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Post by dennisn on Dec 24, 2015 19:21:23 GMT
Seeing as how none of you have done it to me, I'll wish you all a Merry CHristmas and a Happy, successful and prosperous New Year. I'll see any of you who are in Skiathos at the same time as us, on the Bourtzi some afternoon (or many afternoons).
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Post by amy114 on Dec 25, 2015 8:51:05 GMT
A merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you and Vera and everyone else on the forum. :-). Hope you saved a bottle of your favorite Skiathos wine for dinner today. Has Vera made you a special cake? Well I am now off to wrap my presents and get the turkey in the oven (never been so disorganized) so have a good day one and all.
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Post by kelso on Dec 25, 2015 16:27:47 GMT
I would like to add my good wishes for a merry Christmas and a happy and healthy 2016 to all boomerangers. Bob
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Post by Tre on Dec 25, 2015 23:32:48 GMT
Wishing a very merry Christmas to all. Dennis, hope to touch base later this year. Cheers! x
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Post by Woody (Admin) on Dec 26, 2015 8:15:15 GMT
I Hope everybody had a great Christmas Day and hope 2016 brings great joy.
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Post by dennisn on Dec 26, 2015 11:01:04 GMT
Wishing a very merry Christmas to all. Dennis, hope to touch base later this year. Cheers! x Hmm. Should I wear tracky bottoms, shorts or budgy smugglers?
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Post by Tre on Dec 26, 2015 11:25:40 GMT
Lol Dennis. Smart casual will be fine
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Post by cariad23 on Dec 26, 2015 19:56:08 GMT
hope everyone had a good xmas, now that's over with we can start looking forward to our summer holidays. I always think it seems so much closer after xmas. Whats your new years resolution then Dennis, ?
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Post by exgreekgod on Dec 28, 2015 6:33:36 GMT
Hope everyone had a great Xmas, happy new year to you all. Unfortunately I came down with Man-flu and now I've passed it on to her indoors, oh well Xmas is a time for giving!! I would love to say we will be there in 2016 but redundancy is close now, so we will have to wait and see. All the best to everyone!
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Post by dennisn on Dec 28, 2015 9:02:53 GMT
Christmas was different this year. Vera caught the most serious case of man-flu she has ever had - normally it lasts a couple of days with her, but this one arrived three days before Christmas and is only just beginning to subside, so even I had to pitch in to help when all the family came for Christmas dinner. It seems to be trying to get me now and as mine always lasts at least a fortnight, should make our weekend at CenterParcs on 8th January a bit miserable. So much for the pensioners' free flu jabs!
My New Year resolution is to win the lottery. We had a small disaster on Christmas day, when an inadvertent nudge dropped Vera's favourite decoration from the mantelshelf down to the tiled hearth, shattering the tiny, delicate, beautiful Murano glass Christmas tree which we bought in Venice on our Grande Tour de Europe in 2006. It joins the cuckoo clock which we bought on that trip as needing replacement. Proper replacement can only be achieved by driving the tour again, couple of thousand pounds worth of holiday, not affordable with Skiathos twice a year!
Our Christmas presents to each other and the family are a visit to CenterParcs early January - we're going on 8th January for the weekend, complete with three villas taking twelve of us. It's so nice to round off Christmas with another weekend together. We've been doing it for maybe ten years now, lovely. My other presents were biscuits, liqueur chocolates and socks and with the money I also received, I have bought a pair of grandad slippers and the TomTom GO satnav app for my iPhone to use in Skiathos - a terrible waste of money (£52.99) as I have paid for, downloaded and installed it only to discover it doesn't include Greece in the so-called Europe map. Megga GRRRRRR, because software downloads are not refundable!! I also did my first ever download from iTunes, to get the NHS nurses song for Vera, discovered I had only bought the abbreviated version, so did another of the extended one, then discovered I had no idea how to get it off my iPhone and onto hers - I'm a bit of a technophobe sometimes.
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Post by cariad23 on Dec 29, 2015 19:28:19 GMT
I downloaded Navmii app free for my I phone dennis try that see if Greece on. Last year I just used maps app that came with the phone it brought up all of skiathos. Its annoying when you break something that you can only replace from a holiday destination. Last year we had a year of practically everything electrical packing up, the bathroom pipes leaked and flooded bathroom needing new taps pipework, flooring etc. Flu is awful leaves you feeling weak for ages, I work at a hospital and don't have flu vaccination anymore because there are so many strains of it, and the last vaccination made me feel quite ill. I hope you are able to enjoy your break.
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Post by dennisn on Dec 30, 2015 9:38:18 GMT
Thank you cariad, I may give Navmii a try - their Eastern Europe map doesn't say what countries it covers, but they also have a Greece version and that would be the only one to interest me, so I'll consider that. I suppose I could also try the UK&ROI version to run alongside my several other satnavs to see how it compares in UK.
