Comments on: Budget Travel goes bust ; Machico infested with rats ; Christmas news and events

By: Martin

Martin — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 10:47:17 +0000

Sounds great Jon.
If only I wasn’t a poor British pensioner with worthless currency I could afford to stay for a week or three.
Do your rooms have french widows.?

By: Jon

Jon — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 19:09:24 +0000

The tourist board will have nothing to do with “genuine” B&B establishments (like ourselves) … they are only interested in making money from large Hotel chains, owners and the like who market “mass tourism” … and who, yes often purport as real B&B……

We are the “real thing” and by golly actually have our guest’s happiness at heart. AND we provide a ‘fridge stocked with Milk, Fresh Juice, Bottled Water and a full sized Kettle together with Tea and Coffee maling facilities……and a welcome bottle of wine Martin! AND we provide free Wi Fi access, multiple elec power/charging outlets together with beach towels, walking/tour guide books, maps, friendly advice (and drinks) and weather forecasts etc ….. bespoke B&B even if I say so!

The Tourist board here have NO idea and yes, I feel that they award the “star” ratings as per monies recieved…….I can see more than 5 stars from our terrace tonight …..

We don’t need their Star ratings – our guests give us their own.

By: Martin

Martin — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 18:27:23 +0000

Hotel Raga does not offer tea/coffee making facilities to its guests in their rooms.
There is only one single outlet for charging razors, fones, computers and such.
On this basis alone it should be regraded 2 star.
Does the Tourist Board publish its star grading system for hotels/bawdy houses/B&Bs or is it invented by the hotel owners?

By: Tobi

Tobi — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 17:10:26 +0000

Betty you could try speaking to his sister who runs the shop in Ajuda.

Ok i have a question, does anyone know anybody who has waired to have an operation here, as most will know im waiting for an operation on my back, and just over a week ago gave the letter into the hospital to get me on the waiting list for an urgent operation. Now the doctor i saw is also the surgeon who will do the operation , but he couldnt or wouldnt tell me how long i can expect to wait, only i will go up the list quite quickly, but does anyone know how long i shoud wait to hear back from the hospital, im hoping to hear something soon , or do these thngs take longer?

By: BETTY

BETTY — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 15:17:52 +0000

Since you were all so good on septic tanks…………….

Something has been on my mind for the last couple of weeks since I saw all the poor dogs in the hills.

What if someone asked Cristiano Ronaldo to become a patron of SPAD (donations welcome of course) and perhaps fund an education programme for schools? A lot of celebs do valuable work for charities and I’m sure the children of Madeira would be impressed if one of their football heroes thought it was ‘cool’ to be kind to animals and it could just make a difference. It would be nice for Ronaldo to give back something to his homeland and definitely would be good PR. I’m sure he would also get tax breaks for doing it too.

I tried all over the internet to get a contact address to write to him but there are so many ‘groupies’ nowadays that celeb details are only available through membership of database companies.

I have 3 dogs myself so can’t take on any more.

Anybody out there know Cristiano personally?

By: BETTY

BETTY — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 14:39:59 +0000

Thanks again folks.

By: Der

Der — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 14:38:07 +0000

OK you win Debs, more tomorrow.

However … the €20 / kilo vegetable I will not reveal (not yet anyway), so check in tomorrow anybody and I reckon I can keep your grey matter busy the whole weekend. Anyway, €75 / kilo shatters anything else I have ever heard about (apart from some spices that is)

By: Debs

Debs — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 14:00:58 +0000

We’re intrigued about the 1 Euro banana!! We did have some friends stay once who bought some fresh dates from the market in Funchal – 75 Euro a kilo – and they were too embarrassed to refuse to pay!!!

By: Sue

Sue — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 12:26:51 +0000

Septic tank horrors, having lived in Belgium with a septic tank – which was supposed to have two chambers one which let the liquid seep through the sand and another that was supposed to be emptied miniumum of three years! LOL we ended up having a complete new installation which meant taking up a beautiful lawn, which we cut into strips and hand rolled to save (we saved it). Then something when drastically wrong again cannot remember how long afterwards (we are talking 1980’s) the beautiful rockery and courtyard had to be dug up to find the roots of some of our trees fancied the underground water source and crushed some piping! We moved to South of France – horrors I thought septic tank again, these backward countries! no problem says the previous owner and we didn’t, even though we had a pool installed – should mention at this point that at the very bottom of our terraced area was a stream, which became more than a stream in heavy rain and we suspected that was where the excess ended up! France finally cottoned on to this – all over France I might add – and again we had to go through the dig everything up job and lay new facilities and we were luckily in the first ones to accept the inevitable and only had to pay 20% of the cost with the Government paying 80% – those not so quick off the mark ended up paying the 100% and those early ones had to wait a year or more before we got the refund – refund you ask – of course we had to pay first and be reimbursed later. We are happy in our Penthouse and have no problems and flush the loos and the toilet paper with gay abandon.

By: ellen

ellen — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 12:24:25 +0000

Hi Betty

Look forward to seeing you in class. Yes, she has lots of patience.

Wouldn’t wait for that to sort out the builder though. You have 1 year from the time you first mentioned it to him to send him an “official letter” with your complaint.

Many builders don’t know/keep to that, but perhaps better not to leave it considering how he has treated you so far.

By: Martin

Martin — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 12:06:13 +0000

I can see a way in which the dog rescue organisations can help the residents of Machico with their infestation of rats.
Train up a few terriers to kill rats, which is easy as this is their nature, and give them to the local authority.
It would employ a man or two at the same cost as poison and be far more effective.
Maybe even persuade the local authority to pay a bounty for every tail.
The charities could do the job.
What a fund raising scheme for the charities concerned and a welcome support to public health.
Too simple!
It will never work!

By: BETTY

BETTY — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 11:43:26 +0000

Hi all – it’s your (dare I mention it?) septic tank lady.

Don’t panic – now I want to let you all know my New Year resolution is to get my husband and I to the language classes at Estrello/Estreito in January so that we can sort the builder out!!!

Hope the teacher has lots of patience…………..

By: Der

Der — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 10:42:07 +0000

corrected … pretty obvious actually after a closer look Jon

By: ellen

ellen — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 10:41:35 +0000

Like Angie’s – I also highly recommend the classes in Estrello/Estreito (in the school on the old road between the two.)

The classes have been divided into beginners/intermediate/experienced in different time segments with anyone welcome to stay for any segments they like.

The teacher has an depth of knowledge of languages, and ability to organize it that I would not have expected, considering this is not her normal area of teaching – and that adults are sometimes not the easiest group for a younger person to teach.

Here also attendance is dropping off and sparodic for some – I think that is just “the nature of the beast”.

BTW – no classes Dec 1 and 8 for public holidays and then not over Christmas- starting again Jan 5th.

By: Jon

Jon — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 08:39:49 +0000

Todays photo – a rather nice november SUNRISE from Casa Parsons (sorry Der)!

By: Angie

Angie — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 08:18:03 +0000

As some of you know I started at the Ribeira Brava language classes but changed when I found there was a beginners class at Estrello da Calheta.
From past experience when learning danish I didn’t start at the beginning and made grammatical mistakes which I found very difficult to correct later on and in fact never did really.
It’s also a small class about 10 people on average and a good teacher Tuesday evening 7pm and Thursday 9pm.
So just to pass that on for information if anyone’s interested.