Tuesday

Although I’m heading back to London this evening there’s still a lot to do. Thankfully I did most of my packing yesterday as my meetings felt as though they would never end. We also had a Sirrocco blow through last night. The winds were epic, and of course everything is covered in Sahara sand. Probably need to get the car cleaned up so that we can actually see while we are driving up to the airport. Matt has even more calls than I do today so guess it’s up to me if I want to leave on time. The old car got the windscreen cleaned and enough to drive, that was about it.

Once up at Toulouse we stopped off to look at wallpapers and picked up some pretty nice samples. The black actually looks really good, just have to work out how and where to use it effectively without making the place look tacky (also a couple of interesting posters).

Quick stop off at the oriental buffet for dinner, (it’s ok but it’s not a patch on London take out). Then off to the airport. Again of course everything was closing, I just managed to grab one quick drink and get a few emails off. By the time looked up I was the only person there… it was a bit unnerving.

Still nobody all the way through to passport control. Thankfully they were still there and there were people at the gate. I was starting to think I was Tom Hanks.

These late night flights are tough! Once back there was a massive queue at UK immigration and missed the train I was hoping for and only just got the very last one of the night. Finally landed back at Pete’s just after 1:30am. He’d been so thoughtful to leave me some beers and some food. I was so tired though that after a couple of sips I had to take my beer to bed with me and quickly went to sleep.

[15 March 2022]

Wednesday – Friday

I won’t bore you too much with specifics of work and meetings. It was good to get back and spend my time scooting around London – still by far the best way to get around London in my opinion. I did scoot all the way from Farringdon to Denmark Hill one day (over 5 miles). I met Sir Norman Lamb and Lord Kakkar in person. I met random people from MIT. And, most importantly, I spent a lot of my time with the wonderful Peter. I may have spent the whole time working but it’s great to work alongside one of your best friends.

Before giving the tour of Tommy’s to the MIT crowd, Peter and I went down to the basement to check out the new MRI installed this weeked. I realise this might be boring to most but I assure you it’s very exciting. [Peter, do correct me if I’m wrong, when you finally read this] but it is the first super low resonance MRI to be fitted in the UK (if not Europe), this sort of machine could in future be put into shopping centres etc to bring MRI scanning closer to people’s homes and dramatically change the speed of diagnosis for some major life limiting diseases.

I was already running late for the train to the airport as the tour of the hospital with Peter and MIT had overrun, and there was a very important debrief I couldn’t miss (skipping the MIT one of course in favour of the Peter one). But back up to Liverpool St and on the train to Stansted with more than enough time to make the flight home.

While I was quietly minding my own business these two crazy people got on the train and sat right in my block of 4 when there were loads of other spaces everywhere. They wouldn’t stop chatting away to me and they even gave me a beer for the journey, it turns out they’re going to Marignac too… Who’d have bloody believed it??!!

Also wondering what was going on at home as had meetings and events everyday, it was exhausting and I was looking forward to going home for a rest (and to see Matt of course).

Apparently Matt “finished digging a trench”. He’s pretty to the point!

[18 March 2022]