What do you do when life give you snow? Make snow ice cream of course!

Did I tell you I was going back to school? It’s true. Last Thursday and Friday I hit the books at Four Seasons University, learning what it takes to run a luxury hotel. I got to turn down beds, create chocolate treats for younger guests and even got a glimpse into the financials.

OK, it wasn’t real Uni, but it sure felt like it (even though I sat through lectures in the comfort of the Four Seasons country estate in Hampshire.) All that tasting beluga caviar and Scottish smoked salmon really tires one out! I was knackered by the last session on Friday afternoon, a “speed dating” exercise with representatives from 15 different Four Seasons destinations.

Let’s see, I learned about the mixed cultures of Doho, how to make Saudi champagne in Riyadh (apple juice, sparkling water, fresh mint and slices of apple) and drooled over the soon-to-be-opened St Petersburg property, a multi-million Euro refurb of “The Lion Palace”.  As 4 pm rolled around, I have to admit to feeling a teensy bit smug about missing out on my usual Friday afternoon school.

What else did I learn? In the US, The Four Seasons is equated with luxury. But the brand is not as not as well known in Europe. Since the 60s, Four Seasons has led the luxury hotel experience, being one of the first to provide robes and 24-hour room service to guests. 

And then there are the famous mattresses (yes, they are VERY comfortable, and I’m speaking from experience). Keeping up this level of service takes man power. Potential employees from housemaids to management go though at least 4 interviews, and are asked how they would react to tricky guest situations. You have to keep the standards up.

And the standards are high. If you work in room service you need to answer the phone by the 4^thring AND sound calm and organized. If you put a guest on hold, it can’t be for more than 15 seconds, and if you have to call back it needs to be quick (within three minutes).  You musn’t forget to ask about a beverage (who wants to get their dinner delivered, and then realize you forgot to order mineral water?) If it's breakfast, you need to ask if they would like a newspaper, and set expectations about the time of delivery. To get this level of service, the guest room/employee ratio is quite high -- as high as 2-1 in some hotels. And this type of service costs, personnel is the biggest item in their budget.

My 36 hours were filled with good eats (think foodie, fresh and right down the road from the local veg and dairy farms). Cappuccinos were made by the rather cute and curly haired baristas from organic coffee supplier Mozzo .  We ended Uni posh student style, with a gala dinner (I couldn’t remember the last one I went to) with an 6-foot ice sculpture inspired by St Petersburg, a 5-course dinner and a prize draw where 15 people won trips to Four Seasons destinations in Europe (sadly I was not one of them).

I hadn’t been to school in ages. By Saturday morning I was tired of all that learning (OK, maybe it was all the eating and partying) and on the way home, with imminent snow on the horizon, I wondered if I they would let me borrow some of the room service staff. Maybe next time.

You can read my reviews of my previous trip to Four Seasons Hampshire on the Have Kids Will Travel blog:

Ultimate luxury: A Modern Mother visits Four Seasons Hampshire

Own a pony for a day at Four Seasons Hampshire

Disclosure: The Four Seasons kindly provided me with a complimentary two-night stay and lots of nice food.

More photos of Uni:

The kitchens at The Four Seasons Hampshire. I felt like I was Downstairs at Downton Abbey!

The Four Seasons has a "just in time" food policy -- ordering only for "today and tomorrow". Most of the veg at the Hampshire property comes from Secrets Farms, which is just a few miles away.

And the cheese comes from Loosehanger Farmhouse Cheeses where the cows graze on the herb-rich Hampshire Downs and are fed farm-grown cereals (!)

Coffee from Mozzo...

Here are our cupcakes in the kitchens...

And in my mouth!

I have a board meeting Monday, remember?

Huh? As I flipped on the coffee maker Saturday morning, hubby still in PJs, I stared blankly at the coffee grounds. Erm, no I don’t remember. It really didn’t matter. This was all code of course. He wanted me to occupy the girls for a couple hours while he locked himself in the office.

So ... off we went to Cafe Nero. I let the girls put on whatever they wanted -- which manifested in a rainbow of pink leggings, green and yellow summer dresses and navy jumpers. I pulled on the first thing I could find -- Gap curvy jeans with some sort of splotch on the leg (toothpaste? gravy?) and the gray and pink Laura Ashely jumper I've been living in all winter.

Oh well, it was still early, maybe we wouldn't run into anyone we knew.

