I was running out of time, (too much to do before I left) and with two hotels to find for our trip, I turned to ChatGPT and trusted the recommendations…find out how I got on!
You know how it is – dates have been in your diary for ages and then, somehow the next minute they’ve arrived with a bang!
I mean obviously I knew that I had put them in the diary but work was busy, life was busy and then all of a sudden I realised that Andrew (Mr Warren) and I were going away the next day and the hotels weren’t booked.
No point in giving the task to Andrew – a) he was as busy as me and b) high likelihood that I might not like the hotel.
I needed to be somewhere near St Pancras for our evening meeting, in a hotel that had good reviews for service (bad service is one of my real bugbears) and with parking nearby as we were travelling on to Newcastle.
In Newcastle, I needed to be near the Northern Stage as we were going to see Lisa Bean’s “Laugh or You’ll Cry” stage show, all about the ups and downs of being an entrepreneur. Again in a hotel with parking and good reviews.
We also had a meeting there the next morning so needed somewhere with a good reception area.
I fed it all into good old ChatGPT and literally a few seconds later, I had a shortlist of 3 hotels for each location.
To be honest, my expectation was that the selections would be wide of the mark and that I would have to sit and find hotels myself. But as I checked the recommendations for each place, I realised that they were pretty much on the money.
With a pressing deadline, I booked the London one and decided to research the second one further in the car.
We arrived in London at The Montague on the Gardens, tucked away down a side street near the British Museum. As we drew up outside the hotel, the doorman stepped forward, took our bags out of the car and swapped the keys for a ticket. The car then disappeared and reappeared outside the next day within 10 minutes of us asking for it.
The welcome at Reception couldn’t have been nicer, our bags were taken and we had time for a drink and then set off to the British Museum, which was literally just around the corner.
We’ve been thinking a lot about the origins of jewellery at Hiho Silver and I wanted to see how jewellery has changed through the years and the British Museum was the perfect place to do exactly that.
Jewellery has been a treasured item throughout the centuries, at one point you literally wore your wealth as jewellery to show your status which I guess was a fairly safe place to keep your wealth. It features in many burials and tributes, but I was struck by the fact that whichever hall I was in, covering many locations and eras, there was always some jewellery to be found.
Very often, the carvings on the walls featured great battles, with many of them featuring horses, sometimes as naive outlines and other times as beautifully stone-carved majestic animals.
Given that we’re an equestrian jewellery brand, I found it really interesting to see how far back both jewellery and horses being important elements of our lives went.
Then it was back to The Montague to check into our rooms and have a much needed cup of tea. Our room was larger than I thought it would be and the bed was really comfy – there’s nothing worse than an uncomfortable night’s sleep.
Then it was time to head off for dinner at The Betjeman Arms in St Pancras Station. I took a black cab as I like to see the hustle and bustle of London as I travel, the driver was really chatty and I learnt a lot about the etiquette between black cabs and when it is and isn’t OK to pick up a fare.
Then into St Pancras, to discover that there is a Fortnum and Mason shop on the platform – I mean, who knew! Certainly not me…
So I had a little detour into there on the way to the pub and was delighted to find the Dill and Mustard sauce that someone gifted me last Christmas.
The Betjeman Arms is tucked away in a corner, just behind the statue of The Lovers – the meeting was in the Study, a room booked out to our group and it was a perfect size table to sit round and chat. I ordered a delicious beetroot risotto, I particularly liked the horseradish cream accompaniment, unusual but very good.
I was there for a meet-up with the Do Radio team. Over the past few months, I’ve been presenting the Making Stuff Up show on their show and the evening presented a chance to meet my lovely show Producer, Janet Hitchen, in real life as well as the team who set the Radio channel up over the course of 2025.
Do Radio is the brainchild of David Hieatt, who founded the Do Lectures. The whole premise is that whatever time, day or night, you can tune in and listen to a show, as a combat to loneliness and also as a source of inspiration.
