Author Archives: Toby White

About Toby White

I'm a doer!

A big Summer Holiday!

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Sunset in St Lucia

Sunset in St Lucia

For over 8 years I’ve not been on a “proper” Summer holiday. This being a holiday somewhere where we’re truely not doing anything. Pool and sun. All inclusive. It’s something that I’ve wanted to do in a LONG time but for one reason or another it hasn’t really transpired. We end up going on City breaks, and as good as they may be, you always come back feeling more tired than when you went. So, this year we did something different and a bit out the ordinary. After my Cancer ordeal, and not being able to get away for a real honeymoon, we decided to go all out. My wife, Anna, went on Google and came across Sandal’s Resorts. My parents had heard of this company but we hadn’t.  After a bit of searching, St Lucia was highlighted and we put down our deposit.

I should say at this time I didn’t really know where St Lucia was. I knew it was an island but wouldn’t have placed it in the Caribbean. It looked nice enough and more importantly the weather forecast looked the part. High 20s., 30degrees Celcius. “That’ll do”, I said.

I for one had only two requests, those being that it was warm, and all inclusive, and we didn’t want to do anything. No excursions, tours, etc. I wanted Jet Skis but unfortunately the resort didn’t have any powered water sports toys, which annoyed me. That’ll teach me for not partaking in the search.

We opted for 10 days as the flight was 8hrs so esentially you’re spending two days traveling. 10 days turned out to be the right amount of time. We were able to fully relax and chill out and forget about any worries.

A quick summary, we drank a lot, sun lounged a lot, and ate some amazing food. The food was fantastic. The resort we went to – La Toc – had a number of different restaurants on site and many didn’t require a reservation so you could just go along when you fancied and get some food. They also had a takeaway pizza place with stone fired pizza, running from 11am to 5pm. I was adventurous and although I’m not really a fan of sea food other than plain fish and shrimp, I did try octupous and had a muscle – wouldn’t try a muscle again mind, bit rubbery!

The room was lovely and air conditioned which was bliss as the humidity was unreal. It was often 80% or higher with no rain. The fridge in the room was stocked with soft drinks and alcohol and whatever you drank was restocked for the next day. The staff were very friendly but some of the guests didn’t seem to like that. They were almost too friendly at times but that’s not so bad.

The only thing that slightly got to us was the loud and arrogant Yanks. The resort was adult only, so by default you think quiet and relaxing, which it was for the most part. But you add in unlimited alcohol and you get drunk adults by lunchtime. And they don’t seem to have a volume control.

Next time, I’ll be sure to have more search input, and we’ll probably do a villa holiday or choose somewhere that isn’t so close to America. This is coming across as anti American which I’m not at all, but I would certainly advise maybe reading some TripAdvisor reviews before booking anything!

Trip to Hamburg

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U-434 Hafen City Hamburg

U-434 Hafen City Hamburg (yes, it’s Russian)

It was great to be back in Germany to see family last month. This was the first time since 2019 – and not since I had been diagnosed with the big C and the Covid pandemic.  We stayed in the centre, or near enough, at a hotel called Novum Centrum – good value and convenient location with a quick walk to the U-Bahn. We did have to fight to get a second pillow though, but they did comply in the end!

We were right next to a great Turkish restaurant (Back-Lava) where we were able to get a good breakfast to keep us going until after Lunch. I highly recommend checking it out if you’re in the area.

For one day and night we visited family for my Aunt’s birthday and it was great to meet up. Unfortunately my parents had caught Covid and as my Sister lived with them they were unable to join us. We will need to arrange another trip soon so we can all go together.

The weather was good, and although it was fairly warm I was surprised how few people were wearing T-Shirts and shorts. I must have stuck out like a sore thumb but at least I wasn’t overheating 🙂

We spent another afternoon visiting the Hafen City area and walked all along the strip. I spotted a U-Boat on Google and that’s where the photo above was taken.

Look forward to going back and visiting other parts of Germany again. I have always wanted to get to Berlin…

New Beginnings

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Last week I finished working at the job I’ve been working at for 5 years. That’s a long time and a lot has happened in that time.

The postives: got another cat, got some new cars, made progress on my Mazda, visited some new places (Amsterdam, Paris, Hamburg, various places in Wales, Cornwall), got married!

Negatives: Got Cancer (and covid); spent the last year working through a company that had gone through multiple acquisitions culminating in me going off on stress leave for around a month.

Enough is enough!

I’ve been engrossed in watching or learning about Cerro Gordo Ghost Town (see Ghost Town Living) and it’s been a really interesting experience watching someone who had no real life experience of living alone in the middle of nowhere. Needless to say he had the quick realisation that he was the only person who could determine anything that happened there, and he’s got some great philiosophical insights. One thing I’ve really taken away from that all is what he said and that is that if you don’t like something, do something about that. And that’s what I did!

Work got too much and after the big C, I have a different outlook on life. Making the most of every day and life in general is important, and I’m not going to spend it being unhappy, so I spent the time I had taken during the absence of leave finding a new job. Big priorities were ensuring it was another remote working role – I’ve been working remotely since around the beginning of the pandemic and I’ve enjoyed it. You do get lonely at times, but at the same time the pros outweigh the cons. Not having to get stressed in rush hour traffic and shout at other drivers is a bonus. That is one good thing that has come out of the pandemic really, and something that I could have done for a long time (working in IT) but it took that to wake a lot of people up.