The Birds

Argghhhh. Word press has changed the dash board. I can’t find anything. Maybe though it is my fault really. I should come here more often.

So what has been happening in the world of Ginnie’s since I last posted? Well, quite a bit really but not a lot to see. I have spent a bit of time doing some of those odd jobs that get put on the list to be done with Ron. You know him, Later Ron. Well Later Ron’s sergeant at arms caught up with me (Kim actually) shoved a sheaf (yes it was more than one sheet) of paper at me and said “Would you be so sweet as to attend to the jobs on this list please, my darling” which I interpreted more acurately as “If you don’t do these jobs now you’re going to be in deep trouble”. So the wobbly wall between Ginnie’s and our neighbours has gone and a new fence put there instead. Actually I’ve never liked the  wall and always wanted it removing. It was one of those decorative concrete block walls. You can just see the top of it in the picture on this blog page. I have also tiled the porch floor and repainted the bottom of the frontage.

Other jobs inside have been done, the sticking lock to the back door etc.

When I took the block wall down at the front Ken, my father in law, who has started coming over each week the help with the garden suggested he could bury the blocks in the garden along the lawn edging. It’s either got to be an age thing or a cultural thing but Ken does like to bury things. When I first bought Ginnie’s from Ken and started working on the garden I found allsorts buried there including a bath. Ok so he had made it into a fish pond but that and the tiles and bricks etc, I had a skip full of rubbish buried in the back garden to get rid of. So when it came to the blocks I quickly managed to off load them to a neighbour who used them as crushed hardcore for is new garage base, before Ken could get his shovel out.

We have also added a bird feeding stand in the garden by the dining room window. Kim refers to it as a cat feeding station, but then she does have an evil sense of humour. So far our cats haven’t managed to get into that bit of the garden and get the birds. Guests can sit and watch the birds feeding and fighting. Well mainly fighting judging by the displays I’ve stood and watched.  Who would have thought that a few seeds in a ball of fat and some bits of bacon rind could cause such frenzy.

I’ve yet to get a bird identification book but so far we have had tree sparrows, blue tits, a robin, a male bullfinch, a couple of starling and a whacking great pidgeon that nearly had the stand over.

I’ve probably mentioned before that I am chair of a group called cleethorpestourism.com This is a group of guest houses, hotels and self catering accommodation. We have got together to help promote ourselves and Cleethorpes as a tourist destination. The main criteria of joining the group is the accommodation providers must be independently inspected for quality. This is either by Enjoy England (English Tourist Board) or the AA. Ginnie’s is inspected by Enjoy England and rated a 3 star guest house. While we at Ginnie’s would like you to come and stay with us, we understand that sometimes you would want to visit Cleethorpes but Ginnie’s is already full. We wouldn’t want you to miss out on the delights of Cleethorpes but would only recommend places, in the first instance that are members of our group. In this way we can ensure that the quality of accommodation would be met. After that we would only recommend places that are star rated.

Look out for Cleethorpestourism.com member’s places. they can be identified by this logo.

We also have a group Facebook page Cleethorpes Tourism Ginnie’s face book page which you will find here is friended with Cleethorpes Tourism so we can swop pictures and info. Although this may also find its way onto Facebook because I remember somewhere clicking something about linking WordPress and Facebook. To be honest most of it goes over my head. I just click things and hope for the best.

I promise to try to come back soon with any other interesting bits. In the meantime please feel free to make comment.

Kim’s Birthday

Crikey where do the time go? Ok, so it is not secret that I sometime lose thing but I usually find them eventually but to lose nearly 2 month has got to be my best yet. All I cn say is I’ve not been idle. Yeah I’ve been accused of skiving a couple of time. Last Sunday for instance Kim accused me of skiving not less than 3 times.

