The idea that I’m going to do a day by day account of my time in a Digital Nomad Co-working/Co-living space is just as appalling to me as it no doubt is to you, so let’s all agree to set that idea aside right now. This is going to be a bunch of images, with some commentary of the things which stand out to me.
Continue readingMonthly Archives: June 2023
Back In Aylesbury, Side Trip To Oxford
When we last spoke, I was leaving Bath & heading back towards Aylesbury on an unevenly-packed train, in what turned out to be a wildly uneventful journey.
Most of the reason for a return to Aylesbury is to see friends, though the specific timing is because of a work Company Update in Oxford. ( They’re trying the idea of smaller regional events, instead of enormous one, for these updates. I guess putting people in the same room as the speaker(s) increases the chances that they’ll pay attention, unlike a Teams call )
This time I’m staying in the Guest Suite at Chateau Guineapig¹.
There’s not a whole lot to say about spending a week in Aylesbury.
Not that it wasn’t enjoyable, because it was, but there’s nothing I did that I’ve not done a thousand times, so the events are not exactly newsworthy.
- I got my old desk back. Hadn’t booked it or anything, but it didn’t look like anyone was using it.
Turns out that it’s not actually bookable on the system, presumably because nobody added it to the list of available desks; Given that this was the last week in that office for anyone for a while, it makes some sense. - Quite a few pub trips.
- A semi-cheeky Nandos trip.
- Swapping a few things in & out of storage.
The company update is covered in a different post, but as a summary; Not my best day ever.
¹ otherwise known as the spare room at A+Ks place.
A Day In Oxford
Where to start? And when will it end?
I’ll be blunt; I had a bad day in Oxford. Made the best of it, but it wasn’t a good day for me, despite carefully worded dissembling when asked about it by various management team folks.
Mostly it was the crush of people & the wall of noise that got to me, and it hit hard.
Continue readingClambering Out Of The Bath
OK, not my best work.
I’m probably tempting fate by saying this, but my packing process feels like it’s getting faster. Some of that will be because of the things which never made it out of the bag(s) in the first place, but I’m thinking that a bunch of it is due to having a designated spot for (most) things, so it’s just a case of findings the thing & stowing it, no decision making required.
For a long time I’d been doing the much-advised “tightly roll all your stuff to save space” thing, but after some experimenting, I’m not sure that it’s as generally applicable as travel blogs/vlogs/instagrammers like to think. Recently I’ve gone with “fold until it’s roughly the same dimensions as the bottom of the compartment”, which then lets me stack things and let the weight of the stuff above compress it for me. To be fair, this is for things like Cargo Shorts, Sweatpants, Hoodie, … Not the things I’d need regular access to, so it doesn’t matter much if I need to move something to get at it. ( The Big Black Bag is a sort of front-of-the-top loader, a squat rectangular shape where the front ⅔ unzips )
Didn’t sleep amazingly well on Friday or Saturday nights, so my precautionary 2 hours before alleged checkout alarm was very useful indeed. Most of the packing up was done the night before, so I could do the second to last bits (any clothing items I’m not wearing, laundry, anything in any room of the place gets moved to the bed) before wandering out to get some breakfast from the amusingly named Boston Tea Party¹.
I was impressed. They had a nice location, on a corner jutting into a square, so they could have outside tables and awnings. Good food, and one of the “scan the code to order at your table” systems, which are great for a low-brainpower morning.
In theory I was supposed to check out by 10, but since the owner had basically said “please be out by the time the cleaning lady arrives at 12”, I feel that my 10:15ish departure was OK. ( A bunch of that was just putting things back roughly where they belonged; unfeasible number of cushions back on the sofa, weird embroidery cushions on a chair and not the floor, chair by the desk and not in the bedroom fireplace to keep the ghosts at bay, … )
I made a stop a the pinkest & most floral cafe I’ve ever seen; Sweet Little Things. It’s like drinking coffee in a very fancy cupcake.
As a side note; Is Bath one of those Hen/Bachelorette party cities? There was a group who showed up while I was there, but then went to one of the other locations in Bath, possibly because of size of group or whether they were doing actual breakfast; The location I was at had apparently called the other one to let them know a group was incoming .
Then there was another smaller group I passed on the way to the station, and I’m pretty sure I saw a few more during the week.
And then to the station.
