AJM        Christmas at Great Yarmouth         December 29 2008 update on the 30th

I like to report on any holidays and hotels that I visit to allow readers to know whether they feel it worth  trying out that particular company.  I have reported on some places I WOULD NOT recommend.  But this particular place comes high in my HIGHLY RECOMMENDED category.

The Hadleigh Gables Hotel was chosen by Skills Coaches of Nottingham, so I booked a five-day  Christmas holiday for the wife and I, accompanied by one of her daughters and her partner.  I paid for these two other persons as the wife is 81 and I am 83 and have two gammy feet to contend with.  These two younger folk have helped in other ways than during this holiday.

We travelled by taxi to Collin Street in the Middle of Nottingham to the coach pick-up point.  This first coach was a feeder that took us to the Services at Donnington Park where we boarded a coach to the hotel.  It seems that there is only one place en-rout that a coach can stop anywhere near the middle of the journey between Donnington Park and Great Yarmouth.  It a scruffy joint that is very noisy and has a terrible car park. The noise is mostly caused by young waiters who come out from the back of the counter and scream a number that, I presume, was given to the customer at the time of ordering the meal.  The seventeen year-old girl sounded to be in distress when she shouted.  I have seen better ways of handling similar situations.  The food isn't cheap, but the surroundings are.  But coach stops seem like chicken's teeth in this part of Lincolnshire.   But I can get a wee wee there, and that is important.  Most, but not all, of Skills coaches have a loo on board.  This one didn't, of course.

If you want a look at the outside of the hotel that we stayed at, you will find a good picture on http://www.hadleighgables.co.uk/  I reckon that the pair of buildings were built as semi-detached private houses a hundred years ago.  This type of hotel is found all over the country now that we have less very-wealthy families who live their lives with a host of servants.

I'll list the niggles as I go along, like I have with the other hotels I've reported on.

Because the original houses had no internal interconnecting corridors or doors, the floor levels were not precisely the same for both houses.  There are one or two steps in places where you might not expect to find them.  There is also a couple of sudden slopes in otherwise unbroken floors.  The one in the main ground-floor lounge is virtually invisible until you suddenly find yourself running down, or climbing up, a hill.  There is a notice on a side wall if you look for it, but the chequered carpet pattern give no warning of the slope.  Had it been more severe, I would have written to the HSE over the matter, but as it is, I would think that they would reject any complaint.  I am, of course, much more aware of these niggles because of my gammy feet.  A fit twenty-year-old might not give it a thought.  There's a lot of lip-service given to the disabled these days, but it seems that disabled people themselves are rarely consulted.

But there was one feature that really struck me as I entered the building.  The weather outside was bitter.  The east coast of Britain is seldom warm, but this week it would incapacitate a brass monkey.  The hotel was beautifully cosy.  The bar area and lounge  were VERY NICELY heated.  The corridor at the rear of the bar felt chilly when one went to the ground-floor toilets.  But once back in the bar area, it was lovely.  A small area near the street-entrance door was chilly when the door was open and a breeze came in, but as soon as it was closed, the room was cosy again.  I stress this points as heating is a significant part of the running cost of a hotel, and others I have been in have obviously economised on fuel.  The bedroom and corridors here were equally cosy.

The building is owned by an Indian.  He told me that his family were part of the group of Indians who were ejected by Idi Amin in 1972 and Britain accepted them as most held a UK passport and would have been international refugees otherwise.  I remember the incident well. as it was widely reported that these people were the backbone of the Ugandan economy and would be unlikely to be a drain on Britain.  This hotel owner seems to fit that description to a tee.  I don't know what the hotel is worth, but it's a great deal more than my house is worth.  And he seems to work for his living.  He knows the bar trade better that some of his employees.  And he's an affable character, to boot, are his his wife and three children.

I am anti-immigration by nature, but if WE MUST have immigrants, as the government seems to imply, this chappie is the sort we want.

There is a tiny lift to all floors.  It is unlike some of the tiny lifts that I have met in similar hotels.  It is quite modern in that it has a woman's voice tells you about the doors opening and closing, and whether the cage is going up or down.  The room numbering is a bit weird though.  In most hotels, the first digit of the room number is the floor level.  Not so here.  My room was number 27 and it was on the first floor.  The lift had a door on both sides of the cage to allow entry and exit into different parts of the building.  If you weren't careful you could get lost, but there are guidance notices in the cage as to which room numbers were found outside of which door.  Unusual, to say the least.

I was a little surprised that the notice at the rear of the bedroom door gave no statement that in the event of a fire, one should never use the lift.  But one of the notices suggests that there are thieves in Great Yarmouth as there are here in Nottingham.  "For security reasons" one is told to keep the window closed when not in the room.  There's flat roof outside the window that would allow a ne'er-do-well to get into the bedroom from the flat roof.  But the weather kept me from opening that window.  Flat roofs are renowned for leaking, and this one looked as though it might do just that.  The sheets of mineral felt looked decidedly un-water-proof where they joined.

The WC toilet cubicle was about a foot higher than the room floor.  I suppose that was to allow the piping to be fitted below the floor.  But it meant that there were two steps up the the cubicle, and with my gammy feet, I could have done with a hand-hold.  I notice that they advertise rooms suitable for disabled persons.  Perhaps I should have asked for one when I booked to trip.  But the difficulty in my room was not enormous.

I have yet to meet a hotel that has a low-level light that one can leave on all night.  So I did what I usually do; and that is to almost close the WC door and leave the light left on.  By doing that, I don't fall over obstructions in the night when nature calls.  In some places the extractor fan (that is mandatory if there is no outside window) is noisy.  It was just possible to hear this one when you were in the cubicle.

The food was excellent. as was the service.  Quite a choice of cereals for breakfast.  I always ordered egg and bacon and finished off with toast and marmalade.  But the menu had steak and kidney pudding as a choice.  That's the first time I have seen that.  I've seen sirloin steak for breakfast on a cruise ship.  The Christmas lunch also was superb.  The Christmas cracker was novel.  Certainly not the cheapest one could buy.  The usual joke inside was pathetic, as they seem always t be.  The gift was a small plastic case with a few needles and buttons.  There was even a needle-threader in the case. A glass of red or white wine.  I chose red, and it was a fair plonk.  Generally free wine is pretty rough, but although this was not a "Château de Pap", it was quite good. I'm not a wine buff, but I know a terrible one from a passable one.  I had a bottle in Cyprus years ago; it cost one and eleven-pence, and a waiter would have thrown the vinegar away.

When we left, all the staff congregated outside and waved us off; even the governor.  And it was a bitter wind then.  So I recommend the Hadleigh Gables Hotel.

Any questions, call CDCNottm@AOL.com

Update on 30/12/08

I forgot to mention one other rather nice thing that was provided.  In the lounge were several cartons of mixed apples and Satsuma oranges.  They were left on a table for people to help themselves.  It's little things like this that mark out a hotel management that tries to please their customers.