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Post by dennisn on Dec 30, 2015 9:53:06 GMT
As an extra present for myself, yesterday I decided to upgrade my phone and got onto Vodafone. After many, many phone calls, to Delhi and all points east of Bristol, all was finally settled, new phone to be delivered by DPD today.
Then at 5pm yesterday I got their email saying it was all happening. It listed the phone details and it's the wrong phone. So I got onto them again (more routing via wherever) and they said it's too late to change the order as it has already been issued. What you must do is refuse to accept delivery and I'll keep an eye out for that, then I'll ring you and we'll do it all over again. Providing that all happens before 4pm, the new phone will be delivered on Thursday. As a whitevanman myself, I have just realised that the guy was doing the optimistic bit. The whitevanman with my new (wrong) phone won't get back to his depot anywhere close to 4pm, I'm sure - with a couple of hundred parcels on board he'll be lucky to get back before 8pm! So the Vodafone guy won't see it before 4pm, so he won't be ringing me to re-do the order. If I'm exceptionally lucky he might ring me tomorrow morning to do it all again (but I have concerns that he won't) but then we'll come up against the fact that the next day is New Years Day and they won't be delivering on that day, so maybe Saturday (another "wait in all day for the vanman to come") or instead maybe Monday another "wait in all day".
I've had tracking details and so now I'm just sitting here watching the thing approach like an unstoppable runaway train - latest text message is delivery between 10:40 and 11:40am.
Surely it is easier to get new bath plugholes and stuff from abroad?
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Post by cariad23 on Dec 30, 2015 11:25:19 GMT
Everything becomes a battle, luckily my phone was ok ive just upgraded to I phone 6 love it internet so fast. don't forget to save everything to I cloud then you can download all apps etc you had to new phone. You can also airdrop an itune you've downloaded to someone elses phone so vera may get her song. Don't get over excited with all the new technology when it finally arrives will you. !!!! However my all singing dancing phone cant pick up 4g when I visit the out laws in wales I was back to the laptop. Tip for dealing with call centres if you get a welsh one usually Swansea , I casually mention husband is welsh from nearby they bend over backwards to help, after discussing the latest rugby etc. so say your wife is from wales-sorted ! im sure vera wont mind being a blodwyn or myfanwy for a while. Hope she is feeling better. How do you get on with vodaphone in skiathos our friend had major problems getting a signal in some places even pap street. I make free wi fi calls through whats app from there as the oasis has brilliant and free wi-fi
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Post by dennisn on Dec 31, 2015 8:38:44 GMT
Oh how I wish I could get a call centre in Wales - that would be a dream come true.
After the DPD man delivered/refused I checked internet and it said returning to Vodafone. So I waited until 2pm for the man to phone like he promised, but he hadn't so I phoned them. It takes a long time to get to anybody human after typing in my phone number and pin number which it always doesn't recognise and pressing the "If you want to....." buttons. Then it's Delhi, who wants to ask me just a few security questions to check my identity. Then it's put me through to some other department who want to ask me a few security questions to check my identity and get cut off so start again. The holding music is "All I want is you" and "Driving home for Christmas" and something else, all on a loop. I put the phone on speaker and play backgammon and solitaire. Then I get through again, same security questions, put through, same security questions again and they say they can't do anything until it gets back to the warehouse and I say that's not what the bloke yesterday said and he says the bloke was wrong and I say what are you going to do about it and he says I'm going to speak to Upgrades about it and I go back to "Driving home for Christmas" etc, then he comes back and says they can't do anything about it until it gets back to the warehouse. And I get gruff and he goes for another drive home for Christmas but still comes back with no improvement. He says the only thing that he can do is speak to Resolutions, so I said do it, but they won't deal with it until he speaks to Returns first and Returns are no help and that flaming song is still driving home for Christmas! He suggested another tack, going into a Vodafone shop and they can phone the warehouse and if it's back, give me one there and then. Just minor annoyances along the way, he asked if DPD rocked up with the delivery and I said they came in a van and he addressed me as buddy. I'm an old grumpy bugger and I hate being Buddy and in our local Toby carvery where we go once a week, they address us as Guys and I hate that. Back in the good old days we'd have been Sir and Madam.
I spent more than an hour and a half on the one call that didn't cut me off, probably close to three hours over the two days, I daren't even think about how many times I heard that wretched bloke driving home for Christmas. I'm going to my local Vodafone shop this morning with more hope than expectation.
In Skiathos, Villa Maria has WiFi which is all I bother with - Vera has PAYG iPhone and uses that to call the kids at home. Sadly, throughout Greece I have always found their wi-fi to be even slower than the free ones in motorway service stations here in UK! My home wifi is 50MB download, but only 3Mb upload, whereas 4G is about 20Mb both down and up - I only use it occasionally as I got caught out once with exceeding my free data allowance and the not-free use is extortionately expensive.
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