“Hi Susanna”, it was one of the mums from the PTA. She was there with her sister. She's from somewhere Up North and had lived in the US before. She had two children. I found this all out as we waited for our cappuccinos to froth.

After they left, I couldn’t help but imagine the conversation as they walked out the door. “She’s really nice, but (in lowered tones) she writes really dodgy things about the PTA”.

A gazillion years ago, at work, I was the American on the 2nd floor.

Then after two consecutive conceptions in two years, I was the one who was pregnant. Again.

When we moved to La Jolla, I was the known as the crazy one who had three children in less than three years. I know this to be true because once I met another mother at the play park, and when I revealed that my girls were 13 months apart, she said she had heard about me.

In blogosphere, I’m known as the one who started that network.

So what do people say when you leave the room?

Photo credit: Roy Sinai

Kate on Thin Ice is absolutely shining in her new role at BritMums helping to connect bloggers with good causes.

Her latest endeavour is to get 90 women to write 90 words about Breakthrough Breast Cancer.

So, here goes...

My first memory is my mother, kissing my forehead and tucking me in bed. She has always been there. Though I live 5,000 miles away we can pick up the phone and chat about our day. Mainly she does the chatting, while I stir the bolognaise, check the spelling homework and run the bath water. She doesn’t mind my multi-tasking, I don’t think. In fact I can feel her each through the phone cable as she reminds me to stir the bolognaise, it might be burning, don’t you know.

(It's actually 89 words, but I think it should count).

I know you are just DYING to know what has happened to my little shattered iPhone 4 on her O2 Recycle journey. Well, here's the scoop. My little girl has made it to the remarketing centre in Scotland. She was inspected there, and because of her slight blemishes (OK, her entire glass back was shattered), they offered me £157.50 (down from the web site estimate £210). I thought about it for about a second and agreed.

Those Scots sure are fast. I already have the cheque!

She's now in a stock box (below) waiting her future decided upon! 

Where shall she end up? It has been suggested that she may like the hustle and bustle of the Hong Kong re-marketing facility where she will be gussied up and given a second life for a lucky person in a developing market to use.

Stay tuned for the next installment of ... What happened to Susanna's shattered iPhone4

Ever wonder what happens to old mobile phones? I didn't, until 02 called and asked if I had any to recycle. And then they said they could track the phone and see where it ended up.

Africa? Eastern Europe? Or most likely somewhere in the UK. I like the idea of the phone being gussied up, and given a new life, and not in a box in our attic gathering dust.

If you remember, I got the iPhone4 as soon as they came out. Unfortunately I shattered it just a week after getting it! I was too cheap to fix it, and used it for nearly 18 months, held together with cello tape! I was pretty proud of that.

So I went to O2 Recycle to see how much my old phone was worth. I was pleasantly surprised to see the site estimated I would get £210.00 for recycing my phone. I expect it will be slightly less than this given the smashed back, but golly gee, that is a lot. Scottish hubby is really excited, and has got out all our old phones to see how much they are worth.

I filled in all the info on the site and off went my little smashed iPhone, to the recycle center in Scotland, to be fixed and sent off to a new home. I wonder where she will end up?

Of course, I was very worried about getting all personal information off the phone before I sent it off. O2 kindly passed on the steps to remove all content from an iPhone prior to disposal:

1) Make sure you have copied everything you need from the iPhone (e.g. by backing up using iTunes)

2) Make sure the iPhone is fully charged

3) Select "Erase All Content and Settings" in Settings > General > Reset (for more background see: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2110)

The time needed for Step 3 depends on the phone model – for our iPhone 4 it only took a few minutes.

So off went my old iPhone. I miss her already. Where will she end up? Does she miss me? I'm glad she is going to Scotland first ... where she can wave at my inlaws!

Stayed tuned for the next installment ... on what happens to my iPhone and her final destination.

My mother is visiting from California. When she is here, we always try to cram in as much as we can. However, our plans to go into London for one of the National Gallery's children's programmes were ruined when hubby was turned out to be. (BTW- have your tried the National Gallery programme yet? That's a whole other post). So we decided to stay home and bake!

Sadly, I didn't remember any of this, though I generally have fond memories of Christmas baking, the smell of cinnamon and cloves filling the hosue.

Here's my mother helping us to ice our Christmas cake.

And here's the cake. We've already started eating it.

What did you bake for Christmas?