Weekly Roundup 16/1/12 – 20/1/12

Monday

It feels strange doing meditation at my mum’s house. Although had a good 22 minutes before a cup of tea was brought up for me I am going to keep it to 20 minutes from now on. I feel like they’ll judge me for it, and I don’t think they’ll understand, so I best not broach it with them. Hopped in the car early doors (7am) to drive to Bristol. Arrived at the new office at 9am. Bit of a pain today but eventually we got things working which was great. The receptionist wanted to lock the comms room at 5pm so I suppose it was an excuse for me to clear off and find my hotel.

I can heartily recommend the Future Inn at Cabot Circus in Bristol. It’s a bit like an upper class Premier Inn – but actually that is doing it a disservice – it’s obviously swiping directly at the budget hotel market with it’s prices, but the rooms are actually as good as I’ve had in places like a Hilton. Although the first room they put me in all the sockets had failed! So they moved me without any quibble. Great customer service. The company had kindly booked me in on dinner bed and breakfast, so I had some Moules Mariniere which was lovely. I could have had a drink, but I’m keeping off the booze now.

Once dinner was over, I wandered over the road to the rather nice Showcase Cinema at Cabot Circus to see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. This is a cinema that makes the enjoyment of a movie positive – Sony 4K projectors, decent sound system and raked seating that’s really comfortable. City Screen in York is similar – a cinema that actually wants it’s customers to have a great experience and come back for more. Somewhere that’s obviously passionate about the films.

Compare that to the frankly awful Vue cinema in York which has totally unhappy, grumpy and unhelpful staff, crap flat sound systems with damaged speakers, level seating screens (i.e. no raking at all) with very uncomfortable seating (apart from the premium seating that they’ve put in to cater for those people who drive Range Rover Sports), very crap projection and mostly small screens. You can tell I try not to go there if I can at all help it.

Tuesday

Up, a short practice, and a nice breakfast (I forgot how nice Alpen is), then into the new office to finish off my work. Left mid-afternoon for the long drive all the way back to York. Home and cooked some tea and then out to the Buddhist meeting for the evening.

Wednesday

First swim this week – another 1km.

Into the office (very busy but productive day) and then home. Nice pasta for tea.

Had a bit of an emergency this evening – we have had a Philips Steam Generator iron (GC8261) for a few years now and apart from it randomly putting brown stains on clothes, it’s been fine. The thick hoses between the base and the handset had started to fray, but it looked OK – I sealed it with tape just to make sure about 2 years ago. Until this evening when the bit with the tape burst into flames and started sparking! Thankfully Michelle jumped away and I leapt up and unplugged the iron and put out the fire. What it looks like has happened is that the steam tube had failed and the mains cable inside the hose had worn away until the inside cables were exposed (quite a big flaw) and the steam shorted the mains out and caused a fire. Quite why my MCB didn’t trip is beyond me, but once the fire started, the hose started to burn, as did the tape, and the whole thing killed itself. I’ve cut the plug off the iron and it’s gone in the garage to be WEEE recycled. Very scary.

Was very tired this evening so was asleep by around 8:30pm.

Thursday

Michelle’s in the office early today, so I took the kids to out of school club and into the office by 8am. Lots of work today but very productive.

Home and sorted out a bit of a palaver at home. Quiet night.

Friday

Up early again this morning and at the pool for around 7:15am. Did 1250m today (50 lengths) which is a bit of a minor achievement for me – and it didn’t feel that hard either. I am slowly building up to a regular daily distance of 1500m and hopefully will get up to 2000m per day by March/April.

Into the office and another very productive day. Busy busy all day today but we arranged a few things we’d been putting off for months, which is great, and I think the brain cloud I’ve been under for quite a while has slowly dispersed. I can think straight for the first time in ages. I’m very motivated.

Home a bit later than normal, but we had a treat – some Dominos’ pizza. I suppose it balances out fairly the swim this morning. I am feeling tired again now, writing this (only 20:10) but I can only think it’s because I’m getting up a little earlier and burning lots of energy.