Like all the hotels we’re staying in, it has an impressive foyer. You walk in and you think on appearances it’s going to be 5 stars, and not the 3 and a half rating on trip advisor.
Pity then that it all goes downhill from there.
We have a corner room and no bathroom.
Have you ever stayed in a hotel that has rooms with no bathroom? Yes, it’s a first for us too. Still, this is China and I suspect if you complain there’s always a worse room to put you in.
For us, it’s just going to be an amusing situation we’d bear and give it a one-star rating on TripAdvisor for the hotel.
And just a word of warning, if you decide to book the hotel directly make sure you don’t get a corner room.
At least everything else was reasonably ok. Ok, not so much, the safe doesn’t work.
This doesn’t augur well for the rest of the tour in this particular place.
Before we leave, some photos of our room, and the lack of a bathroom.
Separate doors for shower and toilet, and on the other side of the passage, the washbasin
Feng Shui seems to have been forgotten when planning this room.
The next morning we discover that other rooms do have bathrooms but they’re small. Some have neither tissues or toilet paper, another has a faulty power socket and cannot recharge the phone, and I’m sure there are other problems.
All in all, it seemed very odd to have the toilet and shower on one side, and the wash basin on the other side of the passage.
What happens when your past finally catches up with you?
…
Christmas is just around the corner, a time to be with family. For Will Mason, an orphan since he was fourteen, it is a time for reflection on what his life could have been, and what it could be.
Until a chance encounter brings back to life the reasons for his twenty years of self-imposed exile from a life only normal people could have. From that moment Will’s life slowly starts to unravel and it’s obvious to him it’s time to move on.
This time, however, there is more at stake.
Will has broken his number one rule, don’t get involved.
With his nemesis, Eddie Jamieson, suddenly within reach, and a blossoming relationship with an office colleague, Maria, about to change everything, Will has to make a choice. Quietly leave, or finally, make a stand.
But as Will soon discovers, when other people are involved there is going to be terrible consequences no matter what choice he makes.
Rupert follows Worthington and Arabella to and from the concert, and then observes them over dinner, wondering what it is that’s missing in his life until they go back to the room for the night.
To him, it seems like it’s just a sex weekend with cultural embellishments.
Until he spies Worthington on the move at two am, leaving the hotel on foot. It turns into a meeting between him and two other men in the park before Worthington returns to the hotel, business concluded.
It has to be something to do with John and Zoe, otherwise, the meeting would have been in the hotel, not the deep recesses of the park. Rupert has photographs and gives them to Sebastian for identification.
At least they now know the reason for Worthington being in Vienna. Arabella just makes it look more casual.
John breaks his plan to Zoe over breakfast, and she is surprised. It’s a good plan, and once she had dealt t=with the problems, it would be a go.
And, she added quite sombrely, if they all survive.
The bad news was she would be leaving the next morning to visit an old friend, Dominica, who probably isn’t so friendly now, to get information. And, no, she was not sure what would happen after than, but if she could, she would call him.
With the two me identified, and the danger they presented, Sebastian had to move to plan B and sets it up. He deliberately doesn’t tell either of them because he knows they would strenuously object.
The plan: sniper to shoot them from a building across the road, not to kill, but to slow them down. It would be difficult to be out plotting when in the emergency ward of a hospital.
But, as usual, things don’t quite go to plan. Worthington is hit and wounded, though not severely as Sebastian had hoped, but Arabella moved slightly just before he pulled the trigger, and he couldn’t see what happened but what he could see, it looked very, very bad.
…
Today’s writing, with Sebastian dusting off his sniper rifle, 1,882 words, for a total of 56,217.
50 photographs, 50 stories, of which there is one of the 50 below.
They all start with –
…
A picture paints … well, as many words as you like. For instance:
And, the story:
Have you ever watched your hopes and dreams simply just fly away?
Everything I thought I wanted and needed had just left in an aeroplane, and although I said I was not going to, I came to the airport to see the plane leave. Not the person on it, that would have been far too difficult and emotional, but perhaps it was symbolic, the end of one life and the start of another.
But no matter what I thought or felt, we had both come to the right decision. She needed the opportunity to spread her wings. It was probably not the best idea for her to apply for the job without telling me, but I understood her reasons.
