Recently I’ve been spending a lot of time on the internet sussing out accommodation for an upcoming holiday. For me, a big part of deciding where to stay is reading the reviews and therefore being able to make a well-informed decision to stay at that hotel or find something better. Usually the reviews are honest, straight-forward and easy to understand … but after two days of reading reviews, I realised there must be a hell of a lot of nut jobs staying in these hotels, because some of the reviews were absolutely ridiculous!

Here is a selection for your enjoyment. These are real reviews, left on very reputable websites. Bear in mind that all of these hotels are budget, cheap, one to three star accommodations, which is made clear on the websites through descriptions, prices and photos.

“The art work on the walls was absolutely disgusting and too explicit. There were naked bodies. Disgraceful.”

The above was left by a “mature couple” who chose to stay in a hotel in Rome. Naked artwork in Rome? No way! Culture? What culture? I’m actually impressed there actually was art on the walls!

“The hot water was too hot, dangerously so.”

At least it had hot water! It made a nice change from the usual “no hot water, no water pressure in the shower!” reviews, but still, I wonder if this person knew the art of counter-acting the hot water with cold water?

“About bath, hot water did not last long, particularly after pouring bath tub fully with hot water, no more hot water was available… Run out?”

You don’t say? Perhaps you used the entire hotel’s quota of water for your one huge bath? This person can’t be serious?

“There was a bedspread in the bed that was very strange and kitsch.”

Okay, so they have crappy taste in bedding – tell me something I’m going to care about! For example, did the shower work?! Were there bed bugs?!

“4 of us wanted to pay with cards separately and they wouldn’t let us do it.”

Have you ever been to a restaurant? You’ll find they don’t want you to pay separately either, so why would a budget hotel happily sub-divide the bill into four? You book a room, you pay. One bill. Simple.

I’ve looked at some really shitty hotels over the past few days (some just out of interest) and here are some review headlines that just make me chuckle:

“I’d rather sleep on the street with the homeless!”

“Bugs beware!!”

“Horrible hotel in the suburbs…oh yeah…blood stains!”

“WORST HOTEL IN THE WORLD”

“RUDE!!”

“Below average isn’t harsh enough…”

“Blood on the ceiling, need I say more?”

“Worst Hotel Ever (Video Included)”

“IT IS ABOVE A BROTHEL!!”

But do you know what is the best about reading reviews? The websites which show two selected review headlines next to the hotel information, and the two reviews clearly clash in opinion. It’s like the hotel has a split personality and you’ve got to wonder what the hell went wrong to make one person love it and another despise it!

For example…

Jan 16, 2009: “Maybe one of the best budget hotels”
Mar 24, 2009: “Worst Hotel Ever!”

May 14, 2009: “Won’t be back!”
Apr 28, 2009: “Great place to stay”

May 12, 2009: “DO NOT EVER GO THERE!!”
May 20, 2009: “We would definitely go back anytime!”

Aug 15, 2008: “Great basic hotel”
Oct 24, 2008: “This hotel was just horrible!”

Mar 3, 2009: “Great value!”
Mar 9, 2009: “We were glad to leave!”

You’ve just gotta love hotel reviews! At first I would take every one seriously, but after a week or so, I discovered it was ridiculous to do this, because the responses are so varied. Obviously some people have a horrible stay, but you’ve got to wonder why – many bad reviews are because they checked out early (and got charged for a second night) or they demanded things the hotel simply doesn’t provide. Or their expectations were too high.

It’s done the trick though – Phill and I are now upping our price range for hotels in this particular city. We’d rather pay a little more and get better accommodation. Who knows, maybe I’ll be adding my own review when we get back, capital letters and excessive exclaimation marks galore?

I’m sitting in the office at home trying to do some work and I hear this sudden uproar of crows cawing outside. I look out and see that there are about ten crows fighting over the neighbour’s wheelie bin, which is on the curb and overflowing with rubbish. The lid is propped open because there’s too much rubbish in it and the crows are picking at the bags and pulling out bits of food. So far there’s an empty McDonald’s cup in the middle of the road and three of the crows are fighting to the death over some cheese.

The noise is driving me mad.

The neighbours come outside, I get my hopes up that they’re going to fix the situation … but they simply get in their car and drive away.

Bugger.

I try to bear the noise but the crows are going crazy, obviously fighting hard for whatever scraps they can get. After five minutes of screams and caws, I just can’t take it anymore. I have to do something about it so I go downstairs, put on rubber gloves, grab my wheelie bin and roll it over the road to the neighbour’s bin. Trying not to think about how gross it is, I pull out the garbage bag from their bin and put it into mine. Now their bin closes and I won’t have to put up with crazy crows anymore.

I wheel my bin back to my house and put it at the curb, since the bin man will be around tomorrow to collect the rubbish. And before you say, couldn’t I just suck it up if he’s coming tomorrow, it is currently quite early in the morning and I can’t take another two minutes of the crows, let alone twenty hours!

