Archive for September 12th, 2007

12
Sep '07

Long-Term Residents

   Posted by: lyle    in Charm School, Customer Services, Cynicism, Travel, Weirdness

I must admit, on my first reading of the story yesterday of the couple who have been living for 22 years in a Travelodge hotel (and I use that term very loosely) my first reaction was “Why?!?”, closely followed by “Freaks.”

It’s taken me a good 24 hours to get past that reaction- and if I’m honest, it still comes back to that on occasion. Personally, I couldn’t stay in a Travelodge for 22 days, let alone 22 years. I’ve written before about staying in one, and about their dodgy booking practices (although that appears to have stopped now) – but I have to admit that they’re comfortable to sleep in, if nowt else.

However, seeing one of the quotes from the couple, I can understand their motivation a bit more.

“The Travelodge room suits us so much better than our first-floor flat in Sheffield, which has no disabled access for Jean. It’s important as she now suffers from a bone disease and uses a wheelchair.”

Now yeah, fair enough – their disabled access isn’t bad at all, usually.

But still, twenty-two years in a Travelodge. Fucking hell. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.

12
Sep '07

Changes in Travel

   Posted by: lyle    in Getting Organised, Own Business, Travel, Work-related

So as of yesterday, I’m back to using the train rather than driving in to Cambridge every day. In fairness, I only planned to drive in while putting in the extra time and work to get the site launched on time. And now that that’s been done, and the initial bug-hunt is over and done with, some level of sanity can return to my day.

Returning to the train has both good and bad aspects to it. I can’t deny, I’d kind of got used to having some space and time to myself on the journey, so it’s probably a downside to be back in the general throng of people. Time-wise, while the journey is the same time (i.e. roughly an hour) going by train takes about 20-30 minutes longer when one takes into account the waiting for the train to depart, and the walk to/from the office while I’m in Cambridge, rather than the convenience of door-to-door travel.

On the plus side, I get two hours a day back for doing my own stuff. Obviously while driving I can’t use the laptop, which has meant that my writing time has been severely cut back – both for D4D, the business, and letters/emails to friends. That is definitely A Good Thing. It also means I get to relax a bit between home and work (well, except when I’m getting my feet stepped on by fucking idiot people – yes, you, sat opposite me – fuckwit cunt) rather than having to concentrate on driving on roads populated by tosspot motherfuckers BMW drivers.

Oh, and overall it costs me a sod-load less too – £250 per month for the train ticket, rather than a full tank of diesel per week (which is just on the weekly journey, without taking into account any other driving I do) at about £55-60 plus parking when I can’t get a space at work (about 60% of the time) plus depreciation etc. on the car – after all, in the last six weeks I’ve put roughly 4,000 miles on the poxy thing.

So yes, for the forseeable, I’m back on the commuting train. Overall, things could be a lot worse.