Right Royal Treat

I hope you had a nice Valentine’s Day however you spent it. I have spent many of them as a single man over the years making me quite an inexperienced boyfriend when it comes to this event. However I did manage to get a card and flowers delivered, so maybe I am a tiny bit smoother than I give myself credit for. Sadly I did not manage to see Lynda on the day itself but I did have something up my sleeve to mark the occasion the night after that I will tell you about a bit later.

Personally I have always really viewed Valentines’ just as a chance to appreciate the people around you and in your life. Mind you that like telling your other half that they are special should of course happen all the time really not just on one day a year, although in many ways that would be a lot easier. I think my point is while it is marketed as a couple’s thing everyone can still share in the love and appreciate the feel good factor of it.

Neil Quigley
Neil Quigley

That said I was looking at some of the things that I have done on previous Valentine Day’s they include going to watch Spurs, taking the Neighbours tour in Melbourne, doing a final radio show at a station that I was at for five years and going to see The Only Fools and Horses musical alone. Therefore looking back it seems like I have always spent the day with someone incredibly special to me, myself. Which I think if you recall the song is exactly what George Benson and Whitney Houston suggested is the greatest love of all!

Neil Quigley

Since I was diagnosed as Coeliac and then put on a Gluten Free diet around a year ago now, Lynda has been brilliant at not only cooking me amazing meals that fit my dietary requirements but finding some restaurants that are totally Gluten Free. When we go to these places it means that I do not have to ask a million questions and I can order everything on the menu. Plus I do not have to be concerned about cross contamination. She found a new one called Niche just down the road from Angel Tube Station that we visited a couple of weeks ago.

One of the reasons we went to eat there was that we were already in London for something else, which I will explain shortly. Anyway we had booked at table for five when it opened. The Staff were nice and friendly, they happily sat us at our table when we arrived a tiny bit early. The set-up of the place is great, it has a lovely feel to it and they have these plastic dividers between the tables that give the illusion of a bit more privacy when you are eating.

Mushroom Rarebit

The menu was excellent with lots of different options many of which were things rarely available to me in a lot of restaurants. They were very quick to sort out some drinks and take our order. For starters I had the mushroom rarebit dish with cheese, garlic and caramelised onions while Lynda had their version of southern fried chicken. Both were excellent but for an opener they were generous portions so we were pretty full before we even had our mains.

It sounds quite surprising but very few food places offer gluten free burgers therefore I had not had one for ages so as soon as I saw it on this menu I knew I just had to have it. It was amazing and came with some good fries with all the trimmings and a side of onion rings. The other thing I really liked about the place was the soundtrack, it was mostly eighties music and it was making my already lovely food even more enjoyable. We will definitely being going back there again at some point I need to work my way through the rest of the menu.

Neil Quigley

The reason that we were in London that evening, was because we were both going to see Tottenham play Brighton in the F.A. Cup. Due to the fact the game was on television the kick off was at the unusual time of 8pm on a Saturday night, as that really ate into the middle of the weekend. A couple of weeks before I said to Lynda that if I could get the seat next to my normal season ticket seat, would she like to come to the game with me? She said yes, I am not totally sure if that was because she thought I probably would not be able to get the ticket I needed to or not but I did so she accepted the offer.

Just before we set off for the game my contact at the club who I got the second seat from emailed me to offer us a free upgrade to the Premium Seating area. As that included two of my favourite words free and upgrade I accepted. After our meal at Niche we headed for the underground and made our way to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. It is a journey I have done countless times but it was nice to have someone new to do it with as we approached the ground from the High Road.

Neil Quigley

We got inside, found the bar area and roughly where our seats were then had a glass of wine each before kick off. The seats were on level three and padded which is a slight step up from where I normally sit. Lynda is not a football fan at all and would never really watch it on the TV but she did thankfully and happily enjoy watching the game live. We actually played the best we had played for a while before or since as we went on to win the game quite convincingly progressing through to the next round.

Since that game we have lost our last two home games. I am now starting to think that she might be a lucky mascot and I might need to take her with me to every game. That might take quite a bit of negotiating though. After the match we went back into the bar and had another drink before getting the train home. It was a fun night and I always enjoy showing new people the stadium plus any trip there is always better when we win and play well.

Neil Quigley

I mentioned Lynda and I did not see each other on Valentine’s Day part of the reason for that was that I had organised a surprise for her the night after. Before Lockdown one I had tickets to go and see the as it was then fairly new musical Hamilton. That performance was of course lost to Covid so I got my money back and hoped that I would get the chance to see it one day. The other thing I did not say about that booking was it was to see it from a box. I have always wanted to see a show from there.

