Blogs from the Feel the Love Tour

I normally try to keep my Blog up to date by sending it emails. That stopped working the day I arrived in the UK, so I couldn't easily keep it up to date. So here is the week that was...

[The blog server crashed when I was uploading this posting yesterday, so if you read it earlier than now it was full or weird characters.]

Tues - Splashdown

• The plane arrived late.
• There was no jetway available so the parked it somewhere miles from the terminal and bussed us in.
• My bag was one of the last ones out.
• The newsagents had to change tills just when it was my turn to be served.
• I missed the Heathrow Express by 30 seconds.
• When I got the train it stopped outside the tunnel due to maintenance work for 10 minutes.
• My taxi ride to St. Pancras Station took me past St. Pancras, past Kings Cross, down the side of the station, back over the railways tracks and down the side of St. Pancras- I missed my train to Kettering.

Wow it's so good to be back.

In Kettering

• Fixed the radio transmitter of on the weighing scales.
• Reset the bios on the laptop.
• Changed the light bulb.
• Flipped the mattress on the bed
• Tuned the DAB Radio

Went to sleep.

Weds
6:45am Taxi to ARM
9:00am "Feeling the Love"
3:00pm Feeling a little less Love as everyone gets tired and leaves until tomorrow.
5:45pm Afternoon Tea with Matt and Millie
8:00pm The "Feel the Love Dinner" is postponed to Thurs, due to football! - so dinner with Andy and Sarah at the Riverside Bar and Grill - Nice place. The Mitre has been refurbished and there is no decent cider :-(

One problem we encountered was that evening was what to talk about. I know what Andy and Sarah have been up to because I read Sarah's blog. She in turn reads mine and so knows about our life in the states.

As Andy pointed out at the time, documenting this fact is Metablogging!

Thurs
7:45am Breakfast at Matt's "Feel the Lard Bistro". Got my heron.
8:55am It's interesting to see how people react to me with the heron. The English folk almost to a man say "I won't ask!" The folk from the rest of Europe ask why and I explain.
9:00am-5:00pm More Love is felt.

6:45pm Hook up with Richard in the car park and say "Hi!" and invite him round for dinner in a couple of weeks.

I kinda of conclude from all this that I manage to keep in touch with my friends related to work pretty well. We meet probably every month. It's just that we meet in different countries.

7:15pm "Feel the Love Dinner" is in a Thai restaurant that used to be a Chinese restaurant where I took Iain to celebrate the porting of his mapping application to the EO in 1993. I guess that was a long time ago.

10:00pm "Feel the..." I hang out with my Japanese and Korean colleagues and we drink until closing time. Much bollocks is talked and I conclude that the 3 of us have at least one thing in common- we wonder what we have achieved in the last 2 days.

Fri
8:45am "Feel the hangover." Breakfast alone in the hotel is quite a blessing, I can sit and read the paper and not "Feel the Love".

10:00am Meeting time! I am now pretty much non-stop until 7:20pm, but I do manage to fit in a Thai lunch with Andrew at the Railway Tavern. Not the best place to go since hundreds of ARM people descend on it and say "Hi, how long are you here for?"
Answer: "22 more hours."

7:30pm My trip would not be complete without dinner with Andrew, Gill, Andy and Sarah at the Golden Curry and then on to the Cambridge Blue to hang with the rest of the reprobates. It's a fine evening but I conclude that next time I want some more one on one time with my friends rather than hanging out with the large group at "The Blue".

1:00am I've left my PDA at the office. Darn! Need to sleep...

Sat
5:45am Up and time to pack. I am gambling that the showers work in the Virgin lounge.

6:45am Train to London

8:00am The taxi driver is the first one to really get it! I get into his cab with me bird and he goes: "Allo mate, got problems with 'erons eatin' yer fish then?"

8:45am As I suspected my heron classifies as a potential deadly weapon so it can't sit with me on the flight and has to go the hold.

9:00am The showers in the Virgin lounge are working so I can clean up before I fly off home.

11:00am On the plane Zzzzzzzzzzz.