Workdays at home, working from home, either mean I am about to go on a trip, or have just returned. Being a Monday it means I was about to go, or will be on Tuesday.
Being a Monday, it was meetings, meetings. Only to find the 07:00 one was cancelled, apparently without my knowledge. Which was a tad disappointing. I could have been told in the blizzard of mails last week, and I just filed it I suppose....
I get a break from meetings at 11, time to make a brew before there is another one to attend to.
The days passes, I squeeze in lunch somewhere. And the afternoon trails off, as folks in Denmark head off for the day, as they are an hour ahead of us. I catch my breath, pack my work bag, double check my tickets, passport and Oyster card. And at four, I pack my case, forgetting a decent shirt for the project meeting we were due to have on Thursday. I will be wearing a t shirt emblazoned with Pac Man figures. As you do. One day it will be all the rage for business meetings.
Due to the cool and windy weather outside, the cats sleep the day through, and I am left alone. Well until four, when clearly the cat's internal clock are set to CET.
Jools comes home, we are both tired, and another planned walk in the country is shelved, and instead I cook dinner early, pan friend pork and cous cous. Not bad.
The day ends all too quickly, with me playing Heaven 17 and Mari Wilson records until the fix outside looks in, wth a look which suggests its time for bed. Which it was.
It is now the middle of June, and once again I can say that I have not had two weeks at home since October. I suppose I could look in my calendar and count the week, the days. To make matters worse, this weekend I fly home on Friday and fly back out on Sunday. However, that will be the last week away possibly until the end of July. So, fingers crossed on that one.
So, yet more travel, more airports, more hotels and more burger and fries.
Tuesday.
The alarm failed to go off at quarter to five, which meant that when we did wake up at ten past, I had 35 minutes to get ready before Jools dropped me off at the station. It was a glorious June morning, few clouds and the sun already up and warm. But, with the cool breeze still blowing, I was glad of my coat of the platform at Martin Mill.
I won’t bore you with the details of the train journey, it’s the same week after week after week. So, Once we leave Ebbsfleet, there is standing the whole length of the train, and at Stratford, there is barely time for me to get out of my seat, get my cases and push by those with headphones on who did not realise I needed to get off. In the end it took someone blocking the doors which were about to close, to allow me to get off.
Then the dash across London to the airport, a quick baggage drop as I had my electronic boarding pass, through immigration and security. Two hours to spare, so I could have a slow breakfast, which is just as well as the service was very slow: 45 minutes for two cold crumpets and a pot of tea. There are apologies all round, which is fair enough, the airport now dealing more with tourist travel as well as business, so ever more passengers I guess.
I wait for my flight to be called, then somehow manage to leave my phone on the table I was leaning on, only trouble was that this had my boarding pass. I run back from the gate and find it where I left it. Now at the back of the queue, and then onto the aircraft, where there is the usual scramble to find a place for all the cabin baggage.
We are late away from the gate, and in a queue of planes for a take off slot. But we are soon airborne and flying out over east London, turning east to the Essex coast and Holland beyond. There is time for drinks to be served, before the staff collect the empty glasses and we are already dropping down onto final approach.
Schipol is the usual busy hub, but by now I know the way to immigration, baggage reclaim and then to the car hire desk, the parking garage. It is now the everyday for me. I get a Golf, I program the sat nav, and all is set fair. Only, as I find out, the sat nav is trying to find a junction that has been taken away, and so we go up and down a road, with it asking me to turn either left or right onto a road that is no longer there.
I decide to ignore the silly machine and follow the signs to Haarlem, and soon the sat nav agrees this is the best way, and shows me on the right road once more. I have a meeting, which my phone chimes away every 5 minutes to remind me of.
I arrive at the office some 20 minutes late, and get the meeting done: it goes well, then there is more meetings, coffee to be drunk. And before I know it, it is half five and time to go to the hotel to check in.
At the hotel my room is reserved, I dump my bags and go down to the restaurant for dinner. Depite wanting to be healthy, I order burger and fries, along with a tall clod beer. It is real good.
Afterwards, I go for a walk to the beach, past the empty bars and tat shops, open for what little business there is even in June. Apparently the first week in July it will go crazy here. The wind whisltes over the wide, andy beach, seagulls circle above, looking for chips to feast on. I take deep breaths of the salty air. It is good.
Back in my room I have a balcony, so with the radio burbling in the background, I sit overlooking the marina and the steelworks beyond as the sun sets and darkness takes the world away.
Wednesday.
Who took the summer away? Outside it is misty, cold and windy. I have left the balcony door open all night, and it is like a fridge on the room. I grab a shower, wake up some more, and once dressed go down for breakfast and then onto work.
At least being in an office, it gives me the chance to work, to catch up with some pressing tasks. And issue yet mre paperwork to the customer for them to ignore. It is the modern way.
The day passes, it clouds over yet more and there is rain in the air. So it only makes sense that I chose this evening to go to visit a dyke.
Not just any dyke, but still a wonder of engineering, some 20km long, which separates a large inland lake from the north sea, and protects the interior of Holland from flooding. It also has a motorway running along it. Its just an hour’s drive to get there.
The sat nav tells me the way to go, but it all looks the same to me, windmills, churches, rivers, canals, motorways, towns. All the same. But in time I come to the start of the dyke, abut am held up as a barge is going through one of the massive locks. Once the road is clear, I power up to 130km and head out over the sea, inland, where there is a clear view, the land is over the horizon, or lost on the drizzle, as is the end of the dyke.
I reack the far end, turn round and drive back, stopping at the point where the dyke was closed in the 30s, take seven shots, and get back in the car for the hour drive back to the hotel. The rain falls harder, it gets dark. And I am hungry.
Back at the hotel I have yet another burger and fries washed down with more cold beer.
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