Image by Miriam Verheyden from PixabayMonday was roadtrip time again. I didn’t post in detail about it before because of, you know, contents insurance. Or it being voided due to us advertising to the world at large that the house would be empty for 2 days. It was a return trip too, to Horsham in Sussex, or to give it its more accurate location, the Weald of Sussex.
I was accompanying the poet on a business trip and I packed a suitcase, a work bag, and a fun bag. “You’re only going to be in the hotel room for a day,” he reminded me. But I like to be prepared. I’d hate to be sat twiddling my thumbs somewhere thinking, If only I’d brought something to do…
The work bag contained the laptop, the new portable hard drive, 2 notebooks, a pen tin, and a hard copy client edit. The fun bag contained a book of logic problems, my travel cross stitch kit, enough wool and needles to learn how to crochet, and my tablet. The tablet was preloaded with offline jigsaws and a couple of other games, plus a selection of magazines from Readly. I don’t make sure my reading books are all downloaded on the tablet any more because I try to only use the Kobo reader, and the Kobo reader travels in my handbag.
I’m not really a handbag kinda gal usually, but recently, as I’ve started using cash again, I’m also carrying a small purse, my glasses case goes in there, as well as my mobile phone. When we’re at a gig, the car keys go in there too and anything else the poet wants to offload on me while he’s on stage.
The Kobo is the right size for the handbag, which is only a small bag but everyone who has every seen it says it is like the Tardis on Doctor Who. It also contains a small notebook, a pen, tissues and a hairbrush. Plus a packet of Polo mints, the poet’s inhaler, and my Blistex lip cream.
We also packed a picnic to eat on the way, and some room supplies.
It’s a non-stop solid 4-hour drive on a good day, and even though it rained practically the entire way, with only 2 stops it took us less than 5 hours. It does take up the entire day, though, with all the packing and getting ready and preparation, then settling in at the other end, so the day is a write-off work-wise for me. Fortunately, I’d already taken it all into consideration.
When we arrived I managed one whole job. I shared Monday’s blog post on BlueSky.
We chilled for a bit until it was time to go out and get some tea. We rolled into a pub at 7:20pm to be told that the kitchen closed at 7pm on a Monday. We turned to go out again, but the person behind the bar offered to ask the chef if he’d consider reopening the kitchen for us. He did, and we had fish and chips for tea followed by sticky toffee pudding.
I didn’t have a great night’s sleep. I don’t know where this hotel chain gets off on saying their mattresses are the best in the land. I’ve never had a good night’s sleep on any of the trips I’ve accompanied the poet on. And even this time he complained that he was rolling down hill into the middle of the mattress. It was also raving hot, but if we put the air conditioner on, it’s raving noisy.
He got up and went to work, but I decided to have a lie in to try and catch up on my sleep. I was totally zonked for the next hour and I ended up getting up a lot later than initially planned.
First job of the day on Tuesday was renaming those book files for Google Play Books and getting them uploaded. Premier Inn wi-fi is almost as pants as the mattresses. We can upgrade if we want, but the standard connection isn’t anywhere near good enough for me to even consider doing that. I’d hate to pay extra and it still take an eternity to upload or download files.
Usually, my phone signal isn’t great. But I couldn’t help but notice I had a good, strong 5G signal. So I tried using the phone as a hotspot…and the internet was at least as fast as it is at home, with the added benefit of it not dropping out every 20 minutes.
It was ace. I was able to upload the renamed files (and they worked!), update the book links on Books2Read, download a picture to illustrate yesterday’s blog post, and upload said blog post once it had been composed on Scrivener. I disconnected while I wrote the blog post and reconnected when I was ready to upload it.
I still had some time to do a little editing before the poet finished work, and I wrote and scheduled today’s blog too. We were off to the pictures and had to leave the hotel early to get something to eat.
We’re back home today so tomorrow’s blog post should appear late morning on Thursday.
Yet another adventure. Ick on the Inn. I’ve never stayed at one of the those Inns when I travel in the UK — now I know to avoid them. Good for you, getting so much work done in the hotel room.
Ick on the weather, too. Hope you had a good drive back.
It’s the first time Ian complained about one of their beds, but the internet is iffy and they had 3 strikes on the beds for me. It’s a shame. They used to be such good value for money but, of course, they put the prices up whilst cutting costs at the same time.