on a single bed in Bristol

Since everyone else seems to be doing it, why shouldn't I? So here I am, drafting my first post on my new blog. Admittedly, the reason everyone else may be blogging could have something to do with their much more exciting lives. This blog will instead chronicle my somewhat more mundane existence.

Right now I'm lying on a single bed at the Avon Gorge Hotel in Bristol. I'm in Bristol for work for the week.

The Avon Gorge Hotel is lovely. It overlooks the gorge and suspension bridge. I love Bristol and think it is a gorgeous city. It's so green and relatively peaceful (at least compared to London). And apparently my hotel exists, at least in part, thanks to the efforts of a George Newnes (surely a close relative!), who built the railway and pumped the Hot Well spring up through the steep rocks to the Clifton Grand Spa and Hydroponic Institution (which later became this hotel).

The hotel is apparently 4 star. So, why am I sitting on a single bed? That has a lot to do with the work travel budget, which seems to have remained exactly the same for the last 15 years. I gather this was the only room work could afford in the place. I think it's actually meant to be a child's room to form part of a family suite with the room next door, as there is a door adjoining it to the room next door. Thankfully that door is locked, but unfortunately it isn't soundproofed. The night before last I fell asleep listening to the sounds of the man next door snoring. I thought that bad, until that man moved out and was replaced with a couple and small child, who spent most of the night awake and crying.

Anyway, I warned you at the start that this blog would chronicle the mundane, and I'm pleased to say, at the end of my first post, that I haven't yet strayed from that goal!