Friday, Jul. 10, 2009 - 19:12

..from where I left off in the last entry, but bearing in mind I actually wrote this three or four days later..

Once I got to Leeds, there was the small matter of a connecting train, which took me to Bradford in good time - the scenery on the way over was quite pleasant and (understandably) reminiscant of the last time I was in that part of the country, visiting the gallery/mill at Saltaire (sp?) with my sister and folks. Bradford was a little wet once I got there, and I got slightly lost whilst wandering round the city centre having not made an accurate note of where on the map my hotel was. However, I found where I was staying shortly afterwards, and the heavy bags on my shoulder did not make themselves too known.

The place I was staying was VERY nice - almost suspiciously so, considering I was there on expenses. I checked in and freshened up, before popping down to the restaurant for a bite to eat. The waitresses were very nice, Eastern European and attractive and attentive and classy. The food was abso-bloody-lutely gorgeous (chilli chicken parcels followed by beer-battered haddock with chunky chips and home-made mushy peas. I ended up feeling very happy with the niceness of the meal (it made me wonder why so rarely do I treat myself to nice food, as opposed to stuffing myself with OK food so often) but feeling somewhat disappointed with myself for not having the class or the decency or ability to behave in a way befitting the surroundings. I'm not saying that I was swearing and belching and using the wrong fork, just that I didn't have a spare shirt (taking into account the number of shirts I'd bought for the two days of the course) so had to wear a t-shirt, I didn't know whether it was acceptable to have a novel with me to read as I was dining on my own, and also I made a bit of a cackhandedness at the end when trying to sign the right box to charge dinner to my room account.

Back upstairs to my room afterwards, felt a bit knackered after the day travelling, and a bit down because of the self-confidence knock that I'd experienced (as detailed in the above paragraph), so.. I had a cuppa, got ready for bed, then watched the first half hour of 'Se7en', before turning in for the night.

The following morning I was up earlyish, refreshed and ready for the day ahead. Breakfast was pretty nice, and afterwards I set off to find the offices where the course was being held. Unfortunately (or rather, 'annoyingly incompetantly') the postcode that'd been given to me was wrong, hence the directions I'd obtained from online mapping software were useless. Fortunately I was able to piece together where my destination actually could be found, and I was able to get myself there on time.

The other peeps who were on the course, as well as the course co-ordinators, gathered together within the next half hour or so (several people having had the same problem with incorrect post-codes as I'd had!) and we all introduced ourselves and the like. I'd met three or four of the other sixteen people before (all of us were from the company I work for, just different sites in the UK and Ireland) and everyone else seemed to be similar age/seniority to myself so it seemed a decent enough mix. As it turned out, a couple of peeps were a little more senior than I and they looked like they could cause some difficulties, but in fairness they really didn't.

The exercises we did in the morning were reasonably basic and theoretical - and to some extent having had a years experience in my role, most of it I was quite familiar with already. I spent quite a lot of time with the bloke who'd newly become my equivalent at another site, and we were able to chat about best practice and the like. After lunch the co-ordinators mixed up the groups to ensure they included people of different experience levels and from different locations, and we did some more audit type exercises, putting what we'd spoke about earlier into practice. Was all pretty fine actually - not an issue w.r.t. difficultness or owt, and the peeps in my group (one Spanish lass, one local British Indian lass, and the guy who I've just mentioned) were all nice, and I think we worked quite well together. I may have been a little vocal, but in my defence I also was the most experienced in auditing. There's no point in stepping back when circumstances dictate that you should be contributing :-)

The day was passed in that sort of style. The whole group of us seemed well mixed, the co-ordinators were both good, the content quite useful and well-paced and the whole thang was fine and dandy. I was a little pseudo-enamoured by one of the lasses there - in the majority because of the combination of her broad Yorkshire accent and the fact she looked like one of my exes, but no matter. Just found it pleasant to watch/hear her speak and contribute in the group etc. - nothing significant, big and/or wierd in addition to that!

The course ended for the day at about five, and I went back to my hotel - feeling a little lucky having spoken to some of the others off the course and heard how basic their accomodation was. After freshening up, dinner was a gorgeous tasting but sludgy in appearance mushroom soup, and then very nice gammon with cheese melt, piccallilli and salad. Yum yum yum! I felt better regarding worries about my lack of social graces too - because I had a clean shirt to wear, didn't read my novel as much, and knew which box to sign when I settled the bill. So I'm NOT a muppet! :-)

After dinner, I watched a bit of TV (Charlie Brooker's 'You Have Been Watching', which was quite funny), started to have a wank, but fell asleep halfway through

..I'll write more later, perhaps..