Anyway at the end of last year the opportunity this time to get hold of two tickets for the royal box at Hamilton came up and I managed to secure them for the 15th February. I did not tell Lynda where we were going or what we were doing. I knew it was a musical that she also wanted to watch. I made her meet me somewhere in London and then took her to the theatre. Obviously when we got to the theatre she realised what we were seeing but I still had one more surprise up my sleeve, our seats!

Hamilton

We went in and collected our pre ordered drinks. I then led her to our seats after having to ask how to get there, her face was a picture she was surprised but delighted. I think if you are going to be in any box at a theatre you have to make it the Royal Box. The show itself was brilliant. I can see why it has won so many awards and why when it opened in London it was so hard to get tickets for it. We had a brilliant night and I was really pleased that I actually managed to keep it a secret for the three months since I had booked it. I will be honest I had nearly given it away accidentally several times.

View from The Royal Box

Last weekend we stayed in and Lynda managed to convince me to watch a film mainly due to the fact it was sport related and had Will Smith in it. We saw King Richard which is the story of how Venus and Serena Williams became tennis superstars. Before they were even born their Dad who the film is really about had written a 78 page plan to create the two greatest female tennis players of all time. He of course somehow managed to achieve his goal.

It is a decent film and kept my attention throughout which is not as easy as it sounds. It has a bit of everything humour, drama and a few slight twists. It focuses on their early years and finishes at the point where Venus the oldest sister makes her big debut on the circuit. It features some great performances and some great retro clothing. Would you believe to tie it in with the start of this update Richard Williams’ birthday is on the 14th February, it was a good film and I am actually glad I watched it!

King Richard

I did as I always try to watch the Brits the other week. It was not as rock and roll as it used to be, part of that I think is due to the size of the arena it is now held in. The O2 is so big and so difficult to get to and from it makes getting too drunk and out of hand too difficult. I thought Mo Gilligan did a great job hosting what is a very tough gig. The two best live performances in my opinion were Adele and Ed Sheeran. They both rightly got awards. The only other thing really of note was the lovely Ann-Marie doing a Madonna and falling over on the stairs.

Neil Quigley

I am off to York next weekend, I have been twice before and I always enjoy it there, I will tell you what it was like and what I got up to next time we speak.

Neil Quigley
Neil Quigley

A quick reminder that you can listen to me every Saturday afternoon between 2pm – 4pm on Radio Ninesprings https://www.radioninesprings.co.uk/

Neil Quigley
Neil Quigley

Have fun and we will catch up again soon. Stay safe! Cheers Neil.

Jamaica 2022

Long time, no speak then, I hope you had a good January and have manged to ease yourself into the year gently. Apologises for the delay with this latest update but I was lucky enough to be able to have a nice break and leave England behind for a couple of weeks. Something I last managed to achieve in February 2020 when I went to Australia. Therefore personally I felt I was overdue a nice holiday somewhere sunny, warm and relaxing.

My girlfriend and I had booked to go to Las Vegas and New York in September but when this looked unlikely due to the restrictions at the time we decided to change it for two weeks in the Caribbean in January this year instead. We arranged it all a while ago and were as you can imagine following any travel information updates with great interest. Before we even flew to Jamaica we had to get a visa from their government to confirm that we were allowed in the country. This was a quick and simple process and luckily they welcomed us both with open arms.

Jamaica

The other thing we had to do before we would be allowed on the plane was to get a negative PCR Covid test within forty-eight hours of our planned departure time. We were flying on the Monday so we booked our tests with a private company on the Saturday afternoon. We had to go to a local clinic to get them done and they guaranteed us we would get the results by midnight on the Sunday in time for us to be able to get our flight on time. This of course adds to the tension and stress around if you will still actually be able to have the holiday or not.

We were flying from Gatwick in the morning so we decided to book a hotel there for the night before so we could just wake up and walk across to the terminal. It got to three o’clock on the Sunday and still neither of us had received our results. Lynda’s then came through at four, so we decided to head off to the airport as at least she would be able to go. We got there and checked in, still no news on mine. Then we went to the restaurant to have some dinner, still nothing. I should mention that due to a mixture of nervousness and excitement we may have started to have some wine by this point, well we were almost on holiday.

Neil Quigley

Eventually at around eight that evening I finally got the email with my test result and thankfully it was negative. The last hurdle had been overcome. We were all good to go. As a result of the stress of the wait and the euphoria with the result we may have stayed up a little later and drank a bit more wine than we planned to. We kind of started the holiday slightly early, which was fine until the alarm went off in the morning and I realised I had a hangover as I was preparing to check in for our ten hour flight to paradise.

