One Question

Answering Those Everyday Questions

Feb 21

Where should we go for our English holidays?

by onequestion

Ah! The British holiday.

Get it right and you’ll wonder why you spent so long in airport terminals, trying to hire foreign cars, trying to drive on the wrong side of the road and a host of other annoyances that plague the holiday abroad. They can often make the overall experience so stressful you wonder why you went in the first place. Life will be familiar, but ideally with enough new experiences to make it fun and rewarding.

Get it wrong and you’ll want to get to the sun in no time. Getting it wrong can mean so many things. Bad weather. Bad accommodation. Bad traffic (although sadly that can get you pretty much anywhere you go). Ot just a boring place.

At One Question HQ we’re left in no doubt of where we should spend our English breaks as KC is not only from Cornwall and proud of the fact, he also looks after three wonderful cottages on a web site called www.thecornishway.co.uk. We’ve all been there this year already on an office brain storming trip, and while we’re not keen to help the boss blow his trumpet, we do have to admit that the places are pretty special.

There’s no guarantee of good weather, but even if you have to stay in there’s plenty to keep you happy. Take a look.

Britain Cornwall Holidays

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Feb 6

When is Mother’s Day?

by onequestion

Mother’s Day feels like it’s probably one of those dreadful festivals created just to sell cards and flowers, and while that may be what it has become it wasn’t always that way.

The modern Mother’s Day has been with us for the last six decades or so and is a revival of something much older that can be traced back to the 16th century. It falls on the middle Sunday of the fast of Lent, and was a time for a little light relief (and food).

Children in service to the rich households would tend to be given the day off to go home and visit their mother’s, and church goers would travel on the Sunday to their Mother church, that would tend to be the cathedral, or main church in an area.

This year it’s on Sunday 18th March. Don’t forget!

And take her out to lunch, or maybe better still – cook it for her at her place. Go on. Spoil her.

There’s a personalised card company called Hello Turtle that lucked out today as Sean came to work and told us all about it. We immediately leap to work and ordered cards for all our mums, and even step mums, in one go. Brilliant. Easy. You can even buy gifts from them, but we were happy to get the cards sorted.

Holidays

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Feb 1

Where’s the best place to eat in the Brecons?

by onequestion

Bobby is just back from a romantic weekend at The Fellin Fach Griffin, just a few miles north of Brecon. Here’s what she had to say…

When lover boy proposed that we trek out to mid-Wales for a couple of nights I wasn’t best impressed. Having had too many family holidays in North Wales I feel scarred by the experience of too many grumpy pubs, bad food and of course the rain. But not being one to look a gift horse..

We went on Sunday morning, nipping down the motorway with the car beeping its warnings of an unholy temperature outside, but happily getting there within 3 hours and not being distracted by any nice scenery as it was a foul freezing foggy day. My mood was low.

But change was in store; as we pulled in to the drive of this charming (yes, this gets our charm vote) my mood began to lift, and pretty much stayed high for the next two and a half days. Were it not for the very Welsh weather you could have been in France.

Our room had just been painted and could have done with a few days of open windows, but the smell wasn’t too obtrusive. We had a commode! But not for use other than as a chair, and a lovely headboard arrangement with book shelf and room for a bottle or two.

The bed was ginormourous! And perfect with a great quilt and soft sheets. Great big fluffy towels too.

The high point was the food though. Lunch, dinner x two, breakfast x two. All fab (if a tad salty). I could have stayed a week just to have everything on the menu, we all had food envy in the dining room every night. Quantities were just right too, I can be put off by too much food on my plate.

No wonder it has plaudits as regarded as the difficult Jay Rayner. Try it, for lunch, but ideally dinner and a good night’s sleep.

The slight low was the lack of hot water, but even though it was freezing weather this was a minor set back in the joy of the whole relaxed and beautiful place.

To cal it shabby chic would imply it’s a bit scruffy, it’s not, it’s just very comfortable. We don’t tend to go back anywhere, but I want to do this again.

BB.

Drink Food Holidays

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Jan 27

More Charm!

by onequestion

We were delighted by the responses we received to our little charm article, so we thought we’d extend the topic a little further and see where we get.

Thanks also to Chairman Peter who brought us a copy of a fabulous, if somewhat high brow, magazine called Monocle which has an article on charm this month. It seems like they travel the world rather more than us poor folk stuck here in Manchester, but nonetheless just because their examples span the globe, the basic principle matches ours.

Let’s say that it’s something very human that is broken down by every mechanical or computerised stage that comes between one human and another.

And that’s not to say that human to human interaction is necessarily charming. Far from it. It involves a deliberate or conscious consideration of what the other person’s needs or wants may be, and what might simply improve their day.

We will practice charm at One Question Towers in the hope that it will become our natural demeanour putting us in a stronger position for the human interactions we make today, next week, through life.

There’s a spiritual feel to the One Question office today and we like it. It’s banishing the grim cold and hail that’s threatening our chipper mood. Threatening, but it’ll not penetrate.

We all felt the beauty of charm last night at an Indian in town. While most of the staff there did their usual super polite thing, only one had charm. How she managed a degree of sincerity with her smile and well wishes remains a mystery, but its impact was so different to that of her colleagues. East 2 East. Try it if you’re in town.

I feel a charm page is needed to sit alongside this one. Shame I don’t know how to create it!

Drink Driving Food Health Holidays Home

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Jan 10

Where is the team going on holiday this year?

by onequestion

You’ll soon see who wanted to write this post!

While most of us are being rather modest and looking after our hard earned bloggers’ pennies, someone is blowing their boyfriend’s cash! We’re jealous, but wish them a fab time.

Sean: Well having started work very recently I have even turned down my mates’ offer of a place on their Ibiza trip. Feels strange really because money, or the lack of it, didn’t stop me when I wasn’t working. What I’m hoping to do is hit one of the weekend festivals, then maybe a night in a hotel to get properly clean again, before camping near wherever said festival is.

Tracey: OK. It was me! I wanted to show off as we’ve just been looking at Europe cruises, and my man has agreed to book one, thanks Dan! We don’t know where yet. But it’ll be great wherever as long as the sun shines.

Bobby: Britany! Bring it on. We’ll drive to Plymouth, get the lovely ferry to Roscoff, stay there for a night or two eating crepes, then do a mix of camping and little hotels interspersed with much eating of oysters and lobsters and anything else that looks ugly and tastes devine – monkfish, yes you’ll do too!

The boss isn’t in today, but you can be pretty sure he’ll be in Cornwall most of the time, with maybe a Scottish isle thrown in for variety and extra distance.

Holidays The sea

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