She was in a rut. Though her job was a very good one, it was not as demanding as she had expected, particularly after the last promotion, but with it came resentment from others on her level, that she, the youngest of the group would get the position.
It was something that had been weighing down on her for the last three months, and if noticed it, the late nights, the moodiness, and sometimes a flash of temper. I knew she had one, no one could have such red hair and not, but she had always kept it in check.
And, then there was us, together, and after seven years, it felt like we were going nowhere. Perhaps that was down to my lack of ambition, and though she never said it, lack of sophistication. It hadn’t been an issue, well, not until her last promotion, and the fact she had to entertain more, and frankly I felt like an embarrassment to her.
So, there it was, three days ago, the beginning of the weekend, and we had planned to go away for a few days and take stock. We both acknowledged we needed to talk, but it never seemed like the right time.
It was then she said she had quit her job and found a new one. Starting the following Monday.
Ok, that took me by surprise, not so much that it was something I sort of guessed might happen, but that she would just blurt it out.
I think that right then, at that moment, I could feel her frustration with everything around her.
What surprised her was my reaction. None.
I simply asked where who, and when.
A world-class newspaper, in New York, and she had to be there in a week.
A week.
It was all the time I had left with her.
I remember I just shrugged and asked if the planned weekend away was off.
She stood on the other side of the kitchen counter, hands around a cup of coffee she had just poured, and that one thing I remembered was the lone tear that ran down her cheek.
Is that all you want to know?
I did, yes, but we had lost that intimacy we used to have when she would have told me what was happening, and we would have brainstormed solutions. I might be a cabinet maker but I still had a brain, which was what I overheard her tell a friend once.
There’s not much to ask, I said. You’ve been desperately unhappy and haven’t been able to hide it all that well, you have been under a lot of pressure trying to deal with a group of troglodytes, and you’ve been leaning on Bentley’s shoulder instead of mine, and I get it, he’s got more experience in that place, and the politics that go with it, and is still an ally.
Her immediate superior and instrumental in her getting the position, but unlike some men in his position he had not taken advantage of a situation like some men would. And even if she had made a move, which I doubted, was not the sort of woman she was, he would have politely declined.
One of the very few happily married men in that organisation, so I heard.
So, she said, you’re not just a pretty face.
Par for the course for a cabinet maker whose university degree is in psychology. It doesn’t take rocket science to see what was happening to you. I just didn’t think it was my place to jump in unless you asked me, and when you didn’t, well, that told me everything I needed to know.
Yes, our relationship had a use-by date, and it was in the next few days.
I was thinking, she said, that you might come with me, you can make cabinets anywhere.
I could, but I think the real problem wasn’t just the job. It was everything around her and going with her, that would just be a constant reminder of what had been holding her back. I didn’t want that for her and said so.
Then the only question left was, what do we do now?
Go shopping for suitcases. Bags to pack, and places to go.
Getting on the roller coaster is easy. In the beginning, it’s a slow easy ride, followed by a slow climb to the top. It’s much like some relationships, they start out easy, but they require a little work to get to the next level, follows by the adrenaline rush when it all comes together.
What most people forget is that what comes down must go back up, and life is pretty much a roller coaster with highs and lows.
Our roller coaster had just come or of the final turn and we were braking so that it stops at the station.
There was no question of going with her to New York. Yes, I promised I’d come over and visit her, but that was a promise with crossed fingers behind my back. After a few months in the new job, the last thing she want was a reminder of what she left behind. New friends new life.
We packed her bags, threw out everything she didn’t want, a few trips to the op shop with stuff she knew others would like to have, and basically, by the time she was ready to go, there was nothing left of her in the apartment, or anywhere.
Her friends would be seeing her off at the airport, and that’s when I told her I was not coming, that moment the taxi arrived to take her away forever. I remember standing there, watching the taxi go. It was going to be, and was, as hard as it was to watch the plane leave.
So, there I was, finally staring at the blank sky, around me were a dozen other plane spotters, a rather motley crew of plane enthusiasts.
Already that morning there’s been 6 different types of planes departing, and I could hear another winding up its engines for take-off.
People coming, people going.
Maybe I would go to New York in a couple of months, not to see her, but just to see what the attraction was. Or maybe I would drop in, just to see how she was.
