well....part II

I go to tell the manager that our ground floor room was broken into via the window. He seems totally unconcerned about us, the customers. I ask him to call the police. An officer comes and inspects the damage. The room was by no means small but the window was broken with such force that there was glass on the pillows, on the far side of the room. We discover that they had my husband's Nexus 1 and about £300.00 in cash. They had been through my handbag and had thankfully just tossed house keys and passports aside. The did not delve beneath the knitting in my rucksack- which was where my wallet with all of my 'plastic' and some other cash was.(Number Guy's was in his pocket.)

I go back to reception It is about 11.30pm by this point. I am not feeling at all well. They seemed totally bemused when I ask them to give us another room. Upon hearing that there was no other room I asked them to start phoning around hotels and finding us one. This seemed to be a totally unreasonable request. Suddenly there was another room available. About an hour later when we are finally finished with the police officer we take our suitcase, walk miles and miles (no offer of assistance from staff)...go up and down, up and down lots of steps- our room in in the old part of the hotel and the layout is bizarre to say the least. Not only is the room right above the disco, it has someone else's stuff in it. We trek back, up and down, up and down, back to reception. Only to be asked 'Are you sure?' by the receptionist. By this time I am feeling too unwell to say 'No, we are joking.' The manager appears and reassures us that there was a mistake, ours is the room next to that one and the disco will be off in 15 minutes.

We go back to the foyer. The manager joins us for a friendly chat. Finally thinks to ask if we might need something to drink. We ask for coffee and a soft drink and he then sits still for another half hour before finally going to organise it. In the meantime NUmber Guy had gone back to our room for something. He had a T-shirt with his employer's logo on it. As he came back I could hear someone being somewhat unpleasant about it. A scary-looking bloke then sits down with us and starts to pick NG's brains about search ratings :0( FFS- everyone now knows we have been burgled, it is after one in the morning and I look/feel like shit. But neither off us feels like telling this guy to take a hike. It was all very odd and we suspect quite strongly that he was the fucker who broke into our room...remember that NG had given our room number earlier in the evening when ordering a coffee. So this guy then starts going on about this online webshop of his friend blah blah blah. It is a sex toy shop (Oh, really? How uninteresting). We sit through as much of his stupid, inane burbling as we can manage until he offers to show me the site on my iPad. he makes a move to grab it but I get there first and just tell him 'No way!' He then starts getting very interested in whether it is the iPad 1 or 2....hmmm. But then he goes too far and makes a grab for Number Guy's laptop to show us the website on that. (what the fuck is wrong with this guy? I mean, how much more inappropriate could he get?). I've had enough by now.
'I don't mean to be rude,' says I. (For non-Brits that translates as 'I am being really rude, please fuck off and die.'). You can see we have had a bad night. I am ill and it is now after one in the morning. Goodnight.' He finally sods off. We drink our coffee/soft drink and go to bed.

We were supposed to fly back to Zürich later this same afternoon but I get worse and worse. After a really frustrating call to a doctor ('Did I need to be admitted?' Erm...wasn't that his job to decide?) I am finally admitted to hospital. Pyelonephritis is diagnosed and I am given IV antibiotics. I can't comment on other wards in the Countess of Chester Hospital but the two wards I was on were spotlessly clean and the staff had no problems with me self-medicating.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...the staff's attitude at the hotel, together with everything that had happened meant that NG did not feel happy staying there. He left and booked another hotel. We remain disgusted with both the standards in the hotel and with the very unhelpful attitude of the manager. We were burgled at his hotel yet he did not seem to think he needed to do anything to assist us.

Unfortunately...the new hotel is at the racetrack. It was Chester Race Day. The car park is shared by the hotel and the racetrack. NG can't get in until after 8.00pm....

My stay in hospital was largely uneventful, thankfully, but there was one funny incident. The morning that I was discharged I was in another ward and hadn't even said as much as 'Hello' to the other women, as I had been brought to that ward late the night before.The woman in the bed opposite me obviously didn't like the look of me- she was making mobile calls (that wasn't a problem on the wards at this hospital) with a disposable bed pan held up to her face. She was glaring at me over the top of the bedpan, holding the mobile in the bowl part of the pan and speaking into it in an obvious attempt to make sure I didn't hear what she was saying.It was SO funny. She kept glaring at me over the top, so I finally very ostentatiously put my ear buds in and turned my iTouch on...but kept laughing to myself....well, it was the only funny thing that had happened in a very long weekend.

So... discharged, get to the hotel. Grateful to see that there are two extra pillows in a clear case on top of the wardrobe. That meant I wouldn't have to ask for more.I take them out, arrange them on the bed, turn over...and put my face right into a pillow smelling of vomit. Well...that really was the imperfect end to an imperfect weekend