Back upstairs, it is a relief to listen to … silence. The crows are all perched on rooftops, glaring at me. I am sure they will wake me up at 5am tomorrow morning with their cawing just because they’re mad at me, but I don’t care (sorry though, to Phill). I can work now without their incessant noise.

So anyway, I’m looking out the window feeling all relieved and I see the neighbours returning from shopping. They pull up, fail to notice the new bin situation, pop open the car boot … and I see a young man leave the house to help them with the bags.

OMG OMG OMG!! Someone was inside the house while I was rifling through (and STEALING!) their rubbish! Did he see me? OMG. He must think I am some sort of maniac crazy rubbish-stealing cat woman!!

How embarrassing! But it was totally worth it for peace and quiet.

Even if my neighbour now thinks I’m really weird.

Today there are two birthdays to celebrate – my Mum’s (Puddy’s “grandma”) and Puddy’s! Can you believe that Puddy is turning 4 today? It seems like only yesterday I stood in the driveway waiting for Phill to get home from work, nursing a teeny-tiny shivering black kitten in my arms, figuring out the best way to break it to Phill that I’d taken in a stray.

Obviously we can’t know for certain when Puddy was born, but when we took her to the vet to get checked out, he guessed the 25th May 2005. What a coincidence that the date he picked means Puddy shares a birthday with my Mum!

So – presents! Puddy’s first present came in a box…

… a brand spankin’ new scratching post! You might recall that Puddy has torn her old scratching post to shreds recently and I was crossing my fingers and toes that she would like this new one just as much. She really needed a new one since she still tries to scratch the old one but it’s so ripped up that it doesn’t really work.

SUCCESS!

Within seconds of me putting it together (can you believe there were instructions on how to screw the long pole into the base?), Puddy was having a scratch. The base is nice and big and the pole itself has a couple different scratching textures, as you can see. Puddy then turned around and had a harder scratch – hopefully this new scratching post will survive a little longer than the last one!

Puddy’s next present was a new pink collar with diamantes because the one she’s been wearing all the time, a lovely gift from the Cupcake Queen Brunei,  was starting to get a little worn. It’s hard to say goodbye to the old collar (it’s so pretty!), so she’ll still wear it from time to time.

Puddy sat on my lap patiently as I adjusted the new collar and changed over the bells. Does anyone else do this? New cat collars always seem to come with bells attached and the sound of the bells are always different. Phill and I are used to – and like – one particular bell sound for Puddy, so whenever we get new collars, we throw out the new bell and replace it with the old one. I guess in a way, it’s Puddy’s “voice”.

Lastly, Puddy got some new little toy mousies to play with!

The front of the package is actually open, so Puddy could smell the catnip. I scattered them on the base of her new scratching post and waited to see her reaction. Puddy really loves little mice and these were no different – they were suddenly being batted across the floor and chewed on! No doubt they will bring many hours of enjoyment … until they end up in her not-so-secret stash under the arm chair, safely hidden until next time!

HAPPY 4th BIRTHDAY PUDDY!

And of course, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM!

PS – I just realised there is only one photo of Puddy’s face in this entire post! She was obviously too engrossed in her presents to pose for me and couldn’t care less that I’m trying to photograph her!

Puddy doesn’t get scared easily. Being a former stray, she had to learn to be strong and brave early on in life. I will never forget the first time she saw a rottweiler that was being walked on a leash past our house. Instead of freaking out and running away, she lunged at it, puffed up and hissing and I found myself attemping to pull my cat off the (stunned) rottweiler, apologising over and over to the bemused owner.

Since then, she’s tried to attack other cats, a german shepherd and even the poor mail man, so as a result, she usually goes outside on a leash, or when I am within grabbing distance. Even though she’s a quarter of their size, she thinks nothing of starting something with them!

While she is a brave cat, she does have her limits. The vacuum sends her into a frenzy. Strong winds freak her out, forcing her back inside the house to hide until it calms down. And hair clippers … oh dear, we discovered this particular phobia by accident one afternoon when Puddy was napping and Phill and I were examining my brother’s old electric shaver. We turned it on, it whirred to life and this was Puddy’s reaction, which took about a second to play out:

Her pupils dialated and she stared at the shaver apprehensively. I was surprised at this, since she tolerates more intense noises without a problem and the shaver wasn’t particularly loud. The only thing I can think of is maybe it reminded her of a trip to the vet last year. She had to be put on a drip, so they had shaved a little fur off her front leg. The vet had told me when I came to pick her up that she had been extremely pissed off the entire time and kept hissing at them, but particularly lost it when they started up the shaver.

Poor Puddy!

How does your cats handle loud noises, crazy winds and hairdryers?

Weekend Cat Blogging is being hosted at Life from a Cat’s Perspective, the Carnival of the Cats is being hosted at the House of the (Mostly) Black Cats, and the Bad Kitty Cats Festival of Chaos is at Meezer Tails.