Day 2 was actually on Wednesday when I went to the Cadbury archives again in Birmingham. What a day!
I was late leaving in the first place and didn’t get away until 9:30am when I really wanted to be on the road at 9am.
And then – horror! – my satnav lost my location. Mid-M1.
Last time I went I went via my parents’ and I had a rough idea of which direction to go in. But this time I was going straight there and I didn’t know yet if it wanted me to go via the M6 or the M42.
So I pulled over – at the services – to reboot the satnav.
It started to work again, but the voice wasn’t giving me directions. So I pulled over again to try and fix that.
In all I pulled over five times, adding an extra 90 minutes to the journey. Tasks included contacting the archive staff to let them know of my late arrival and to make sure they were still okay with me getting there later.
They were fine, but whatever time I did get there, I knew I couldn’t stay later than 3:30pm.
I got there at 1pm, eventually, when my appointment was for 11am. I’d requested half-a-dozen materials from archive storage, and they were all waiting for me at the table I used last time.
Much of my work this time was photocopying things I could bring away with me and work on in my own time. But there were two items I’ll definitely be requesting again later in my research.
Once again the staff looked after me and they even gave me a different route to the M42 to try. I left at 3:30pm and was home for 6pm – a whole hour shorter than the journey down. I’m definitely going this way next time I go.
I’ve not had much chance since to look at the material I copied. But I have been doing some other reading work alongside the Pomodoro tomato. Today I finished reading one book and started to read another. At some point soon I’d like to do some free-writing just to capture what I’ve learned and retained.
We have a weekend at home ahead and I’d like to catch up on some more reading work. Next week I’d like to conclude some chapter 1 research and maybe start writing that.
Have a great weekend!