To put the story staight on the skiving I must explain that Kim turned 50 last Tuesday. Yeah it came as surprise to me as well. I thought she was only 40. I did think it was a bit odd that we have been married 30 years, but then I’ve never been very good with numbers. Anyway to celebrate her birthday and do all the surprise things you do for someone you love I had some arranging to do. Hence the reason why I had to put up with the grumbling of ‘just going off for a skive are you’ I did however remind her of the skiving comments as we sat eating our meal at the wonderful Michelin star rated The Yorke Arms

im really enjoyed her birthday treat. If you look on the Yorke Arms website our room was the one with the four poster bed. It was a top notch room, but I did think it odd to find a small plastic torch on the bedside table. I didn’t think it such an odd thing when I wlked into the bathroom door in the middle of the night. I hadn’t wanted to wake Kim by putting the light on. The loud crashand my rolling aboutthe floor managed much more affectively what any electric light could do..

Commenting to the manager, when I was paying the bill, that I thought the torch was a good idea and pity I didn’t use it. He said it was there case of power cuts. Being in the middle of nowhere in the Nidderdale valley powercuts are something the local people have learned to live with.

To break up our journey north we came across Mother Shiptons’ caveand decided on giving it a visit. What an extraordinary place and a wonderful place to visit.

objects being petrified. Or to put is more correctly calcified

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There has been plenty happening in the resort over the last 2 months, Hence the reason why I have not had much time for the blog. However I have been posting bits on Facebook You can find photos on Ginnie’s Guest House or Visit Cleethorpes Face book pages

A Greener Ginnie’s pt. 2

Got home last Wednesday (6th July) night after an evening at the Barton Bike Night, to find a message from Wil-Lec “coming to fit your solar panels tomorrow”

By teatime we were nearly there. Friday morning and we were generating electricity. I’ve just looked at the control box and in 25 hours of generaring time we’ve produced over 11KW. What that means I’ve no idea but it all sounds jolly interesting. Whatever it means Ginnie’s is doing its bit to save the planet and that can’t be a bad thing.

The guys did a great job and despite having to work in the cramped cupboard with the meter and get a cable from the back of the house to the meter they did it with very little mess and only a small amount of redecorating.

Tomatoes part 2

Yeah I said I wasn’t going to blether on about my tomatoes this year, but I must say something about to ones kindly given to me. A few weeks ago we had a family stay with us. They were winners of the Best of Britain and Ireland expo (BoBI expo) holiday competition offered by the North East Lincolnshire council. A bit of a mouthful I know. Ginnie’s offered the accommodation as part of the competition. The Troubridge family were the winners d had a great time in Cleethorpes for a few days. Mrs Troubridge is something of an afficion of tomato. She’d also read my posts on the progress of my tomatoes. Thus the family turned up with 3 fine specimens as a present for me. At the moment they are doing well and I will definately post some pictures when they start to fruit.

Still awaiting on the start of the PV panels being installed and with the price of electricity seemingly to be going up in price every day they can’t come soon enough really. In fact if we haven’t heard anything by the end of next week I think it will be time to start asking questions.

Scooter rally and Jazz festival this weekend so we are going to be really busy. I still haven’t got my head round the thinking of the organisers of the Jazz Festival. The scooter people have had this particular weekend for the last 10 years or so. Why the Jazz festival organisers have chosen the same weekend for the 2nd year is beyond me. They lost out in numbers last year because all the accommodation had already been taken up by the scooter fans months previous. I did point this out to Jazz organisers after last years fiasco and again this year. As the Jazz festival is an inside event it is not as though they are dependant on the weather, so anybody got any ideas don’t let me know try contacting the organisers of the Cleethorpes Jazz Festival and see if you can make any sense of it. Having said that I hope it is a success. I went last year and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Last Sunday there was a Blues Festival Walter Trout was the headline act but as far as I’m concerned the star of the day was Chantel McGregor

This young lass is a phenomenal guitarist and with luck on her side should go far

A Greener Ginnie’s

So what is a greener Ginnie’s all about. Well its certainly not envy at all those 4 star accommodation providers. Yes we would like to hang a 4 star plaque outside. We have been told by the accrediting body that it is not because of the standards of luxury that we provide but mainly due to the structure of the building, something we cannot really do anything about. So we are proud of out 3 star rating and do the best we can to provide a 4 star greeting and stay for all our guests.

