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.

The point of the trip was a work thing; A regional company update instead of the ‘traditional’ all in one place affair. A morning of being updated, and an afternoon with various options for activities in Oxford.

I took the activity option of No Thank You, not because any of the options were bad, but because I figured I could find something entertaining to do in Oxford for an afternoon, and I didn’t know how I’d feel after the morning of being updated. A wise choice, as it turns out.

There was a plan to get coffee before the bus from Aylesbury, which got a smidge chaotic as people arrived at different times, but eventually ended with people in possession of coffee waiting for a bus, which arrived at the appointed time, but sadly had no working air-conditioning. And the driver maybe took a wrong turning, but I don’t know the way to Oxford, so I’m only quoting other people.

The layout of the venue was a bit odd, and caused some issues. What looked like a slow queue to get in was actually the corridor backing up because people were getting coffee/breakfast outside the meeting room, but not moving into the aforementioned meeting room with their aforementioned coffee. It was eventually figured out.

The layout caused trouble at the end too. After a bunch of being updated on things, lunch was declared, in the room outside. The room you had to pass through to get to … Anywhere. And because people were lining up and chatting, and had formed two lines that merged, both doors out of the room and the only way out of the building were blocked by an actual wall of noise.

I did try to stay, but very quickly realised that I’d rather not be in that room, and that I’d rather starve, or more accurately get my own lunch, than sit through that. Fortunately, because my afternoon requirements were “be back in time for the bus, unless you decide to hang around afterwards with folks planning on an evening out in Oxford”, I could just leave. So I did.

So I spent the afternoon wandering around Oxford, using a combination of tourist map panels & “I wonder what that is?” to choose my route. Found a little area with market stalls at one point, the river at various spots, an almost deserted underground foodcourt, …