As it turned out I had an extra couple of hours to recover as the flight was delayed. It took us quite a while to check in ourselves and the luggage due to the queues but on the plus side we sped through passport control and security. Once in the departure lounge we had some brunch which in my case was some gluten free pasta. Then we saw on the airport screens that the gate was closing on our flight even though it was not due to leave for another hour. We rushed down there just in case we were about to miss it only to find out that it was not even boarding.

Ochi Beach Resort

We did take off at the new expected time and we settled down to read and watch a selection of the airline television options. I saw some comedy specials, then enjoyed a few episodes of Friends and The Big Bang Theory. Although mainly I was reading the first of the three books that I had taken with me for the trip, which was Bob Mortimer’s autobiography. It was for the record very funny and interesting. We travelled with British Airways and fair play to them they did manage to cater for my gluten free dietary requirements at meal times.

We had booked a two week all inclusive holiday at the Sandals Ochi Beach Resort in Ocho Rios. We flew into Kingston Airport and then had a ninety minute transfer to where we were staying. The local time when we arrived at our home for the next fortnight was about 9pm. After a delayed ten hour flight needless to say Lynda and I were pretty tired by this point. However we somehow managed to complete all the check in paperwork and were then met by one of our two Butlers. I appreciate that sounds very extravagant but to have that service with the accommodation we had selected it was only a very small amount extra so we would have been foolish not to.

The Villa

We were staying in a Hillside Villa Suite which came with its own semi private pool shared with the three other apartments in your block. The Butler’s have golf carts to get around so us and our hand luggage got a lift to where we would be living for the next fourteen days. We were shown round, had a few important things explained to us and then we were handed a mobile phone, which was basically the Butler hotline to keep in touch with them and to use to ask for anything that we needed. The Butler then leaves and we were both shattered by now so planning on going straight to bed when we see a bottle of champagne on ice in the living room. It would have been rude not to drink it so we did to toast our arrival.

The next morning we decided to order a room service breakfast and ate it on the balcony overlooking our pool which was great. We then got picked up by Shenae the same Butler who welcomed us the night before. She took us to reception and helped us make some of the restaurant reservations we needed to. There are sixteen of them on the resort some of them need to be booked and the rest of them are just walk ins, so you can go to them whenever you fancy. It made sense to try as many different places to eat as possible so over our time there we did try most of them at least once.

Balcony

The resort itself is on three sites, there is the Hillside where we were, the Beach Club and the Sea View, with the last two being in effect over the road. However there is a shuttle bus that runs every ten minutes between them from 7am – 2am every day and each of them are no more than five minutes apart so getting between them is very easy. Each one has its own accommodation, pools, bars and restaurants. We mainly split our time during the day between the pool on the side we were staying and the beach. The sea was so warm over there it was almost like taking a bath so needless to say I spent a lot of time just floating in it.

Neil Quigley

The weather while we were there was great mainly sunny with highs of around twenty-eight degrees Celsius, although it did hammer it down with rain one night and was a little cloudy for half a day. Our main past time during the days was sun bathing and I am delighted to say I was successful in my plan to get a nice tan while not getting burnt. You have got to keep slapping on the lotion and make sure you have a decent factor and brand on. I am quite dedicated to this goal in that I must confess I do wear trunks when I am on a sun bed to reduce the size of my tan lines shall we say. I will concede this is not for everyone but I say let them look.

Neil Quigley

They did a great job out there making sure my food was gluten free by telling me what I could and could not eat and on occasions making me special things to have like bread or some desserts. There was a good selection of different food on offer and we did try as much of it as we could. They had Italian, French, Japanese, American, Spanish and traditional Jamaican restaurants as well as some seafood ones. Shenae and our other Butler Andre always met us for dinner and made sure they sat us down and got us our drinks straight away, which was brilliant. The two of them worked shifts so shared the workload of looking after us and their other guests.

Neil Quigley

While I was there I had some snails, which I have had before in Paris and were equally as nice. I tried some Jamaican Mutton Curry and of course had plenty of Jerk Chicken. I am most definitely a pudding fiend and occasionally due to my Coeliac Disease I am unable to have one in some restaurants. I was lucky on this holiday as I did manage to have something most nights. In the French place they gave me a flourless Chocolate Pudding with ice-cream and cream which tasted amazing. In fact Lynda thought that I looked so happy and content eating it when we ate in the same restaurant later on in our stay see ordered it to try to see if it was as good as my face made it look.

Neil Quigley

There are lots of different bars all over the resort where you can order whatever you want whenever you want it. They have people who come round to bring you drinks while you are on the beach or by the pool. I think we had a good go at working our way through their entire cocktail menu. That said I think they would pretty much make you anything you asked for. We did discover one called The Bob Marley which comes in the colours of the Rastafarian Flag so looks very bright and colourful and as it happens seemed to be very strong with a delayed reaction. I love sweet things so I thought it tasted great!

