Hotel 'Chez Grandma'...the best so far!

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Hey hey guys,
Well this blog comes from the South Coast of the U.K and as you can guess I'm living the life of luxury at Hotel 'Chez Grandma'...and let me tell you, this hotel is GREAT! Grandma and Ron, the proprieters, are amazing hosts, the hotel comes with complimentary accomodation including three square meals plus unlimited tea and coffee with a side of biscuits and/or cake. There are always options for lighter meals if you want but there is no judgement if you say eat just a salad for lunch and then wash down 15 cadbury roses chocolates with a cup of tea afterwards! Additionally, the hotel offers a free Taxi service including free pickup and delivery to all major airports and bus terminals and even the gym - and if you book in advance Grandma is even available to come as a personal shopper (and bag carrier which I don't like her doing but she insists she carries the bags so that I am free to look around and try the clothes on!) for the day as long you buy her a cup of tea around the 4 o'clock mark. There is free internet facilities and they even have cable here ...I would say that whilst New York and Paris were fabulous nothing comes close to the comforts offered at this hotel! My days are spent here going for a run or heading to the gym then doing morning tea followed quickly by lunch and then afternoon tea, maybe a nap and then dinner...DIVINE!
Grandma are Ron are based in Christchurch, the closest big town is Bournbemouth which is pretty famous for being full of old people...and yes, it';s true, the entire area is full of old people but it's great because they're so nice, never in a rush and they always so happy to chat to you. Grandmas friend goes to a local gym and somehow she managed to scam me a free week here so I've been going there and it's amazing...some old dude about 85 years old took my running machine whilst I popped to the bathroom but the guy dead set ran a marathon on the thing so I had to kinda forgive him for taking the machine...this was serious business for him! Whilst I was sweating there on the machine behind him I watched as he sprinted through about 40 minutes hardly raising a sweat which was quite embarassing if you compared my effort which consisted on jogging at a slow pace, body heaving and wheezing praying for the time to be up whilst taking cheeky breaks to 'fill up my water bottle' after each sip! The only thing about working out in a gym which consists of mainly old people is it's VERY scary in the changing room with lots of old ladies in their underwear...I feel I may need to have a session or two with a ' therapy professional' when I return back to OZ just in case the experience has affected me in some way I'm not yet aware of. Old people like to talk about their health alot so I would find myself standing next to a few blue rinses talking about their day in the change room in their enormous skin coloured bras and undies having conversations like 'ooooh yes Vivien it's been the palpatations this week and last week me hip was playing up...' which are perfectly ok conversations to have, I only wish they would get fully dressed before they started them! The good thing is that, as opposed to running and working out somewhere like Bondi where all the beautiful people are, you get to be the youngest in there by about 40 years and whatever you look like, trust me, when you're standing next to the ladies in their undies ...you are HOT!
Mr Wallace and I arrived in London after Rome where we were picked up by my London based Uncle known as Ants. He is the proprieter of Hotel 'Chez Ants' which is also a fabulous Hotel when considering staying in London. It too has a full fridge, internet and offers free taxi and transfer services for even the horrendous fly in at midnight flights (thanks Ants!!) and it also offers a free social service whereby dinner bookings are made for you. We took full advantage of the hotels facilities after we landed as Wal had to head to Chile to following day. We did our washing (fun stuff huh??!!) which took ages as we had so much stuff to wash...like all of it! And then headed out for a drink and bite to eat in his local area of Ealing with Ants, Wal and my mate Andy. This was great but we ened up having a pretty big night...it's been a while since I've drunk pints! But as usual hotel Chez Ants came out with the good as there was a massive fry up the next day before the transfer service dropped as at Heathrow. Saying goodbye to Wal was a bit hard but I think he was grateful my tears weren't because I was skiing down a black run! So we said goodbye for about 6 weeks until he gets back to Oz in early April. Poor guy though, we had checked his stuff in slightly earlier and when he got to Chile they had lost his bags! He was in clothes like jeans, boots, jumpers and jackets and it was close to 30 degrees...noice! I was super peeved if for nothing else because we had spent the entire day before washing all of his stuff to take to Chile - had we known this was going to happened we could have spent the day in the pub and I could have taken my stuff down to Grandmas to wash there! Anyway, his mate Roland met him yesterday and had bought some gear from Aus so all is not lost and I'm sure as we speak he's catching great waves and loving it. I hadn't realised quite how much Grandma had taken to Wal...usually when I'm out here she buys me little things and spoils me...but not this time! I'm sitting looking at a book about surfing in the west coast of the u.k that Grandma has bought for Wal so I'll be lugging that one back to Aus for him! You're in Wal, you're in!
So off to London On Saturday for a few days to see some of the crew including Andy, Stace, Jez, Jax and of course Miss Evie and then catching a flight home on Wednesday morning to arrive on Friday the 14th....looking forward to catching up with all when I'm back and having a few tasty beverages of course!
Stay safe, much love
G

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