It’s been three months since I returned from my trip to the Middle East for work, and despite promising to write something about it upon my return, I never got around to it.
So, rather belatedly, this is the first of a series of blog posts about my trip. For security reasons, I didn’t write publicly about my destinations ahead of time, but here are the places that I visited:
Amman, the capital of Jordan
Muscat, the capital of Oman
Salalah, another city in the south of Oman
I also passed through airports in Dubai and Bahrain on the way. My flights to and from Manchester were with Emirates, and the flights between Amman and Muscat were with Gulf Air who is Bahrain’s flag carrier.
Tomorrow we’re off to the Trafford Centre to buy a washing machine. You may wonder why we’re travelling all the way to the far side of Manchester for something that we could buy more easily locally. As it happens, we have loads of John Lewis gift vouchers left over from our wedding, plus some more from completing online surveys from Valued Opinions and Ipsos i-Say, so in all it’ll work out cheaper. And we’ll be making a day of it.
Because we don’t drive, we’ll be taking public transport – a train to Manchester, and then a bus, as the trams haven’t made it that far yet. In all, this would normally cost around £30 – £21 for return train tickets and around £8-10 for the bus tickets. But, by combining discounts, we got the lot for £12. Here’s how:
Two Together Railcard
Because Christine and I travel together by train a lot, we have a Two Together railcard, which means we get a third off almost all train fares provided we buy the tickets at the same time and travel together. It costs £30 a year, although there are plenty of discount codes bringing it down to £27, and you can exchange Tesco Clubcard vouchers for one as well.
It’s one of the newer railcards, having been launched last year, and we’re on our second card. We got our money’s worth on one journey alone, when we went to Nottingham, and use it regularly.
Advance purchase tickets
Northern Rail, who operate the trains between us and Manchester, have only recently introduced discounted advanced purchase tickets on some routes. If bought before 6pm the previous day, you can get a significant discount on the cost of tickets versus buying them on the day. By buying advanced purchase tickets with our railcard, we got the price of our train travel down from £21 to £8 – not bad.
Plusbus
Plusbus is a not particularly well-known add-on for train tickets, that allows you to purchase discounted bus travel at your destination. You buy it as part as of the same transaction as your train tickets, and it essentially gives you unlimited bus travel at your destination for one day, on participating routes and operators.
I’ll be honest – this weekend will be the first time we’ll be using it, and I’m still not 100% convinced that it will be accepted on the buses that run between Manchester city centre and the Trafford Centre. But, it only cost an additional £2 per ticket, thanks to a special offer that is only running this month, so if it doesn’t then we’re only out of pocket by £4.
Additional discounts
We bought the tickets online at First Transpennine Express, even though we won’t actually be travelling with them at all. I chose them for three reasons:
They offer Nectar points at a rate of 2 points for every pound spent on train travel, so I earned 16 points for the £8 spent on the train tickets. I can then use these points for money off cinema tickets or shopping, for example.
They offer cashback via Quidco (referral link) – it’s only 1%, but that effectively saves a further 12p off the cost.
There are no additional booking, card or postage fees – you just pay for travel.
Disadvantages
The only downside to choosing an advanced purchase ticket is that it restricts us to travelling on certain trains. If we miss these trains, or want to vary our travel plans, then the tickets will no longer be valid and we’d need to buy new ones, probably at full price. Buying on the day costs more, but at least the tickets are fully flexible.
Normally one advantage of buying an advanced purchase ticket is that you also get a confirmed seat reservation as well. Northern Rail don’t offer seat reservations (despite running some long distance services) so the only real advantage of buying tickets in advance is the lower cost. Other operators do include seat reservations, so you could have two passengers: one who paid, say, £12 and got a guaranteed seat, and another who paid £80 on the day and who may have to stand.
And finally, before you ask – we’ll be having the washing machine delivered. I don’t think we’d get it home on public transport.
We got the keys on Friday, and have already started the job of decorating the house by stripping the wallpaper in the dining room and living room. These rooms need partially re-plastering as part of the damp-proofing works, although having taken some of the wallpaper off we’re looking at getting them completely re-plastered.
