Chris Hansen’s blog

Well, sorry I haven’t been keeping up with life except with twitter compendia, which have turned off at least two of you. Sorry about that. I shall make up for that.

First, it looks like my assignment in Hinckley (via Nuneaton) is over. The trains are not running correctly for the next two weeks, so I shall complete my deliverables this week. It’s been a real roller-coaster. My life felt like Groundhog Day (the movie).

Up at 6 am (as usual), out of the house at 7:15, to Euston Station, get on train for 8:17 departure, work on train with my data card until I get to Nuneaton, Warwickshire, at 9:21. Sandeep’s Taxi to Hinckley, where I worked until 4 pm. Reverse everything: taxi to Nuneaton, train at 4:35 pm to arrive at Euston around 5:47pm. Then crash most days, unless I went to the gym with M or we went out to dinner.

It does take a lot out of you.

The work, on the other hand, was interesting. I can’t talk about it, but I learned a lot about the UK gas network.

Sandeep was pretty talkative, which was a bit off-putting, but I managed to get some solitude in the back of the cab. Hinkley itself is a real deadspot. There is little or no traffic through the centre, the only decent restaurant is a Subway (although there is a KFC and various other delightful places to dine), and the local constabulary advertises itself as the Last Chance Inn where miscreants are housed for the night.

We had a lovely day on Saturday. It proved to be the only really decent day on the Bank Holiday weekend. So, it was a day for a picnic. We gathered up our friends Mark, M, , and his friend Anna and went to Hampstead Heath on the 168 bus. The food was rather eclectic (I think that and Anna brought a much snazzier class of food than we did) but nice, and I noticed for the first time that Dr. Pepper Zero is available here. It was quite nice.

We had trouble with children running around screaming, being breastfed, and the like, but tried to ignore the noise. Here are a few pictures from the event:

And Mark drew our attention to a cloud that was sailing past (one among many). He thought it was “penis-shaped”. I think it has more to do with his mind…

A good time was had by all, I think. We arrived home and slept the sleep of the just.

Sunday after church we took a walk across Southwark Bridge and along the Embankment to Villiers Street, where we had a Starbucks moment.

Monday we did bugger-all. Just relaxed at home. This is a very good thing when you’ve been commuting 110 miles morning and evening for a month.

The rest of this week I’ve been working at home, finishing up bits and bobs for work.

Tuesday night we went out to dinner with , who has been doing some exchange work here in the UK. He is in customer service for public exhibitions, and did a month in Cornwall at the Eden Project and seems to have loved it. We went to Balans Soho, which is probably the trendiest eatery on Old Compton Street. They did make a good Manhattan, but my burger, which I had ordered “medium”, was well past medium by the time I got it: grey and dry and unappetising.

I am really through with restaurants that, for our own protection, cook beef to the point where it is unappetising. The danger from BSE has pretty much ended and the need (if there ever was one) to cook burgers until they are dead, dead, DEAD! is over.

After that we walked off our food in a circle, walking to Charing Cross Road, Oxford Street, and Dean Street, ending up back on Old Compton Street and having coffee in Caff

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 28th, 2008 at 12:32 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.