Rhodes and Remarc

It is almost a week since we returned from Lindos now. Needless to say we had a fabulous time as always. Lots of people recognised us, from the people who worked at the apartments, to people who managed restaurants, and even people who had previously been in Lindos while we'd been there before. The weather was excellent too. In the past it has been scorchingly hot for the first week, then in the second it has clouded over and become extremely windy. This time it was extremely hot from start to finish, windy during the night, and utterly cloudless.

Lindos itself has changed a little since our last visit. The apartments have grown again and now have a large and extremely swanky reception building (and a very attractive receptionist!) As for the village, it seems to have become something of a wedding-based theme park as I think we were the only people not connected to a wedding in some way! In the past we have normally seen a couple of wedding parties around the village or the apartments, but this time there must have been queues as every day we saw at least one group of people all dolled up and ready to tie the knot. This meant that the apartments and the village were very busy with large groups of people, hogging sunbeds around the pool, bossing staff around in restaurants (one man was furious that he had turned up at a restaurant, asked for a table for twelve - bear in mind that the restaurants are small - and had been told that he would have to wait. Come on - you're asking for something out of the ordinary, and you are on holiday! Chill out!) and also at the apartments. One woman drove me round the twist one day, ranting and raving that the apartments were called the "Lindos View" and she "assumed every room would have a view of the Acropolis." No, the site has an excellent view of it, but not all of the rooms do (ours did - ha ha). Cue her moaning to a quiet couple that she had seen the room, cried, demanded to be moved, took a room which another couple had specifically requested one year before ("they'll be disappointed" said the rep. "I'm disappointed!" screamed the woman.) These sort of people drive me round the bend, and I really hope they don't spoil Lindos.

Anyway, Monday 12th saw me starting work at Remarc. It has been a good week all told. I sat on a course about XML Web Services (went right over my head) for three days, went over to Leeds on Thursday to see the office (good that I did as I'm there Monday to Wednesday next week on a SQL 2005 course) and spent yesterday in Manchester. The place is fine, the people are nice, the job is the same, and everything seems very well organised - excellent communication, management, and even with about 18 rooms to set up for 130 delegates we were out of there at 6.20 last night. Can't be bad. Think I'm going to like it :-)

Oh, and if you're reading this, a big hello to my mate Jillian Langley (The Jilly Formerly Known As Taylor.) Nice to hear from you again after so long!