As one of my friends told me when I gave him the news, the future is never written in stone, and it’s about time you broadened your horizons.
It could be said that of all the women one could meet, whether contrived or by sheer luck, what are the odds it would turn out to be the woman who was being paid a very large sum to kill you.
John Pennington is a man who may be lucky in business, but not so lucky in love. He has just broken up with Phillipa Sternhaven, the woman he thought was the one, but relatives and circumstances, and perhaps because she was a ‘princess’, may also have contributed to the end result.
So, what do you do when you are heartbroken?
That is a story that slowly unfolds, from the first meeting with his nemesis on Lake Geneva, all the way to a hotel room in Sorrento, where he learns the shattering truth.
What should have been a high turns out to be something else entirely, and from that point every thing goes to hell in a handbasket.
He suddenly realises his so-called friend Sebastian has not exactly told him the truth about a small job he asked him to do, the woman he is falling in love with is not quite who she says she is, and he is caught in the middle of a war between two men who consider people becoming collateral damage as part of their business.
The story paints the characters cleverly displaying all their flaws and weaknesses. The locations add to the story at times taking me back down memory lane, especially to Venice where in those back streets I confess it’s not all that hard to get lost.
All in all a thoroughly entertaining story with, for once, a satisfying end.
The address in 84th Avenue Jamaica, was between Jamaica Hills and Briarwood, and a little confusing because there was an 84th Avenue, 84th Drive, 84th Road. It led Bryson to a single two-story house with a driveway up the side to a garage. It was not wide, but long, and painted a rather odd colour, and in need of updating. It
He parked the car in the side alley and pulled out the key ring that was found on the body, and went up to the front door. He stepped to the side and looked through the window, where there were several cracks in the Venetian blinds. It was too dark inside to see anything.
The seventh key he tried opened the outer glass door and the last the front door. There was no alarm, at least not one that was set. It was clear, once inside, that no one else was in the building. He switched on the light and was confronted with a rather untidy room with old furniture, and few modern comforts.
He put on the gloves he had brought, and picked his way carefully through the mess, trying not to disturb anything. After a cursory inspection, he would call in the CSI team.
It was a room that wasn’t used often, with no television, a setoff shelves with a few books tossed in, and items of clothing tossed on a settee. The room had a musty odour, as though it was not used, nor cleaned often. Moving towards the back there was a dining room, with a large table covered in documents, newspapers, connections for a computer, a printer, a USB hub, and leads leading to missing devices, one of which was possibly a phone. Other than the printer, there was no other hardware.
The kitchen showed signs of recent use, with dirty dishes and cutlery tossed hastily in the sink. A look in the refrigerator showed a few items, some looking very stale, and a block of cheese that had turned green. He didn’t check the milk, it looked off.
The papers on the table were haphazardly tossed, perhaps as a result of Bergman looking for something and not finding it. It didn’t have the feel of someone else looking for something.
Further on was a passage leading to the back of the house and another entrance. Back in the middle of the house were stairs going up and down. Visible from the outside was a basement, and Bryson shuddered, a bad experience in his childhood to do with basements came back to haunt him. It was going to take some effort to go down there.
Upstairs there were two very large bedrooms and a bathroom, the first bedroom showing signs of use, with clothes tossed on the bed, others tossed on the floor. The closet doors were open, and clothes were hanging, half hanging, or fallen on the floor. It looked like Bergman was in a hurry to find something that he believed was in the closet.
There was nothing in the other bedroom, nor anything of interest in the bathroom. Overall, Bergman was very untidy. The upstairs rooms had faded wallpaper, and in places, it was peeling off. The roof was stained, and the bathroom had mould.
The whole ground floor and upstairs needed repainting, and the bathrooms modernized. And the wallpaper replaced or removed. The carpet in the upstairs rooms was both stained and very dirty.
He went back downstairs and pulled out his torch, headed down the stairs to the basement. At the bottom, there was a door, locked, and the first time through all the keys, not one unlocked the door. He tried again and found that a little more elbow grease was required to turn the key in the lock.
Just to be on the safe side, not knowing what to expect, Bryson pulled out his gun and was ready, just in case there was a surprise. He opened the door and pushed it open slowly.
Darkness, And a very bad smell, like something had died down there.
He reached inside the wall and found the light switch, then turned on the lights.