So back to the greener Ginnie’s. For those of you who have read our webpage and previous postings will know that in April 2009 we had solar panels installed for the hot water. We have now decided to go one better and have ordered PV solar panels. They are photovoltaic panels that produce electricity. That doesn’t mean we will get cheaper electricity or that we can go mad using it. Yes some of what we produce will be used by us and will be free and the surplus will go to the national grid who will pay us. This way we offset the cost off the panels by what we sell. However the big plus is that while we are using the power from the panels we are not burning fossil fuels to produce electricity which really is what it is about.Ginnie’s ecowarriors to the end.

The panels have been ordered and as soon as the techy guys come to install them I’ll let you know about the progress.

 

Forth coming events to look out for: Check these out on co.uk” href=”http://www.visitcleethorpes.co.uk/events.html” target=”_blank”>www.visitcleethorpes.co.uk

A good one to look out for is the 1940s weekend  at the Kingsway Kiosk June 11th – 12th: The weekend will feature Marliana Rube (40’s singer), a musician playing George Formby hits, JJ’s East Coast Swing Dance troupe, some vintage military vehicles and re-enactors of the U.S. 101st Airborne. Andy also welcomes those that dress in period costume. So if you fancy getting dressed up then go for it. In my case I think most of my wardrobe came from the 40s anyway so no change for me.

Unusual Visitor

Last weekend we had an ususual visitor to Ginnie’s. All of our visitors are idividuals and are a constant source of interest. People come to Cleethorpes for many reasons but I’ve never had one set up a rest place in the back garden. I should explain that this visitor was a pigeon. He seemed healthy enough. He just didn’t want to fly. I picked him up and he seemed tame. He certainly didn’t try to peck me or anything. On his leg was a ring with numbers and the letters HAR. A quick search on the internet gave me the number of the local pigeon flying club and a phone call connected me with the chairman of the club, a Mr Andrews. He readily offered to come and collect the bird. When Mr Andrews arrive he examined the bird and told us that the reason it couldn’t fly was becuase it was exhausted. The strong winds we were having that day must have really taken it out of the poor thing. Even more surprising was the fact that the details on the ring told Mr Andrews that the bird came form Hartlepool, some 150 miles away. The bird was very lucky to have stopped down in Ginnie’s. If  he had chosen one of the houses either side he would have had to face the dogs and not being able to fly I wouldn’t have given it much chance. I just hope he gets back to his owner safely.

Easter Greetings

Confession time. I got a telling off from Kim. Mind you she was laughing at the time so I think I got away with it. A little girl, staying with us, proudly showed me her new toy. It was a pink My Little Pony. “Lovely”, I said to her. “Are you going to save up and buy the My Little Pony Abbatoir set?” Shrieks of laughter from the guests in the dining room. Kim gave me her ‘oh you’ll pay for that look’ and said “In the kitchen before you cause any more trouble”. Nothing has happened yet which is making me nervous. Oh dear, what is going to be the payback.

NE Lincs MAG (Motorcycle Action Group) group had their annual Easter Egg run to local hospital. Quite a spectacle of bikes passing the guest house this morning. I hope they had a good collection. I’ll find out in a couple of weeks at the next meeting.

Room 4 Pictures

Yeah, I know I said I would post some pictures. The truth is I well, er, lost them.

I searched and even got to the point where I wasn’t sure that I had taken pictures. Then quite unexpectedly, while looking for some other pictures that had got lost (bit of a theme developing there don’t you think) I came upon them labeled as something else. Thats the problem with computers and storing things on them. At least with the old photo paper, printed pictures went in a box and got lost in the attic and all you needed to do was search through hundreds of wallets of photos, taking hours and hours and having to explain to the children why every picture you are in pre children you have a drink in your hand.  (Which is different to pictures post children where you have a drink in each hand ) With computers you need to remember the file name and no one labels them “These are the pictures what I took of room 4 and needs to be saved to upload them to the blog” No. you try to be clever and label them “GGHR4BR” which after a few weeks you can’t remember what it means and think it is some spam rubbish that has got downloaded to your computer and you daren’t open it in case it spreads a virus through your computer and kills it. (even though you have a state of the art virus programme that won’t even open things if it decides it doesn’t like the colour of it and gives you big warning signs all over the screen and when you do try to open the file repeats the warning several times before asking if you want 50/50 or to phone  friend. Then sulkily opens its for you to find someone is only trying to sell you genuine Russian Rolex watches.

