In which I swap my Chateau-core bedroom for a monastic cell (Premier Inn).
In this week I journey to Birmingham (robustly not my favourite place) for a conference and am carried away by the aesthetic juxtaposition. Here’s how the week went…
Monday:
Monday was a day of nightmares. I woke up in the morning, in the small hours, with a fearful rasping breath having surfaced out of the icy depths of a nightmare in which I was being tried for witchcraft (in fairness to the puritans, correctly) in a sort of hybrid-aesthetic puritan colony somewhere between authentic pilgrim realness and a Mad Max portent of a post-nuclear future.
Unsettled by both the ordeal of the trial and the infelicitous garb of my accusers, I pressed on with my day only to be confronted by a continued stream of nightmarish situations such as my work laptop spontaneously requiring a reboot, my Microsoft Teams background mysteriously disappearing without warning during a call, and spilling oil from my lunchtime anchovies all over my meticulously planned daily checklist.
When I retired to the gym in the evening I found it packed out and full of people who seemed to be on a rotation around all of the equipment I wanted to use. After a brief and unsatisfying shot of some machines not to be found in my calendar plan for that day, I decided to bustle off the gym floor in indignation to go into the sauna, however found I’d forgotten my towel. So, with that, I stamped my feet and gnashed my teeth and furiously stormed to the close-by Tesco where I used clubcard vouchers to buy the new Witcher book, then sat outside the supermarket in the chilly evening to wait for absolution (and Derry, who fortuitously was able to collect me).
Tuesday:
Today was the long awaited day earmarked for travel down to Birmingham for a work conference on social media. I started my journey by collecting a coffee from The Stove where, in one haunting interaction with the perennial legend Mo Love, I became overly enthusiastic and camp in my body language and spilled oat milk on the floor, then struggled with my delicate wrists to adequately tear the blue roll from the dispenser, requiring support to do so and setting gay rights back 100 years.
Rallying, I made for the station and then, united with my colleague accompanying me on the trip, forthwith to Birmingham at pace.
We made it through the city and to our hotel to check in relatively unharrassed, save for one man who, inexplicably, was sprinting down the street near the hotel and who ran into me at full-force. After coaching myself in the bathroom mirror in my room and assuring myself that particular mishap was not my fault (it wasn’t), I joined my colleague in the city for dinner and drinks; the former being at the Indian street food restaurant Mowgli which I have not tried before and which was a delight I will likely seek out again and again.
After we finished our dinner and chatted over drinks about everything from work to the merits of different UK racecourses, we returned to our rooms. I sat in front of the mirror, more austere, more minimalist than the vanity haunted by generations of my forebears which is where I am normally to be found preening, and brushed my hair while gently contemplating my choices. The call of the urban streetscape was so intensely primal that I knew I needed to head for a clandestine trip into the secret wilds of the city in order to procure a simple McDonalds to satisfy a hunger craving while also capitulating to the voice inside me begging to be swallowed by the music and rhythm of the urban night.
When you’re used to your bedroom being a bastion of golden sunlight through multi-pane sash windows, gilt-framed artworks of fine ladies, horses and dogs, and antique furniture imported from France, there is something absolutely delicious and intoxicating about finding yourself renting a bedroom for the night that is fashioned on minimalist design, simple white sheets, and spartan utility. The lack of whimsy and ornamentation allows one to be carried off on a giddying tide of displacement and become someone else for a short spell.
Despite the echoing and infrequent “bangs” coming from outside the window which could equally be gunshots or fireworks, I redressed myself and dashed into the night for a cheeky introspective hamburger round the corner. It transpired that the gunshots I referenced were indeed fireworks. Fireworks being set off right in the forecourt outside the hotel by a group of urban youth. Perplexed and confused I observed the spectacle for a beat before routing myself the long way to the McDonalds on the other side of the square. The night lit up literally and audibly with an explosive cacophony of Catherine Wheels as I meandered through Birmingham which is, it has to be said, very much not my favourite place I’ve ever travelled to.
With my McDonalds secure and my curiosity satiated, I returned to my room after a brief and exhilarating walk through an urban inferno to indulge in a shower and to be carried into a fitful sleep broken by the hateful spit of firecrackers in the melee below my window.
Wednesday:
The day of the conference began with another shower and a wistful contemplation about how both morning and evening showers were part of my woven routine during those blessed years where I was mistress of my own household and had an en-suite bathroom affixed to my bedroom.
I let my musings carry me through the full-breakfast and through the walk from hotel to conference venue.
The conference itself was actually fantastic all round, and not just because they served lamb at the conference luncheon. Inspired and refurbished in my work-life ambitions, I threw myself into the presentations with great interest, and particularly fell in professional-love with the final speaker who carried me off with his common sense approach, well timed wry humour and natural confidence at the podium.
In order to make my train I had to leave towards the end of the panel discussion, waving to my colleague who was booked on a later train in an admin snarl of local government. While I had the benefit of getting back to the North of England timeously enough to be picked up by Derry and avoid the harrowing wait for a connecting train across the border, my colleague got to experience the final hurrah of the conference which I am told included drinks and a DJ set. It transpires that FOMO can extend to the workplace when certain conditions are met.
Thursday:
The day was spent in a state of industry as I re attuned myself to the daily tasks and tribulations typical of my workday and let go of the excitement of my two-day Birmingham adventure.
I found myself working past finishing time to achieve bits and pieces of outstanding stuff that I wanted to “clear from the deck” and then threw myself into the production of a tuna and broccoli orzo for dinner, after which the night passed in a haze of discontent and malaise.
Friday:
The substantial part of the workday was unremarkable, and I headed into the office in order to feel something and also to be better placed to enjoy my evening.
After work I met up with the delightful joy of my world, Mrs. Katie Boyce. Some will remember that it was at Katie’s wedding on my birthday this year that I announced the advent of this diary, so you know where to refer your complaints.
We went for dinner which unfolded as it typically does for us with equal parts trauma offloading, equal parts gossip, and just a splash of outright silly nonsense hilarity, this time particularly in relation to Katie’s ordering of a cocktail she clearly had no background knowledge of, which came out in a glass shaped like an ice cream cone with a dry-ice bubble on top, sending us into an orbit of hysterical hyena cackles.
After rounding off the night in the pub discussing our pension schemes, I retired home in line with the calendar instructions pertaining to my Friday social block and was the better for it.
Saturday:
I woke up animated by the spirit of domestic joy, and decided to have a day of household cleaning and make the benefit of being home alone.
Immediately confronted by a shopping bag I keep on my dresser appearing to be floating in mid air (it had become lodged behind a painting halfway up the wall) I determined that the ancestors were up to hijinks and steeled myself for a day of mopping, laundry, and spiritual interruption.
I pulled myself together in a baggy knit jumper, blue jeans and a backwards CK cap and immediately reconnected with a former iteration of myself at university who used to paint watercolours while smoking out the window and listening to Lana Del Rey on repeat; today, as time is evolving, I settled on Ethel Cain and refuse to acknowledge the beef unfolding between those two great artists.
After my exertions were complete and I’d been to the country food store to make an order for oysters and to pay too much for smoked salmon, I settled down in the drawing room and stayed there for the rest of the day.
Sunday:
I have been preoccupied ignoring the weather and planning my wedding with my mother at her house.
After identifying a possible venue and wargaming the logistics of a Chateau wedding near Toulouse, I have gone to ground and am not to be seen, save for a brief interlude where I was spotted in Lochmaben Tesco purchasing a packet of crisps and a bottle of wine.