The area he could see was surprisingly clean, and sparsely furnished, with a long table with boxed neatly set out. Along one of the walls was a set of filing cabinets. The floor was uncovered concrete, and the odour was most likely rising damp.
When he crossed the room to the table, he could see, in the other direction, a doorway that looked like an exit, and a free-standing safe, quite large, with the door open. He went over to look inside, but it was empty.
There was no clue as to what might have been in there, but Bryson suspected whatever there had been, Bergman had taken with him, the day he died, or before that, but recent.
The boxes on the table had power tools in them and were probably part of the stock in trade.
On one box was a folder which Bryson carefully opened and looked at the first page.
Shipping dockets. Some in the name of Phillip McGarry, and the rest in the name of Avondale Traders, Bergman’s company.
He tried the keys on the filing cabinets but none of them opened any of the cabinets. Each appeared to be full because Bryson tried moving them and it was very difficult. CSI would be able to get into them, and he would have to wait.
There was the noise of a car pulling into the alley beside the house and then stopping. A few seconds later, two doors slammed shut.
He raced up the stairs, closing the door behind him, and reached the top just as the visitors opened the front door.
Yes, it’s dark and late at night on this side of the world, and I’m guessing where you are, it’s probably winter, the sun’s disappeared, the day is freezing cold, and you’re having a hard time keeping warm.
Here, in the so-called land down under, which surprisingly a lot of people from the other side of the world do not know about, it is wet, and cool where it should be sunny and hot as well as humid.
Now, hang on, that can’t be true others don’t know about us, because we all know the world is round and there has to be something or somewhere opposite. I know that north we have China, and Europe, and further away, the United States.
Been to China, Europe and the United States, so I know you’re all there, somewhere.
And, as you can see, the rain and the cold have amped up the boredom factor and pushed me to do anything other than writing. I have three jobs I’m supposed to be doing,
Editing the second Walthenson PI, a Private Detective novel
Writing two episodes of a serial story about surveillance going wrong, and
Finishing off some new travel blog posts
None of them is appealing to me at the moment.
Instead, I find myself looking at what is showing on Winter TV in the US, one of which is reruns of Snowpiercer and is suitably cold. It’s also complicated, and sometimes a little hard to follow which means it takes two viewings to understand what’s going on. It will be interesting to see where series three leads us … and I’m hoping Melanie will be back
Fascinating.
Then there are several of my favourites, FBI, The Rookie, a show called The Equalizer, a new version of an old TV show I used to watch many years ago. Another will be the next series of Bridgerton, which was odd but interesting since we like those Jane Austen like programs. Now hopefully there will be another series of Miss Scarlett and the Duke, set in Victorian England.
And as for the blacklist, since Liz left it had gone downhill … let’s hope they find something to lift it, like Liz’s evil twin sister!
John and Zoe are nowhere near Vienna, Zoe having gone to Bucharest and then Zurich on her way back to see John who was going to pick her up from the airport, and then the both of them were going to Lucerne for a few days.
A reminiscing cruise on Lake Geneva had been on the cards, but there might not be time.
First, they had to do some work on charting who was trying to kill her, because she has finally come to the realization that there is more than one. Her visit to Bucharest yielded another name, quite possibly the person who was masquerading as Komarov.
Second, John was intending to introduce her to the new members of their team, the team he hasn’t quite got around to telling her about, who will be dedicated to research, investigation, and, via Isobel and the dark web, organizing the hits.
John had decided that she should not have to be distracted by finding work, just doing the work. He was going to take care of the rest.
Perhaps a good time would be over dinner?
Meanwhile, Sebastian and Rupert are on surveillance duties while Isobel is tracking down which hotel the lovebirds are staying in. As soon as she has the information, Rupert is on the job.
She then moved to track John, knowing Zoe will be with him because she has seen the passenger lists for flights from Bucharest to anywhere.
Both are thankful neither John nor Zoe was in Vienna, which then makes it a priority that neither Worthington of Arabella should leave, except to go back home. Although they hadn’t established it was the reason Worthington was in Vienna, it was too close to the bungled attempt on their lives for them not to draw the appropriate conclusion.
Sebastian has a plan B that no one was going to like, not even himself.
Plan A was yet to be formulated.
