Wednesday 15th August 2018

Wednesday morning, and as it turned out, I slept long and well under the eaves of the thatched hotel, waking up to the sound of the last of the night’s rain dripping from the moss-covered reeds.

I got up, dressed and went down for breakfast, finding myself the only one up at half six, coffee, and lots of it soon made me felt better, and so was ready to pack, check out and drive to the factory.

Tim joins me and has his usual three course breakfast, along with coffee and some light swearing. Sometime swearing makes work bearable.

We drive in convoy to the factory, in the shadow of a huge gantry crane still standing from the yard’s previous life as a ship yard. In fact our factory, and others are housed in the old ship fabrication sheds, and are huge, almost the size of airship hangers, with walls towering high into the sky.

It does not improve my mood to find that we were not able to drive on the site, and had to leave our cars outside, not that it mattered on the way in, but as it happened, there was a downpour when we left, and we both got soaked. This also did not improve my mood.

But we arrive in plenty of time, then wait for our host. And wait and wait.

Once the meeting was over, Tim and I leave, getting soaked walking back to the car, saying farewell as he was driving back to Hamburg, and I heading north to Aarhus.

I probably could have found the way on my own, but I use sat nav to get me back to the motorway, driving now in bright sunshine as the rain had stopped as soon as I got to the car.

And for some reason, I was tired again, struggling to stay awake as I drove back to Jutland, then up to Aarhus, through the miles and miles of roadworks, which did wake me up some.

I arrive at the Scandic West, not the Radisson, as well, driving in the city centre can be stressful, dodging cyclist and pedestrians who have priority over cars, and rightly so. But for the occasional visitor, a right turn over a crossing where cyclists and walkers have priority and cars have to give way, as really worrying, I have colleagues here who have had accidents on such turns. So just driving along the ring road was appealing in theory, but the reality of being stuck out in the suburbs, behind a wire fence means that there is no option to eat in the hotel, and little opportunity for some walking.

The hotel offers a basic room, free wifi and a restaurant that is unspectacular, and the burger and fries is reliably good, so it was that by half six I was hungry so went down the restaurant and ordered without looking at the menu. Although it was called a “summer burger”, but I saw little different from the regular one served to warrant such a name change.

Back in my room I watch Cowboys and Aliens, which was as good as I remember, then watch the end of the European Super Cup game, is that it was called, between Real and Atletico, but with it 2-2 at full time, and extra time to come, I went to bed.

A wise choice.