How National Express let us down.

Almost forgot to blog about a disappointing incident that happened two weeks back. My wife was in Nottingham for two days for a workshop at the University of Nottingham. She had booked a bus ticket with National Express for her return journey. The bus was supposed to leave Broadmarsh bus station, Nottingham at 10:05pm.

I was home with the kids and had just put them to bed when my wife rang me up around 10:30pm. She told me that there was no bus to Coventry around and asked me to check her email - just in case there had been any cancellations. I opened up her account and didn't find any emails from the company. However, I did find a number on the e-Ticket which was meant to be for "emergency situations only". My wife called the number and found out that the particular bus had been cancelled because she was the only passenger to Coventry. As you can very well imagine, we were really pissed off. Instead of apologising, the person on the line actually made it seem like it was our fault. According to the person, they had sent an email to my wife informing about the cancellation. We have yet to receive that email. At first I thought that it might have ended up in the spam box. No! It wasn't.

Our money was refunded promptly but that is not the point. This could happen to anyone. What if you didn't have enough money to stay in a hotel for the night? What if you couldn't call anyone?

Fortunately my wife was able to call up a friend who lived in Nottingham and the friend kindly picked her up and my wife waited at their house for me. I had to wake up my sleeping kids, bundle them in the car and drove up to Nottingham. The journey took about an hour and I was lucky that there was a can of Nescafe around. The journey back and forth took about 2 hours and by the time we got back, it was nearly 1 am. We have travelled with National Express a number of time but this incident really left a bad taste in the mouth.

A few lessons we learnt:
- have enough money in the pocket always
- have enough credit in the mobile and enough juice in the batteries (recharged) always
- have some loose coins just in case
- call the transport company at least a day before to make sure that there were no cancellations.

Daffodils emerging

It's amazing. Every Spring you will see daffodil flowers emerging from the ground everywhere. The bulbs had lain dormant through the winter.



This is my Green Thumb Sunday post for this week.
Join

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

Online grocery shopping - Tesco vs Sainsbury's

Both my wife and I shop a lot online. I guess we are what marketers refer to as a "innovator" especially in relation to stuff online. However, I never imagined that I would be shopping for groceries online one day.

As compared to books, software, electronics or even clothes, shopping for groceries is totally different. I like to look, feel and sometimes smell the food I buy. My wife wanted to try out some of the online grocery stores here. She gave a couple of resasons why buying groceries online was a good idea. According to her:
1. These stores would ensure the quality of stuff sold online.
2. We could shop at leisure.
3. We could avoid the crowd at the stores.
4. We could save on petrol.
5. We could avoid the temptations of the "spur-of-the-moment" buys.
6. It would give her a better insight into service quality of online stores, which is somewhat related to her PhD research.

We tried out Sainsbury's Online Groceries first of all. We bought products worth £77.41 - mostly organic food. I also earned two Nectar points for every £1 spent online.

The groceries were delivered on the appointed date and we were satisfied with the quality of the products.

A few days later we decided to take a look at Tesco's online grocery store. We had one coupon which enabled us to get a discount of £10 on orders over £50. The final amount came to £64.32. The stuff will be delivered to our house this Monday.

Here are some of our observations:

Website Navigation: We found Sainsbury's store to be more user friendly. Easier to find items.

Product Choice: We were looking for organic food and Tesco definitely has a wider choice.

Pricing: Tesco products were cheaper. As for delivery charges, Sainsbury's was comparatively cheaper but as I mentioned earlier, we had a discount coupon for Tesco.

Conclusion: I would have to give a thumbs up to Tesco's online grocery store because of the overall savings. Plus I get points on my Tesco card.

The British too wants to probe the moon

A few weeks back I wrote that 'India plans to probe the moon'. Today I read that the British too are planning to send an astronaut to space and probably send probes to the Moon as well. These were some of the proposals in the The British National Space Centre (BNSC) document, "The UK Civil Space Strategy: 2008 - 2012 and beyond".

This means that the Thatcher Government's decision in 1986, to stop space exploration will be reviewed.


Helen Sharman (from the BBC site)

I initially assumed that Britain was the only developed nation that doesn't have an astronaut. However, I was wrong and later found out that Helen Sharman was the first Brit in space. She was part of Project Juno, which was funded by the Soviet Union and a few British companies.

I won an award

I recently received an award from Emila but totally forgot about it. It's called the "I Love You This Much Award!"



In her words:

I think it’s a good idea to spread some love and to remind us that love is all around!

It's quite an honour to receive this award from someone as creative as Emila. Thanks.

Overpriced rentals in Coventry

Last Saturday, I went to pick up my wife from her friend's house in Nottingham. They live in a 4 bedroom terrace house. It even has a basement. I was so shocked when I learnt that they paid the same monthly rental like us - only£400/ pcm. It's a great location - just opposite a play ground and walking distance from a school and shops.

For the same amount, our friends Mozard and Nana's were able to rent a much bigger house in Birmingham.

Our house is a 3 bedroom house, but now after we have converted one of the small rooms into a walk-in closet and another into a study/ guest room, so in the end, we technically only have one bedroom we use. Yes! The kids sleep with us. I guess the only plus point of our house is the huge backyard at the back - the biggest among all our friends.

Our backyard last Winter.

Of course house rentals depends on the furnishings, presence of garden, parking facilities and of course the location. The thing is that here in Coventry, our house rent is considered cheap. The average for a 3 bedroom fully furnished house is £500 upwards depending on location. All our colleagues tell us that we got ours cheap. However, I should point out that most of them live either in Leamington Spa where rental for a single room is around £300.

I simply can't understand why house rentals are so high here in Coventry. Logically, it should be lower than in Birmingham, which is the 2nd largest city in the UK. Nottingham, even though Coventry has a slightly higher population, is far more prosperous. Probably the population has something to do with it. Going back to basic economics principle of demand and supply and their relation to price.

Of course there are exceptions and some guys did get lucky, like one of our friends who was able to get a 3 bedroom, newly renovated fully furnished house in Foleshill for only £380/ pcm.

Anyone here from Coventry who thinks that house rentals are overpriced?

Happy New Year of the Rat

Gong Xi Fa Chai

Updated : 10, Feb, 2008

Wishing everyone a very happy Chinese New Year. It began on Thursday, February 7, 2008.

According to the Chinese Zodiac, this year is the 'Year of the Rat'.

Unlike the West where this rodent is seen as a dirty pest, in the East it is a respected animal and symbolic of wit and wealth.