

18 comments:

  1. Oh my - all that excitement and glamour on a windy Wednesday morning! Laughing at your exploding bags in hotel rooms. I think it is an part of the service - you know, like those tea trays and trouser presses, some mysterious ray causes belongings to festoon themselves around the room.
    Glad you had a good time. I must look for you and twitter now.xx

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    1. Barefoot - windy or what - ferries cancelled, flights got home OK, but my oh my was it windy!!!!!

      I love the ray idea - I have one at home, for every room. Must have taken it with me.

      But, I have to say glamour and excitement, hmm, no not guilty. I look like a fish out of water in a city - too many people, too many cars, too much everything, dip in and dip out is OK though.

      :)

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  2. whats all this about a date with Dr Who?
    i do read this and have feelings you know!

    Yours Jelously,

    Mr F

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    1. Darling given I have my own 'amy pond' lookie likie at home, I'm sure that the good Dr would feel very at home up here in Orkney. Pity our diaries didn't match up.

      I know you have feelings, I just like messing with them :) and checking you are actually reading, I thought you'd be more likely to ask what I ate when out ...............!

      Yours

      Mrs F

      Ps can't wait til that name change thing comes through.......

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  3. Love reading your posts! You have such a great way of writing. Hope your chat with the hotel staff makes a difference, I also thought this was now pretty universal... well we can still change a few things out there :-). Glad the training was good, it will benefit OZ no doubt. Hopefully see you soon x

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    1. Hey hello you, that baby not out yet???? I hope they appear soon! I think the hotel lady got what I was saying, so hopefully they might change their policy - a lovely place and a lovely trip away. Thank you for the lovely compliment, blogging only started when I just couldn't bear to write, now you can hardly shut me up, just like in real life. xx Nice to see you on here :) and thanks for the compliments!

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  4. Your nocturnal disturbance reminded me of a stay in a hotel in Devon. It was a beautiful place, great food and a lovely town but our room was about a foot from the road. The sash windows did nothing to block the traffic noise (the town really needed a bypass). In fact everything would shake if a truck went past. But worse was being woken at 2 am by the drunken singing of Angels by a bunch of blokes on the way back from the pub.They even stopped just below our window so we didn't miss any of it. Then we were woken at 4 by the milkman and then the trucks started coming through again by 6am!!!!

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    1. Ah the sleepy and the revellers will always find a way to find each other like peedie magnets. Mines was a similar experience, although a bit more Glaswegian in essence - the phrase 'You dinnae know me' was uttered at volume several times - I wanted to assure him I did not indeed know him, but I fear it may not have ended well. Poor you with all that singing, all I had was the thud thud thud of techno music or whatever they call this modern dance music stuff.

      Why do hotels never turn out to be places of rest and respite they'd love to be????!!!

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  5. You're not the only one. I read most of this post wondering what FB stood for.

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    1. Oh I'm sorry, the acronyms we've used over the passed couple days, I didn't mean to use them on here! I promise I'll change it!

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  6. Hello Orkneyflower, Just to say how much I'm enjoying your blog, your writing and your humour. I found you when looking through Pamela Terry's blogroll (her blog is From the House of Edward). I hope you don't mind, but I have recommended you for a Liebster Award, aimed at those blogs with less than 200 followers, which merit a wider readership. If you would like to collect your award, please just go to my site (Writing Home) and click and copy the image. Then you have the pleasure (if you want) of passing it on to five more blogs of your choice. I very much look forward to your future posts. Cheers Sue

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    1. Hello suej - thank you very much how very kind, I've been given this award before - but if you're happy for me to have it I'll compose a proper 'who to pass it on to award acceptace blog' which Janet would also be proud of (I've been trying to write one and get stuck - feels a bit strange (in a humble way) to get an award! I started blogging to help my dyslexia and help me to get over a fear of writing, so your kindness really does leave me without words. Thank you. I'll pop over to your site in a bit. Thank you for reading.

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    2. PS I don't mean to be humourous - it just sort of bites me in the bottom, like stalker or accidental humour - in real life I've no sense of humour and am very serious..........aside the socks. Life's just too short for serious socks.

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  7. what a great story of your trip to Glasgow. can you recommend the hotel you stayed in? i'm always curious about good places to stay. i like your thinking about the towels. i find it interesting that shows i watched as a child like Dr. Who and Star Trek are still around. i would be dating myself to say what decade i watched them but it was a significant long time ago. :) your meal sounds scrumpious. the thought of autumnal bruschetta makes my mouth water. if you decide to start tweeting, please can you let us know what your @name is? thanks!

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    1. I can recommend it from a central point of view and cleanliness etc and friendliness, but it was noisy from 11pm- until the wee small hours and I don't think that would change.............it was in the Merchant City area - a few streets away from George square.

      I love the old shows and my children love them too!

      My @ name is the same as my name on here! But I've not tweeted and am unlikely to, but never say never.......
      Meal was very, very good and affordable, highly recommend!

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  8. Hello you! Yep, I thought towels not-on-the-floor was code for "don't give me new towels" ... isn't is amazing that people still spend resources and money on things that we absolutely don't need?

    Mind you, noise in hotels ... I was kept awake by a thumping techno beat years ago, actually complained to the manager, and when the staff member came up, he couldn't hear it. I do wonder now if he was telling porkies, but it was very odd ...

    And now you're all techy and up to date with the vibe! Eek! :)

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  9. I thought so too Jan! I didn't grab anyone up to listen to the noise, but I'm sure they couldn't have disputed it!!

    Don't worry I don't think we'll be 'tweeting' any day soon...............life's far too busy for getting to grips with that too at the moment!

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  10. I'm flattered that the desire to keep up with the intensely creative Uncanny Death has led you to Twitter... I don't believe this 'no tweeting' lark. How can a self-confessed chatterbox resist? You can find my non-authorial persona at @DoctorSlop (mostly gardening and politics)

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