Fighting The Flab

Hello folks, sorry for the delay in posting, I have been away all week at an exhibition in Birmingham. So hows life going? Lets see, apart from talking non-stop for 3 days (which is amazingly tiring) and being on my feet for 3 days, life has been good. Well when I say good I mean no different really....
I stayed at The Hilton Metropole adjacent to the NEC complex, I was quite excited about staying there as it was The Hilton, well let me tell you folks, save your money. I have stayed at far better Premier Inns. Firstly lets get something straight, the staff were superb, I mean it, absolutely first class. So no complaints there.
So what is wrong with the place? The decoration is old, well if it isn't then it hasn't been cleaned very well, and appears very dated. The price of the rooms was £174/night including breakfast and £199/night including dinner. I booked Breakfast for the first night and dinner for the second. The room was very basic, furniture appeared very cheap almost as if bought from MFI. The Bathroom was very small and the shower had next to no power. Still could be worse.
The first night I went to Millers Gastro Pub for a meal, well there was my first mistake, two of us ate, we had a bottle of wine and a three course meal. It came to £107, expensive yes, but not over the top. Well it wouldn't have been apart from one or two things. Firstly the food was (and I am being generous here) poor. Parts of the food was frozen and to be fair I have had better meals at a local pub who buy all there food from 3663 and is frozen and prepacked. I had a Goats Cheese starter with apple salsa, which I was really looking forward too. The goats cheese was great, the salad was OK... the salsa well, must be a new kind of salsa as after trying it and asking my friend to try it, we both agreed it was brambly apple sauce out of a jar!. We had bread and balsamic vinegar as well, the bread (both pieces) was so dry and hard it was difficult to eat it, the olive oil was nice the balsamic vinegar was cheap. The meal got worse and worse as it went on, and to be fair I am not going to list all of the problems here.
So bed and sleep, all good. Next day I wanted to check my emails, on there web site it says all rooms have high speed access, to be fair it does not say it is free, but that is what I took it as. Wrong to even access emails you have to buy 24hours access at £15. Good news, was at least it was fast. Breakfast at the Hilton was nice, service was good again. (I had mixed fruit and a piece of toast). Then I went to the gym, well tried. The gym there was poorly equipped and having spoke to some people that stay at lots of Hilton's, apparently this is the norm. The pool was great :) No faults there. The spa pools didn't work, the sauna was OK, but not very hot and the steam room stank, I don't mean smelled bad as some do I mean stank. The design must have an open drain somewhere, but now I know why there is never anybody in it. The meal that night was at the Broadway and is a buffet type thing (this is £32) the choices were again average, next to no vegetables tho, the dishes were quite bland and I found the choice very limited. However that being said it was a great deal better than at Millers. The Barbarians were staying that night at the hotel as well, and it was great to see them and talk to a couple of them. Next morning (day of checkout) I awake to find my bill pushed through the door, which was a surprise, I got charged for the meal at the Broadway (which was included in the room charge), 2 days worth of Internet access, the room charges were completely wrong and I had a second bill for another £114 which I still have not worked out, and it had another persons card details on it, in my name. The front desk apologised (and again the staff were great) although it took some time to sort out, finally the bill was made correct, I paid for everything I had and nothing was comped and no offer of anything was made, but after correcting the bill it was over £250 less. The scary thing was I was going to use the quick check out, if I had I would never have noticed the bill as I don't normally read them just pocket them for the accountant.
So all in all..... don't stay at The Hilton in Birmingham near the NEC. There are much better hotels available and at a cheaper rate. The Crown Plaza for one.

OK OK enough about The Hilton. The exhibition was good.
The food at The Hilton was terrible and as such I snacked a lot, and drank a lot of coffee and a fair amount of alcohol. I am dreading Mondays weigh in now. Still, these things happen in life and I am not naive enough to think it isn't going to. Its just recognising them and getting back on it as soon as you can, which is today. :)

The not smoking is going OK, although it has moments of difficulty. Especially I have found when surrounded by reps and drinking then them all disappearing outside. However, I am doing very well :)

I am tired, tho, very tired. I am feeling slightly depressed as well which is not helping but hopefully I can hit the dojo later and work through it. I am grading tonight and I could have done with some respite first, I am sure I will be OK, but grading at Evade is tough, well grading anywhere should be tough, after all we are not training to pick flowers....

Stay Safe folks.