Neil Quigley

They have a late night drinking venue called the Speak Easy or The Rabbit Hole that looks like a Hobbits house from the outside. You have to give them a password to enter, everybody gets given it, and it is just for a bit of fun. They have live music in there some nights and for some reason all of the cocktails in that place seem extra potent. It was on our side of the resort and always a good place to have a few final drinks before heading back to the Villa. There is also the Polo Lounge that is a big room overlooking the main pool area which is also a good place to watch Premier League football as they have TV screens in there.

Neil Quigley

The other bar I really liked was on the Sea View side and called Miss Ethel’s Piano Bar. Every time I went in there the bar staff, were all laughing and joking around with each other it always seemed like they were having fun. The best bit though was that most nights a performer called Panda yes that was his name would be on sat at the Piano playing a few songs. On a good night in there everybody would be sat around the Piano and join in with all of the songs. You cannot beat a sing-along where everyone is involved it was very inclusive and a good laugh. We must have gone there at least five times during the two weeks.

Piano Bar

While we were there we had a couples massage. I would like to point out it was just a standard deep tissue massage but we were just in the same room lying next to each other. They asked how hard you would like the pressure I said firm as I figured that was the best way to get your money’s worth as it would have the most impact. I then spent the next sixty minutes basically being beaten up by my lady who was very strong. Joking aside it was lovely and relaxing and she did well getting some of the knots out of my back. At the end of it they left us holding hands in the middle. The women doing mine said I had really tight shoulders so flogged me some tension relieving gel. I will let you know if it works or not. You always feel so good after a massage. As you would imagine the place does have its very own Spa!

Neil Quigley

It is mine and Lynda’s Anniversary of our first date later this month but the person we booked our holiday through arranged for us to be able to mark the occasion while we were in Jamaica. While we were out at the beach one day our Butlers’ organised a bit of a surprise. We got back to the Villa and found a cake saying congratulations on the living room table with a note wishing us a happy anniversary and telling me there was some fruit for me in the fridge as the cake was not gluten free. We both thought that was a really nice gesture.

Cake

Then Lynda walks into the bedroom and I hear her scream so I join her and they have decorated the bed with flowers and balloons and arranged coloured lolly sticks to spell out happy anniversary. There is another note which says enjoy your bath. We both walk into the bathroom to find it covered in flowers with a bubble bath run at the perfect temperature to get straight in alongside a bottle of bubbly on ice with two glasses. They had set it up perfectly and it had ended up being like a treasure hunt. That was a really classy touch from everyone involved.

Neil Quigley

The other thing we did was take advantage of was the fact they have their own photographic studio there by having a daytime and evening photo shoot. We did one during the day wearing our going to the beach gear and then one in the evening when we were all dressed up. There is no obligation to buy and we had a lot of fun posing and messing about. As it turned out there were some really nice photos of the both of us so we ended up buying fifteen of them in the end. It was a good laugh and a nice memento of the holiday. It did also make me think that maybe I could still make it as a male model you know.

Neil Quigley

The fourteen Days went at a reasonable pace, it gave us enough time to appreciate and enjoy the break. Then it was time to fly back to cold and cloudy England. I am a big fan of getting a bit of January sun it is a great way to kick off the year and it basically means February is here before you know it. I appreciate I am very lucky to have been in a position to be able to do this. I now feel so chilled and relaxed. I am not sure if that is from the heat, the not having to work for a few weeks or the Jamaican outlook and way of life has rubbed off on me, but it seems like a good position to be able to attack the rest of the year from.

Neil Quigley

Thanks very much to Gail from Red Route Travel who suggested and booked the holiday for us. Regularly keeping us updated before we went and checking on us to make sure everything was alright when we were there. Plus it was her who organised the “anniversary” stuff and sorted out airport lounge access for us at Gatwick. I would like to also offer my appreciation to all the Sandals Staff who looked after us really well and made it a very enjoyable holiday. Lastly of course a big thanks to Shenae and Andre our Butlers who looked after us brilliantly despite my ability to never manage to answer the phone when they called us and my phoning them to ask for random things.

Neil Quigley

We had a wonderful time and are already looking forward to our next adventure whatever that may be. It did seem like everybody in Jamaica was a music producer or a rapper. Whenever anybody found out that I worked in radio within seconds they were showing me their latest music release on their own YouTube channel. To be fair a few of them I thought were really good, although they do appear to be a little looser with their lyrics than we are allowed to be on the radio in the United Kingdom!

Ochi Beach Resort

A quick reminder that you can listen to me every Saturday afternoon between 2pm – 4pm on Radio Ninesprings https://www.radioninesprings.co.uk/

Neil Quigley

Have fun and we will catch up again soon. Stay safe! Cheers Neil.