…
Today’s writing, with Zoe languishing in a dungeon waiting for a white knight, 1,566 words, for a total of 54,355.
The address in 84th Avenue Jamaica, was between Jamaica Hills and Briarwood, and a little confusing because there was an 84th Avenue, 84th Drive, 84th Road. It led Bryson to a single two-story house with a driveway up the side to a garage. It was not wide, but long, and painted a rather odd colour, and in need of updating. It
He parked the car in the side alley and pulled out the key ring that was found on the body, and went up to the front door. He stepped to the side and looked through the window, where there were several cracks in the Venetian blinds. It was too dark inside to see anything.
The seventh key he tried opened the outer glass door and the last the front door. There was no alarm, at least not one that was set. It was clear, once inside, that no one else was in the building. He switched on the light and was confronted with a rather untidy room with old furniture, and few modern comforts.
He put on the gloves he had brought, and picked his way carefully through the mess, trying not to disturb anything. After a cursory inspection, he would call in the CSI team.
It was a room that wasn’t used often, with no television, a setoff shelves with a few books tossed in, and items of clothing tossed on a settee. The room had a musty odour, as though it was not used, nor cleaned often. Moving towards the back there was a dining room, with a large table covered in documents, newspapers, connections for a computer, a printer, a USB hub, and leads leading to missing devices, one of which was possibly a phone. Other than the printer, there was no other hardware.
The kitchen showed signs of recent use, with dirty dishes and cutlery tossed hastily in the sink. A look in the refrigerator showed a few items, some looking very stale, and a block of cheese that had turned green. He didn’t check the milk, it looked off.
The papers on the table were haphazardly tossed, perhaps as a result of Bergman looking for something and not finding it. It didn’t have the feel of someone else looking for something.
Further on was a passage leading to the back of the house and another entrance. Back in the middle of the house were stairs going up and down. Visible from the outside was a basement, and Bryson shuddered, a bad experience in his childhood to do with basements came back to haunt him. It was going to take some effort to go down there.
Upstairs there were two very large bedrooms and a bathroom, the first bedroom showing signs of use, with clothes tossed on the bed, others tossed on the floor. The closet doors were open, and clothes were hanging, half hanging, or fallen on the floor. It looked like Bergman was in a hurry to find something that he believed was in the closet.
There was nothing in the other bedroom, nor anything of interest in the bathroom. Overall, Bergman was very untidy. The upstairs rooms had faded wallpaper, and in places, it was peeling off. The roof was stained, and the bathroom had mould.
The whole ground floor and upstairs needed repainting, and the bathrooms modernized. And the wallpaper replaced or removed. The carpet in the upstairs rooms was both stained and very dirty.
He went back downstairs and pulled out his torch, headed down the stairs to the basement. At the bottom, there was a door, locked, and the first time through all the keys, not one unlocked the door. He tried again and found that a little more elbow grease was required to turn the key in the lock.
Just to be on the safe side, not knowing what to expect, Bryson pulled out his gun and was ready, just in case there was a surprise. He opened the door and pushed it open slowly.
Darkness, And a very bad smell, like something had died down there.
He reached inside the wall and found the light switch, then turned on the lights.
The area he could see was surprisingly clean, and sparsely furnished, with a long table with boxed neatly set out. Along one of the walls was a set of filing cabinets. The floor was uncovered concrete, and the odour was most likely rising damp.
When he crossed the room to the table, he could see, in the other direction, a doorway that looked like an exit, and a free-standing safe, quite large, with the door open. He went over to look inside, but it was empty.
There was no clue as to what might have been in there, but Bryson suspected whatever there had been, Bergman had taken with him, the day he died, or before that, but recent.
The boxes on the table had power tools in them and were probably part of the stock in trade.
On one box was a folder which Bryson carefully opened and looked at the first page.
Shipping dockets. Some in the name of Phillip McGarry, and the rest in the name of Avondale Traders, Bergman’s company.
He tried the keys on the filing cabinets but none of them opened any of the cabinets. Each appeared to be full because Bryson tried moving them and it was very difficult. CSI would be able to get into them, and he would have to wait.
There was the noise of a car pulling into the alley beside the house and then stopping. A few seconds later, two doors slammed shut.
He raced up the stairs, closing the door behind him, and reached the top just as the visitors opened the front door.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 