It got oddly crowded on the platform after the photos were taken, I’m told due to there being no trains yesterday because of rail strikes. As a stroke of luck I’d noticed that the Great Western Railway app had a ‘how full is this carriage’ indicator on their live train information screen; It had been blank earlier, presumably because the train wasn’t running yet, but had now updated to show that the middle of the train was full ( I’m assuming it’s showing reserved seats, not actual people per carriage ), so I moved myself to the far end of the platform to line up with the back of the train.
Surprisingly, it worked, and the last carriage isn’t full. I don’t think there are any empty doubles, but I’ve not got anyone sitting beside me, and I can see some empty seats around. Meanwhile, much as with the trip out here, they announced that they couldn’t do the cafe cart service because they can’t move through the train.
Maybe it’s just a polite fiction, and there is never a cart?
¹ Who are a chain, maybe a franchise, that I’d never heard of prior to going to Salisbury. Looking at a map, I think I can see why;
Visiting The Baths, In Bath, As Recounted By Someone In A Bath
There was a bottle of prosecco in the fridge, next to the milk. There’s a bath. I’m in Bath. I’ve visited the historic Roman baths in Bath. Where else could I possibly post from?
I took no pictures of my bath¹.
You’re welcome.
I enjoyed the Roman Bath … tour? Walkabout?
It’s set up to vaguely guide you through the site, and they give you a little audio tour thing to listen to, where you punch in the track number from an interpretation panel and it plays the next bit. On a whim, I took some cheap-ass wired earbuds from the Stonehenge tour, which turned out to be a great move, as it meant I didn’t have to hold the audio device to one ear all the time.
All up, I spent a smidge under 3 hours wandering around; Time well spent.
¹ In the proper luxurious style, not only did I have the bubbling wine, I also had fancy chocolates and a volume of classic literature. By which I mean a packet of peanut m&ms and a Murderbot story on my e-reader.
Bath – Sunday to Friday
The trip here was uneventful, but mostly because I boarded the train as soon as I could & got a seat. Not everyone did, because it was full of folks going to Penzance whose train was supposed to be leaving from Paddington, but was instead leaving from Reading. I don’t know why.
Anyway, I had a window seat, so I read and dozed my way to Bath. The train staff gave up on the idea of moving through the train, so no ticket checks, and the tea/coffee/snack cart parked itself in one place and made “I’m in this carriage, but only come to get stuff if it’s safe to do so” announcements.
Finding this week’s place was surprisingly easy, and … It’s very nice.
Monday was a holiday, and I spent most of it just sort of wandering around Bath. I found the Royal Crescent by following an arty map from the wall of the place I’m staying, and The Circus by accident in the process.
Tuesday, … How to cover Tuesday?
Tuesday wasn’t great. I’m not entirely sure why, but work was frustrating & annoying, and that kind of spilled over into the rest of the day.
Let’s just skip over Tuesday, shall we?
Wednesday?
Better than Tuesday, but still annoying.
On the plus side, I did go for a walk ‘upriver’ to find a pub formerly owned/run by the folks who now own/run our not really local pub in Aylesbury. Didn’t go in, because a pub is absolutely the last place I want to be after two annoying days in a row, but it was beside a bridge with the now standard picturesque view of the Avon, so that was worth the trip.
I think I should stop doing the day by day report; On any given working week, unless it’s an odd week or I’m doing a bunch of coworking space trips, it’s going to be something in the Good Day/Bad Day spectrum, and even I’m getting bored reporting on that.
So, Thursday was a better day, though I’m not sure why. I was feeling a bit unwell in the lungs the last few days, so maybe that had something to do with it? Anyway, tried Quiet Street Coffee for a morning beverage, and they were pretty good. And I went for a stroll down the canal to see what was there. (A couple of really sunk boats at one place)
Friday, sadly, started well but descended into shit as the day went on. My planned “get these things done” turned into “how in the hell is that system which has been specifically disabled so that it can’t access the outside world doing the very thing that it is specifically not supposed to be doing?”, which ate the rest of the day.
I did try another coffee place for the morning; The Bath Coffee Company, which is a little place in one of the many squares around here. Got to sit at a little outside table & enjoy the morning before going to work, which was quite pleasant.
I really do wish I was enjoying Bath more; It’s nice, and there’s pretty architecture and some nice parks, but the week of work bullshit really is affecting my view of the place. Doing the Roman Baths tour thing tomorrow, so hopefully that, plus the weekend, will improve things.