The smoke!

After an early start and managing to get the train to London on time (which is a bloody miracle for me at 7.50am!!), myself and my two colleagues arrived in London in excellent time, and then proceeded to take an age getting to Kensington by tube due to getting on the wrong train twice! (Not helped by discovering that my train plus underground purchased ticket refused to work in a single underground ticket machine!)

Finally managed to get there only to learn one of the main presentations I was looking forward to had been cancelled, and the Chair had to leave half way through for 2 hours, which was a) disappointing, and b) taking the bloody piss! Especially considering it was a conference that cost £550 plus VAT per delegate to attend. (I didn't have to pay as a speaker of course!).

The morning session was pretty dull, with only 1 of the speakers being remotely interesting, leading into a lunch that was nothing to write home about. The afternoon picked up a little, with 2 quite interesting speakers, and myself and my colleagues in the middle of them. I was, of course, fabulous :-)

So, after a somewhat disappointing day, we begin the homeward bound journey, only to discover that unfortunately, but rather amusingly, that whilst we had been merrily chatting about the calibre (or lack of) the conference on the return to the underground, the above-mentioned Chair happened to be walking right beside us! We may not be invited to attend again!

Fortunately the return underground journey happened without mishap (or mis-mapreading), and we made good time getting aboard the train that would take us back to the normality of our own little town. Unfortunately, said train then spent the entire journey back on the "slow track", (due to a car hitting a railway bridge or something), which resulted in a journey that lasted nearly half as long again.

Despite the tiresomeness of the journey, I always enjoy a trip to London on "business", and it has the effect of making me feel like a real working "grown up". I certainly wouldn't want to do it every day though!

So, after a hectic day of speaking, listening and travelling, I rounded off the day with a takeaway indian (meal not person!), which was lovely but is not conducive to losing a stone in the next week, and now feel sick! Bugger! No more eating for a week!!