All of the paper shown above was simply peeled off the walls – perhaps an indication of how necessary the damp-proofing works are, but also the age of the wallpaper. We’ve attached the rest with a steamer. Christine is there for scale .
The plug sockets downstairs are all very old, and in weird places – mostly about a metre off the floor. Since we’re getting these rooms re-plastered, we’ll look into having them re-sited in more useful places with more modern fixtures.
We’re also working on the bathroom, which thankfully just needs re-painting.
My parents came over to help us shift some of our possessions over, but we still have a lot of packing to do. In any case, because of the amount of work that needs doing, it’s likely to be around six weeks before we’re able to move in there properly. I’ll keep you posted on our progress.
It’s a musical show based around the music of Madness, and follows the story of Joe Casey, a 16 year old who lives on Casey Street in Camden. He’s faced with a choice that will change his life – and the musical follows ‘Good Joe’ and ‘Bad Joe’ as it explores each implication of his decision.
Whilst Madness isn’t one of my favourite bands, like most people I know many of their songs and they fit well with the script. Even though this is not a professional production, I enjoyed it more than We Will Rock You.
I got called in to help at the last minute on Monday, just in time for the technical rehearsal, which was rather rough and ready. But last night’s dress rehearsal went really well, and the show looks fantastic. The cast are excellent and it promises to be a really great show.
Tickets are still available – I’d thoroughly recommend it, even if I wasn’t taking part. Performances are tonight, Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, and a Saturday matinée.
Yesterday, as a birthday treat, Christine and I went to Tropical World. It’s effectively an indoor zoo, housed in a series of greenhouses in a corner of Roundhay Park, in the northeast corner of Leeds.
Whilst I’m not sure of the full history of the place, I get the impression that it was originally designed to house tropical plants (of which there are many – Tropical World has one of the largest collections outside Kew Gardens in London), and has later had butterflies and other animals added to it. These include a crocodile, various fish, frogs and snakes, bats, jerboas, a slow loris (allegedly – it was hiding when we went), a wide variety of birds and the ever popular meerkats. There’s a photo of one above; cute, but it didn’t offer me a great deal on my car insurance.
Tropical World is not a big place and we got around in a little under two hours, but it’s not expensive either: £5 each for adults, with discounts for children and local residents. It has also recently re-opened after a refurbishment, and now sports a much larger café and gift shop, along with a central American themed zone. With hindsight, yesterday wasn’t a great day to go, with it being a bank holiday and also the school half term holiday – consequently we had to queue for half an hour to get in. There were plenty of kids there – who were fine on the whole. Shame that couldn’t be said about some of the parents.
This was our second visit to Tropical World – the first time was three years ago, prior to the refurbishment. I’m sure we’ll be back again sometime – it’s a nice place to go, easily reached from Leeds city centre by the number 12 bus from outside the top entrance to Leeds market, and it’s not too expensive either. And it’s indoor, so great for even the most foul, cold winter days.
My dad reached the grand old age of 70 a few months back, which begged the question: what do you get for the person who has everything? So we clubbed together as a family and bought my dad a train driving experience at the Foxfield Railway, near Stoke on Trent in Staffordshire.
Like me, my Dad has a keen interest in the railways, although unlike me he actually worked for the railways for many years, as a civil engineer. Whilst he’s designed many structures for trains to use, he’d never actually driven one before, so this was to be a new experience for him. And, fortunately, we have family in Stoke so getting to the railway for 9:30am was not a problem.
The experience lasts all day, and the railway can accommodate up to 4 people at a time. The training is provided by the volunteers who run the railway, many of whom are retired from the mainline. The train for the day was W. G. Bagnall 0-6-0ST No. 2 “Florence”, and initially the ‘students’ took it in turn to practice driving the engine out of the station and back again. Later on, each of the participants got to take it in turn to drive the train all the way along the line, with passenger carriages. They also took the role of fireman, which included learning how to couple and uncouple the engine from the carriages, and got to use the levers in the signalbox.
Pleasingly, friends and family were also allowed to be part of the day – I was able to follow my dad around with my camera for almost the whole time, and consequently took over 100 photos. And we brought part of the extended family along with us to ride in the carriages whilst my dad drove us up and down the line.
