Our satellite feed coach driver, Darren, said that he had worked in a family business for many years but it had recently been taken over. The Firm was involved with making steel rings for industry. He said the new owners had a completely different attitude and were only interested in money and profit. There’s a surprise in this day and age!!!

He said that when he had completed 20 years service no one even came down to congratulate him and thank you for his work. He said that he had tried to offer a couple of bits of information to make the process more efficient but his remarks were brushed aside.

Why is management bad?  I suppose it’s a bit like a marriage really, that if you have seen your parents behavior in a certain way to each other you just don’t know how to treat others any differently. Also if you are in a very competitive industry then the stress is on you  and may give you very little time and energy to focus on the needs of others.

I suppose we also have the problem of cultural differences that in some societies you are expected to be more independent less needy of support. I can also see bad management taking the form of the staff not being given opportunities to air grievances and thus bottle up their frustrations which cannot do productivity any good.

Management may also suffer from good old fashioned prejudice where you take a dislike to someone because of their accent or sex or nationality or indeed sexual orientation.

All these things can be sorted out but need the awareness and the will and which staff member is going to have the courage to stand up for what they believe and risk getting fired.

Anyway, back to the story. Eventually Darren had had enough and decided to become a self-employed taxi driver. This term is different in country areas and it means he drives longer distances whereas in a place like London you would normally do shorter distances. He says he is much happier now and loves meeting new people. He timed himself to turn off bang on time to clients and the two of us were picked up at our normal pickup point in Bath for JustGo Holidays exactly on time. We were then taken to a pickup point for the main coach via Keynsham and Bristol parkway.

Thus began our four night five day holiday to Bosworth Hall Hotel which is in the Midlands about 20 miles east of Birmingham. We had been to this accommodation designed for coach groups this time last year so it was returning to The Familiar that was pleasant. I don’t want to sound too much like a TripAdvisor but the property has enormous parks around about, and it’s very quiet and historic and I look forward to going there again next year.

How do decide if a place is worth going to? TripAdvisor is the obvious place to go – it’s one of the largest recommending sites. Ignore the very bad ones because these are usually those where people have had a bad day and do not say much about the hotel. Some people write bad reviews out of spite and you can tell this by the almost abusive quality of the comment.

Those of you who live in the United Kingdom will know that we had terrible rain and wind and floods in the previous week which miraculously stopped a day before we would due to set out which was Monday the 25th of November and for the duration we had clear blue skies come out cold crisp mornings and lack of wind.

I should add that I normally check the viability of something using dowsing and particularly when travel is concerned the method is successful. All you do is envisage the time and ask the universe if the conditions are right. You have to be very specific in your question, for example ‘ overall, how much would we enjoy ourselves on this particular week?.  If you ask ‘ is it a good thing to go?’ you might get a slightly different answer. I have been doing dowsing now for over 50 years and I’ve got it down to a fine art and the most important thing is to be objective which is not always possible when you are asking a question which pertains to your situation.

That is why it is a good idea to get someone else who is neutral to check.  What we are not able to check or to prophesy is that Francoise sprained her left knee while getting off the coach to enter the hotel and thus was unable to go on any of the day tours that were organized.

I ended up going on the tours on my own  and she spent her time resting, watching TV and reading so overall we got the rest that we needed.