calibrating the packing for weekend exit

Yesterday I started piling things into a heap ready for this weekend's departure. Its different from a biztrip, where I have a complete, compressed and more or less standard kit of parts, depending on the number of days.

My objective will still be to travel light so I'm already having to make decisions about which clothes/footwear/technology and general stuff gets included in the final pack.

I chickened out on the online check-in though...when it asked how many bags, I said 'two'.

Each.

long languid breakfast in the country

I drove to the country house to meet for breakfast and my Canadian friend who lives in Spain had already bagged the best corner table looking out into the garden.

We ordered toast and coffee and chatted amiably about English stately homes before our business guest arrived and we turned to serious charts and statistics. Our move to a room for a presentation was delayed so we wandered outside to the large garden, which included a croquet lawn next to the swimming pool and across from the discreet helipad.

My friend could hardly contain herself at this display of 'Englishness' with morning summer weather that looked sunny but was still slightly cool, necessitating her to unfold and wear a large pashmina wrap.

The lawns, the arcane game, a pond with a fountain, twittering birds and the lurking helicopter. All we needed was a sudden storm.

Yes, we managed that as well.

charge

Wednesday evening and I'm in that transitional phase between work and starting a vacation. By blasting away at work tasks I'm within sight of completing everything realistic before I leave for holiday at the weekend, and its unwise to start new things which will barely get under way when I take flight for a few days.

That's not to say that everything is finished.

This afternoon I have been on some rather condensed training and then tomorrow I'm off to a business breakfast at a posh country retreat before a workshop and then later in the day I'm hosting a European meeting.

But as I finish tidying my current tasks and telling the respective recipients that I'll be away, there will at least be a short gap before it all starts up again.

So whilst new meetings start to drift into my calendar, I'm quietly starting to look for luggage.

the field of pattern recognition

I've read two or three books about pattern recognition in its broadest sense.

PopCo by Scartlett Thomas and the one by William Gibson spring to mind.

They both include the idea of the person that spends their time divining the Zeitgeist and figuring how to repackage it for greater corporate profit.

Both stories include protagonists who are a little off kilter with their peers. In PopCo the heroine travels on a midnight train to avoid her co-workers and in the Gibson we see someone who has a phobia towards all brand labels.

They'd understand the little quote I heard today whilst travelling across the countryside, "I really want sunglass frames that colour", pointing towards the bales of hay in the field.

just jammin'

Its supposed to be the start of the school holiday season, so that the roads clear for a few weeks creating easier journeys to work.
Somehow this isn't fully working this year.

Firstly, I'm guessing more people are staying in the UK. What's that horrible word? "Staycationing" Yuk.

Secondly, there's a competition amongst the various road construction companies to see how few miles of the motorway system can be left unconed.

My estimate is that there is still a tiny stretch of M25 in Hertfordshire without cones, and they've missed a small piece of M3, but kept the speed limits on it in any case. Apart from that, it looks like pretty comprehensive coverage, at least in the areas that I drive.

beside the seaside

We've somehow managed to fit in the stately home picnic, the castle, the dressing up as animals, some music and seaside moments this weekend.

Inevitably the compressed nature of the last few days means limited blogging compared with plenty of exploits. I'm guessing I'll find a way to link a few more moments into future posts.

If only I wasn't so busy.

animal collective castle moment

Sunday we moved to a castle about 150 miles from the stately home of Saturday.

This time we were supposed to dress up as animals. Something of a gear change from the picnic table dining of the previous evening, with weather veering from hot sunshine, to rain which seemed to only affect small parts of our site.


Ever adaptable, we passed the jousting knights and the mysterious story telling and found handy beds strewn with cushions in the pennant draped fields where we could sip the honeyed nectar and gaze at the other animals.

picnic in the country

Saturday evening was time for a picnic at a very big house in the country.

We'd arrived and parked, then sauntered in to mingle, sip fizzy drinks and enjoy al fresco dining.

Music, wine, friends, sunset and fireworks.

no city bars this weekend

No time for city bars this weekend; we're heading out to country and seaside or a reasonably bizarre trip which lasts through until Monday.

Any blogging is likely to be from the phone.

Not sure if these bars at Downing Street are to keep us out or certain politicians in?

importing happiness

My iTunes said "importing Happiness" this morning, which I thought was a good way to start the day.

It made me smile.

Friday's work pattern is "work Thursday until already Friday morning, set early alarm. Work all day against immovable deadlines and then finish late."

May need superhero assistance.

Chihuahua

I couldn't help thinking about Taco Bell today, what with the story about Gidget's demise. We have a sort of ritual when in the US to pay a visit to a Taco Bell somewhere and usually manage to mis-order significantly and wonder why so many different things in shells arrive.

I'll admit I sneakily like Taco Bell, yet when they temporarily opened here around Leicester Square they didn't last long and don't seem to have returned.

The big Chalupa was clever marketing adding "¡Yo quiero Taco Bell!" to my limited Spanish. Their 'Taco Light' was pretty clever too, with the small print 'Not lower calories' ... although I always thought their 'thinking outside the bun' with something called the 'Plug Club' was an unfortunate choice.

infinity nets are the new black

Sometimes the blog posts just write themselves.

The pictures from yesterday of the trees wrapped in red with polkadots are part of a famous Japanese artist's metaphor about reality and infinity. The idea is that the dots are where an infinity net overtakes the reality we all see. It could be like seeing into the atoms of the structure. Seeing behind the everyday form.

Once its in the subconscious its another form of pattern recognition, like noticing masonic eyes and Triangles.

The thing that really surprised me today was seeing a woman in a black dress with Yayoi Kusama's polkadots. She was on the same train and I couldn't help notice the three sizes of dot, just like the ones in the infinity net.

Kusama famously first suffered from mental illness around the time of the first dots appearance and still today is a voluntary patient in a Tokyo mental hospital.

『ディクレアリング インディゴ』 キット登場！