I am writing this while sitting in a hotel room in Doncaster of all places.
The reason is that I have to be in our offices in Donny at 9:00 tomorrow for some training on a new switch we are having installed. (Thats a telephone switch AKA a PABX. Not a simple on/off switch. Even I can work one of those without training. As long as I have the manual)
I don't get to go to Yorkshire very often, which is surprising since our company has a main office here and my sister lives down the road in Bradford. I quite like the place (Yorkshire. Not necessarily Doncaster) but have only been up here a few times in the last 5 or 6 years – a summer school in York with a day trip to Leeds, York for my sister's wedding and now Doncaster. I really should think about coming up here just for the hell of it one day.
If I do it will be somewhere a bit quieter than Donny! The place has a bit of a reputation, and my colleagues enjoy coming up here as they can meet up with old railway mates and go out on the piss. As I don't have old railway mates and don't particularly enjoy drinking it does not have the same appeal for me.
I am in a hotel in the town centre. All the windows are wide open to try and let a breeze in, so I can hear the crowds yelling from the street, and the music from the nightclubs which are just over the road. And there is a bus route or 8 passing right outside. When I decide I want to sleep I will have a tough decision to make about the windows.
On the plus side, there is free wi-fi in the hotel room, but I am getting frustrated using a laptop. I don't like them at the best of times, but a company one with no Firefox… but the real disappointment is that when the hotel advertised "Sky satellite TV free for your entertainment" it did not mention that this means a normal TV tuned into the 5 terrestrial channels, plus Sky One and Sky News. Not even a music channel.
This means no E4, which means I can't watch next week's episode of Lost! What a bummer.
You could always come up to the Bradford Mela – it’ll remind us to go as we keep missing it…
I don’t know how to break this to you, but I think you missed it again this year. The 2006 Mela was in June.
I’ll be up in Donny again this week, but I am taking the precaution of staying in a hotel on the industrial estate, well away from night clubs.
First overnight to Doncaster coming up……I note that you went to an 80′s club – being ‘fat and in my forties’ it sounds like it could be a fun night? Would you mind letting me know the name of the club please?
Just follow the noise! I was with some locals so didn’t really know where I was going – but I think it might have been called Flares although that looks more 70s.