The volunteers that run the driving training experiences were great – friendly and accommodating, and ensured that participants and their families all had a good day out. At the end of the day, those that took part are presented with a certificate and there were more photo opportunities to be had.
I had a great time, but, more importantly, so did my dad. It’s something that I’d definitely recommend for those with a similar interest in the railways. Foxfield are now booked up for the rest of 2015 so you may need to wait until later in the year for their 2016 dates, if you want to try it for yourself.
A rare opportunity to hear me sing has arisen! I’ll be joining the chorus of BUSOM in their summer concert entitled ‘Never Work with Children or Animals’, featuring songs from popular musicals on the theme of childhood and animal magic.
I’ve helped with BUSOM behind the scenes for some of their main shows like Moby Dick! The Musical and Little Shop of Horrors, but this will be the first time I’ve sung in front of an audience since secondary school – karaoke excepted. I wouldn’t say I’m a great singer (and have some issues with timing that need sorting out pronto) but apparently I can hold some semblance of a tune. At least, enough to be part of the chorus.
The concert is this Thursday, in the Escape Bar, Student Central at the University of Bradford. It starts at 7:30pm and tickets will be available on the door.
I’ve passed the test before, but that was way back in October 2006, when I last had driving lessons. Because I didn’t then pass my practical test, my theory test certificate expired in 2008, meaning I had to take it again.
The test has changed a little bit since last time. Firstly, there are more questions – 50, instead of 35 – and a higher pass mark; you now need to get 43 questions right instead of 30. 5 of these questions form a case study, which was also new compared to last time.
The second part of the test is hazard perception, where you watch several videos and have to identify the hazards that take place. This is to make sure that you’re aware, and would have time to react appropriately in a real situation. This was new when I took it last time – back then, a series of actual video footage was used. Nowadays the videos are mocked up using reasonably realistic CGI – right down to the idiot BMW driver who pulls out in front of you.
I actually didn’t expect to pass. Even though I’d passed it before, in the week running up to it, I heard of two people who had failed it, so I assumed I would too. As it happened, I got 47 questions right out of 50, and scored 58 out of 75 for the hazard perception. To practice and revise, I used the Theory & HPT app from SmartDriving, which was recommended to me by my instructor. It’s up-to-date and comprehensive with hundreds of practice questions, and available on iOS (iPhone and iPad), and on Android. There are many other apps out there that I haven’t tried, but this one seemed to work for me.
Now I just need to pass my practical test. This week’s driving lessons suggested that I’m most of the way there but there are a number of areas that I still need to improve. Hopefully I’ll be able to take the test in the summer, by which time I’ll have had lessons most weeks for around a year.
This morning, I’ll be flying off on my first overseas trip abroad for work. I’ll be visiting various middle eastern countries in order to recruit students for the university where I work.
It will actually be a number of firsts for me. First overseas trip for work. First overseas trip on my own – every time I’ve left the country before, I’ve been with a friend, family member or partner. First time in the middle east. First time that I’ve been away from Christine for more than two nights since we moved in together in November 2010.
It will be a busy week whilst I’m there – this isn’t some overseas jolly; I’ll be working every day without a break and with some overnight air travel. In all I’ll be taking 8 flights over the 8 days, with the longest at around 7 hours.
The countries I’m going to are significantly less liberal than Britain, with a very different culture. I’m hoping to spend part of the long flight over there reading about customs and things to do and not to do whilst out there.
I’ve been making use of TripIt to help with planning my itinerary (which runs to eight pages when printed – told you I’d be busy). I’ll do a full review later but being able to forward confirmation emails to have it build out your plans really helps.
I’m hoping that it’ll be a good experience, and, if it goes well, this will be the first of a number of overseas trips that I’ll get to make for work. I’m excited to go, but also a little daunted at just how much work I’ll have to do whilst there. That being said, my iPad is loaded up with books, magazines and Pocket articles to read as and when I’m stuck without internet access and need something to pass the time.
I’ve got a couple of blog posts queued up to appear whilst I’m gone, but I doubt I’ll have much spare time to post anything new whilst away. I’m hoping that I’ll have plenty to talk about on my return, next Friday. See you then.
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