{Cheese and Beans}

I ate burgers for dinner every night last week while staying in the hotel, and then on friday capped the week off with a pizza. Not exactly good for me.

With that in mind, I’m trying to eat a little more healthily this week.

Holy crap I’m tired though… apparently we’re heading out in half an hour, but I’m struggling to keep my eyes open.

It’s Monday evening, and I’m in the Hilton again (I wonder if Paris Hilton’s boyfriend says that? Does she have boyfriends for longer than a week?)

Work is going well. It’s one of the only things I have control over, meaning I can force what I am doing to succeed. Anybody who knows the hours I am capable of will at this point start to shake their head.

I’m sat in the hotel room killing half an hour before I wander down for dinner, listening to a podcast, drinking coffee, and typing this. It struck me recently that I just don’t watch television any more. Actually, I will watch the occasional movie, or half an episode of Bones if it’s on when I’m taking a break, but otherwise I will invariably work, blog, or surf.

I finally got on the scales at the weekend, and discovered the previous three weeks of living in hotels have added about 10 pounds to my weight. This is where my colleagues find out the true extend of my “take it or leave it” attitude to most things – I will be drinking fruit juice, and eating salads.

Burgers, pizza, steak and beer are all well and good, but if you are used to a balanced diet, it actually ends up making you feel pretty ill – as it has me for the last week at least. Getting home last weekend reminded me just how good our normal diet is. We routinely hit all the food groups during the day – steamed vegetables, fruit, lean meat, and so on. We don’t even think about it; it’s just the food we buy and make stuff from.

I’ve also brought my running shoes with me this week, and will be doing half an hour on the treadmill before breakfast each morning.

As you might have gathered, I’m not very good at doing nothing…

It’s Wednesday evening – the third night in the hotel – and I’m slowly getting used to it. If the old saying about not missing what you never had is true, I’m starting to forget what I once had. Perhaps that explains my acquiescence ?

After the trials of the first night, the 3G dongle on the netbook has performed like a champion – giving steady connectivity from the hotel room. It’s not fast enough to handle video on Skype, but it’s enough to read the news and reply to emails.

While sat in the hotel restaurant this evening with my colleagues, the architect of the project turned to me and said “this is the last time we’re going to be eating here”. I looked blank. It turns out the restaurant we are in delivers a package three course buffet meal. All well and good, but not the same as picking something from a menu.

Although I have complained about the restaurant, it has been fun to eat things we don’t normally have at home; herring, sea bass, salmon, prawns, and countless other cuts of meats that take hours to prepare, and that children will not go anywhere near.

This evening I trooped off down to the hotel gym again. The injury I sustained chasing our girls around the local woods is still preventing me from running, but didn’t stop me cycling. I may well rest it completely over the coming week so I may run again. I can cycle too easily – as evidenced by my huge legs – which makes it the “easy option” that does me no real good.

If you’ll excuse me, I have a bag to pack – I’m checking out in the morning, and will be heading home tomorrow evening.

I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to seeing my better half and the children. I know I don’t say it very often (at least in this blog), but I love them all to pieces. This week – and the prospect of many like it to come – is hard.

Hotel breakfasts rule. You don’t have to make them, and you don’t have to wash up after yourself either.

What’s this? I’m not annoyed this evening? Perhaps the mediocrity of this hotel has bludgeoned me so much that I can no longer differentiate between “good” and “woeful”.

In the interests of balancing things out somewhat, the vindaloo I chose at dinner this evening bore about as much resemblance to it’s label as a tin of mince and big soup mixed together with a spoon or two of crushed chillies.

So there you go – I’ve covered the good and the awful for another post, so will move on to complain about something else.

How about the failings of the 3G network? Despite a full 3G signal, Vodafone and their HSUPA modem still cannot deliver voice and video on Skype. You can have zoetrope style video, and staccato sound, or no connection at all. It’s excellent.

I really should stop complaining about things.

Work is going well. Although I must not write about the exact nature of my work, or who it is with, I can probably relate the glee with which I received my security pass this morning – meaning I can now wander the client site without being escorted. It’s only when you’ve been escorted to the bathroom that you realise what freedom really means.

I’m listening to Kate Rusby this evening – piped into my ears via the iPod Nano, which sits in the hand-knitted cover Wendy made me the night before I left. I must remember to photograph it in daylight – it’s excellent (and far better than the official Apple sock – Wendy’s version has a discreet button to stop it falling out, and was of course made to my chosen colours.

You only get one biscuit per day on the tray in your room in this hotel. How frugal is that?

Note to self – regardless of where the hotel is next week, I MUST bring my own biscuits, coffee, and/or chocolate with me.

If you’re wondering about the title of this post, I’m beginning to think of this hotel like it’s famous family heiress – it looks good from the outside, but once you’ve been inside, you realise how shallow, soulless and truly vacuous it is.

From the moment I woke this morning until the moment they fell asleep  this evening, I have spent the day with the children – it’s the first time I have done it in months, and it was wonderful.

We packed quite a lot into the day; a bus journey into a big nearby town (for some reason the children think going on the bus is the most exciting thing in the world), new shoes for each of them, a new set of clothes for each of them, lunch at Nando’s (their favourite eatery), a DVD each from the bargain bin in HMV, and a small pocket money toy each. Quite why the younger two chose to buy Playpeople circus elephants is anybody’s guess.

Arriving home, Wendy had been busy building flat-pack IKEA units, and sorting through clothes, toys, dressing up costumes, and various other assorted brickabrack. Little Miss 5 very proudly showed off her new party shoes (which will inevitably become her school shoes at some point very soon indeed). They are black patent, shine like a mirror, and the heals light up when you step – she demonstrated by dancing like a 1920s vaudeville act.

I made dinner today too; pizzas all round. While this might sound like the easy option, it never is in our house because our eldest daughter is Coeliac (gluten intolerant), meaning I have to make the pizza base – and given the pecularities of dough minus wheat, it’s damn hard to make it just right. More by luck than judgement it worked, and she ate enough for a small football team. One of the more strange effects of being Coeliac is that she never really feels full, so we have to also watch how much she eats too.

It has been tiring, but it’s also been good to give Wendy a well deserved day off. She’s out now with her brother, having a drink and some grown up conversation. Hopefully they will be arriving home soon with Indian food. I’m starving!