Wow, that was an expensive trip, not helped by the crappy exchange rate.

Still a great city to walk around, all that lovely ancient architecture. Pity more of it is fenced off or you have to pay to enter. At least the Colloseum wasn't surrounded by scaffolding.

We found the secret place with the keyhole that you can look through and see the dome of St. Peters, through a cultivated arch of some monastery. Supposedly it is all secretive freemasonary type stuff there.

Photos from Rome on the Fong Gallery

Judging by the need to turn the central heating on and to extending the timings, summer is officially over for Bournemouth. Now for brisk walks all covered up in the fresh air.

It might give us a chance to do a refurb of the Hotel in time for next year's guests.

Halfway to Seatown.

We were over in Bridport a couple of weekends ago and ended up doing a refreshing walk down on the Jurassic coast.

They drove down some windy road through Eype and onto a small car park by the beach. The coastline is definitely different to that around Bournemouth and the scenery is different to the New Forest as well.

We headed up and over the hills towards Seatown, which had a handy pub called the Anchor Inn to have a stop.It was forecasted to be wet but ended up being very sunny instead. It was nice that there was a cooling breeze coming in from the sea.

Having done it once I would do it again. Even Mark and Louise saw my Facebook photos of it and they went the day after.

Was up at Apple HQ in Stockly Park yesterday. Having worked in Mac-dom for umpteen years, this was the first time at Apple. I saw at Apple, we were quickly herded off to the left into a presentation room.

We went through the latest release of the Filemaker Go software for iPads and iPhones. Pretty neat. I do have to question why it is so hard to roll out multiple iPads for a business. Having to have iTunes and different accounts with credit cards seems so much hard work.

Hopefully Android etc will push Apple in the right direction if they really want to take it beyond a consumer product and into the business/enterprise arena.

Interesting bunch of people. Got some new ideas to add onto the QR Codes quest, things like push notifications, web services/SOAP and so on.

A page to link to The Society of Garden Designers Suffolk page.

Whether you are looking fo a water feature, sculptured layouts, large lawns, if you live in the county of Suffolk then there is a listing of potential garden designers for you.

iPhone App that reads QR codes aka 2D bar codes.

Benedict

The family have left, even though little Joshua asked if he could stay forever. Initially it was for an extra 14 days but changed it to forever.

We went to Moors Valley Country Park which was great fun for the kids. I even thought the water play area down Boscombe Chine was pretty good as well.

Some photos on Facebook: Summer 2010, nephews, friends and all.

Unfortunately we had to move some guests, sorry Graham and Corinna. Laura, Finn and Tate were late bookings into the bargain as well.

What an absolute shame about the Bournemouth weather over the last week.

It really put paid to the Airshow over the weekend. Kids all a bit fidgetty with having to stay in and nowhere to go.

Doesn't look any better for the bank holiday weekend either.

Hotel Fong is full

First Emma and Stuart, then the karate boys and then Emma and Dave.

Soon it will be the airshow weekend and we will have a house and a half full! There will me my sister, husband and three kids, then Angela's sister, husband and two kids, Paul Mount and his two kids, and my brother Ken. Plus a few cousins may also come down the days before the house fills out.

The fees are going up this year.

Summer is rapidly approaching, if fading in and out at times and it looks like it will be a bumper year for Hotel Fong and guests. Parents, family, relatives and friends coming down very, very soon.

It is going to be full and then some over the Bournemouth Airshow in August as well. Not sure how much more BBQ food I can take this year but I will give it a good go.

It is the funeral of Chris Beck today who lost his fight with prostate cancer. Chris was one of the earliest members of the company 4-Sight, of which most of our Bournemouth friends are from. One of the nicest sales people I have ever met.

I remember sharing a hotel room with him during an Apple Expo exhibition and from our chats I had a lot of respect for him. Although I didn't know him too well, I found him an absolute professional and gentleman.

Rest in peace.

Paris scored an early own goal with a pickpocket that chose to work his disgusting trade on my dad but then Edinburgh hits a beauty into the back of the net when some guy comes up to me after I leave Wetherspoons and asks am I Gordon. A bit puzzled I said yes. Then he hands me my wallet that must have dropped out as I left.

Nice one Edinburgh.