There are 8 channels, and I presented a series of 12 programmes which I very much enjoyed doing as I got to interview fellow entrepreneurs about their progress and the challenges they met along the way.
Making Stuff Up is a very apt metaphor as the more people I speak to, the more it becomes evident that none of us really know what we’re doing all the time – and that’s important to share, because often we think that we’re the only ones who don’t have it all figured out.
I loved recording for Do Radio, I interviewed a host of inspiring entrepreneurs and over the next few weeks, I’m going to share the interviews with you as our CWG podcasts with a little added insight from me on there. I hope you enjoy them, they’re a little longer than my normal programme but well worth a listen.
Then back to the Montague for a nighttime (decaf) coffee and to get some sleep!
I have been absolutely raving about the service at the Montague to anyone who will listen. Without exception, everyone was so helpful. At breakfast, we were shown to our table and on the way, the breakfast system was explained to us. For me, great service is vested in the little details and the uncalled for assistance and at The Montague, it was there in spades.
A small example of this is that we were walking from our room to check out and one of the housekeepers saw that Andrew was carrying our bags – he immediately paused what he was doing and offered to carry them, and when Andrew declined, he rushed off to call the lift for us. He could easily have gone about his work, but he noticed us – that’s great service. I can’t recommend the hotel highly enough.
Once we were back in the car, we headed North out of London, a long drive ahead but also an opportunity to catch up and chat about family and some upcoming business opportunities, it’s not often we get 5 hours uninterrupted time together!
The rain had well and truly set in by the time we arrived at ChatGPT’s hotel of choice, the Hotel du Vin in Newcastle, but parking was easy (another tick for ChatGPT) and check-in was smooth, leaving us an hour to fit in some supper before the show.
The Hotel is well-appointed and we had a lovely room with a free-standing bath on a mezzanine floor above the bed, again we had a really comfortable bed and great service throughout check-in and a really delicious supper.
A little side note to the photos above, the last photo is body lotion that was kindly gifted to me by Mandy Powell of The Goodwash Company – one of my Do Radio interviews is with her and it’s a don’t miss episode. (The backdrop is my trusty World Secrets Wash Bag – it’s with me on every trip!)
ChatGPT had very helpfully told me that there is no parking right next to the Northern Stage and that it was an 8 minute walk from the nearest parking, so as it was tipping down with rain, we booked a taxi and set off to the North Stage ready to see Lisa Bean’s inaugural stage show.
Now I’ve known Lisa for many years now, she is a superb business growth coach and having been to some of her in-person training days, even they are a bit of a show as her comedic timing is superb.
Lisa is a driven and innovative lady, so when the thought came into her head that she should do more speaking as part of what she wanted to do, she didn’t just tiptoe into the ring – she created a whole show called “Laugh or You’ll Cry,” booked a theatre, did the promotion, sold the tickets and only went and filled a theatre!
I mean, as she herself would say, “who does that?!”
Well Lisa evidently does, and not only did she do it, she absolutely nailed it. Her show was witty, moving, educational and we were all on the emotional rollercoaster with her. Fusing anecdotal tales, with jokes and the output of her Masters Research, Lisa had the whole audience spellbound for two hours and it really is a must-see show.
Her next outing is in Leeds on 6th March 2026 and you can buy tickets here
We had a few minutes with her after the show and then our taxi announced that it was there and we were soon back at the hotel – learning along the way that in term-time Newcastle has 80,000 university students in residence, how staggering is that!!
Back at the hotel, a good nights sleep and a hearty breakfast set us up for the day and after our meeting, we headed back down South. We managed to find M&S services every time we stopped, which I was most grateful for as I’m trying to eat well when we’re on the road and they actually have some really tasty healthy options. Mr W stuck with his trusty BLT!
We were home back in Somerset by 8pm on Friday night, our whistle stop tour of the country over and done with – and a grateful credit to ChatGPT for finding us two cracking hotels!
