No en suite?

'At home'.

What was that called? I love Bill Bryson books.

Bill Bryson wrote a really interesting book about the development of the home, taking it room by room. I always find social history much more interesting than kings and battles!

I'm always fascinated by programmes about the history of sanitation [or lack of it].

Damn! So did I!

No, missed it!

Anyone watch the programme about toilets that's just been on BBC4?

Last time I had food poisoning (a smoked oyster in NZ. silly me.) i found the motel sink very handily arranged next to the loo. Saved a lot of mess.

Had a bathroom in Paxos once where there was obviously... brace yourself for DH quote "some very nasty anaerobic bacteria growing". The kind of bacteria that produce hydrogen sulphide - rotten egg gas - I think I have got that right - down the drain in the floor. Was kept under control by a bottle of bleach (a whole one) every 2 days. We did complain and they did call some drain people in... to little effect.

I've had a couple of bathrooms like that! Very handy in some circumstances.

You could do that in my bathroom too!

On a Ramblers' holiday in Cephalonia, my friend and I shared a room with the smallest en suite imaginable. She went down with a tummy bug and remarked that this was the only bathroom where she could sit on the loo and throw up in the sink at the same time. A good recommendation for their brochure, perhaps.

I hope you complained long and loud!

I stayed at the Belgrave Mews Hotel in Ebury Street in London a couple of years ago - 2 nights for the princely sum of £180 a night. Having arrived by air from Scotland and going out to a 'very posh birthday party' I needed a shower but found our ensuite to be no bigger than an aircraft toilet and filthy with no water coming out of the shower head - I shall try to attach the photo I took of it. There are certainly ensuites and then again ensuites

Yes you are probably right! It was a routine part of the job of domestic servant.

Let's hope there was never an outbreak of food poisoning! I expect chamber pots were widely used -pity the poor staff who had to empty them.

I thought of this thread the other day. Staying in the Celtic Royal Hotel in Caernarfon. There was a sale notice on the wall, describing the hotel when it was put up for sale in the 1920s.
"First floor, 21 well appointed rooms, 4 servants' rooms, 2 bathrooms, 1 toilet."
We are spoilt rotten with out modern plumbing and ensuites aren't we.

Puy lentils are delic. use them a lot !

Pau is lovely and was one of the places we considered buying a house. It has a long British tradition, because officers settled there after the Napoleonic wars, having seen it on the way back from Spain. They built many of the grand villas around the town. I believe there is still a traditional British hunt.

The sun is shining here in Haute Savoie and as soon as The Wright Stuff is finished I am off for a long walk to the crest of the ski slopes at Hirmentaz.
I was torn between buying another house in the Pyrenees, or coming to the Alps, but it is very central here, between Geneva and Chamonix, and I can explore Switzerland and Italy easily. When I lived in the Pyrenees, I was able to use all the different passes into Spain.

I could not bear to leave this wonderful countryside, if it were not for the fact that I will be emigrating to a beautiful part of South Island, New Zealand - and I will be able to pursue my passion for snorkeling on coral on the various islands of the South Pacific.

Lentils/lavatories - not a thread I wish to explore!

I can only 'fess up as they say. I didn't know my Pau from my Puy. Yes I meant Puy lentils. They are unlikely to come from Pau. Doh! There, I've not a leg to stand on.

Pau looks lovely

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pau,_Pyrénées-Atlantiques

Alphonse de Lamartine said: "Pau has the world's most beautiful view of the earth just as Naples has the most beautiful view of the sea." Many parks with views of the Pyrenees, Pau is said to have more green space per inhabitant than any other European city.

Though Puy looks lovely too:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Puy-en-Velay

Maybe everywhere with sun looks good today; the weather is horrible outside.

All my threads weave about a bit - I like it!

Lavatories to lentils, how very GN!

I have never heard of Pau lentils. I don't think it's a protected name like Puy lentils.

The Puy lentils are tiny, roundish and darkish brown. Green lentils are bigger than the orange ones, lenticular and ... green.

isthisallthereis Aren't those Puy lentils?