Anyway I’m sure you will agree that room 4 is looking lovely. Those who have already stayed with us in room 4 have commented how nice it is. So without further ado (you’ll have to do your own drum roll, but don’t do it on the computer keyboard)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cuban Delights

If you can’t make it to Cleethorpes for a holiday this year, then I recommend you give Cuba a go. Kim and I have to take our annual holiday in the low season. Obviously we have to be at Ginnie’s during the British summer to look after you good people staying with us and Visiting Cleethorpes. So with that in mine we look for the winter sun. Long haul is a bit of a drag, 10 hours flight.

Without a doubt Cuba is the best place I have visited. I would recommend having a few days stay over in Havana rather than the day visit. There is so much to see, a mixture of old, new and outright dilapidation, but the people are so friendly and seem happy with their lot.

We stayed in the Hotel Nacional De Cuba. Pre the revolution this was the top hotel in Havana and in fact Cuba. It was frequented by many famous people, most of the American presidents during the time had stayed there and it was a favourite place for the Mafia members to meet. Apart from the accoutrements of 21st century living (internet cafe etc) the hotel in pretty much as it was when opened in the 1930s, with the exception of the underground missile shelters, a legacy of the Cuban/American missile crisis in the 60s. 

With the anti American issue to mind, I did have one worrying moment on entering the country. Quite without thinking it through I chose to wear, while in England, (very cold as you all know) my Harley Davidson sweatshirt. I chose this because it was warm and England was cold at the time of leaving. The faux pas was pointed out to me by a fellow passenger. “not to worry” I said, “it is easily removed, folded and carried” It was at this juncture I rememberd I was wearing my Orange County Choppers Tee Shirt, oops. To make matters even worse I my handluggae bag had a logo from Wyoming Services Pensville. Well done Francis. I had images of me spending the rest of my life in a Cuban gaol. They didn’t even bat an eyelid. They just stamped my passport and ushered me through.

Travelling in Havana is really cool. You can use the bus. Walking is grea and quite safe despite what some scaremongers might tell you. However the best way is either by one of the old taxis, They have cars that old in England they would be in a museum. We took a Chevrolet Impala that was older than me, but certainly seemed to be moving better than me. The other way to travel is by Coco taxi. This is basically a 3 wheeled motorcycle with a plastic eggshell round it and driven by people who are most certainly certifiably insane. But what a way to travel, the adrenalin buzz it much better that a tin of Red Bull any day. 

Of course its now back to reality, 25 degrees when we boarded the plane in Cuba. It was minus 5 degrees when we landed at Manchester brrrrrr…

Ah well on with the coming season in Cleethorpes and the hope we have a good hot summer to I can keep the tan I brough back with me.

Room 4 will go live next week

So after quite a few weeks of hard graft the end is in sight. John will finish the paperhanging by Tuesda, the caroets are being fitted on Friday. So that leaves a mad panic over the weekend to get tidied and the furniture put back. Of course it’s been a bit slack ater the new year as always. Sometimes it is good to have a break butnow we need to hit the floor running and start taking prders for the coming weeks.

Bit of a surprise last week.A report from the Cleethorpes Chronicle rang me, nforming me that the council were to begin cutting back the sea grass the following morning, Thursday also being the publication day for the Cleethorpes Chronicle and would I like to give them a quote. For those that don’t know I have been quite vociferous in the local rags regarding the sea grass and the damage it could potentially do to the local economy. While at the same time being something of a nature lover I couldn’tsee why the grass couldn’t be managed and stoppped growing along the pleasure beach. As all who have visited this wonderful town will know we have a beautiful beach, clean and safe for children to play on (providing parents keep a watchful eye on them). I did duly give them a quote but was more surprised to see they actuall put a picture of me on the front page. I can’t imagine where they got the photo from, for a start I am smiling and my hair doesn’t look a wreck. However i am certainly glad that the 5 years of wrangling have paid off and the sea grass is to be kept off the beach area.salt marsh article002