Wednesday 26th May

Today was the day I was to leave for Braga, Portugal, to give a paper at the Economic and Business Historical Society 35th Annual Conference.

Normally I am very prepared for these sort of things; a routine trip to Swansea would be planned weeks in advance, for the last conference Durham I knew exactly what I was going and where to go.

This was not the case this time. Finishing off the final chapter of the thesis (with just some supplementary sections left to go before the first draft is complete) plus my trip to Swansea on Monday & Tuesday to complete some exam marking meant that I had had no time to really prepare my travel plans.

I had, though, booked the flights well in advance, and I knew I was going to take public transport which I had checked was comprehensive.

So, I was up packing until 2am on the Tue night, having only arrived back from Swansea at midnight. Plus I still had to work on my paper and slides; I needed to have one run-through at least before giving it!

Wednesday was one of those days where the littlest things go wrong which, taken alone and with no plane to catch, wouldn't induce an eyelid to be batted.

1. I woke up at 7.30, which in hindsight was too late (though I needed the sleep).
    
2. I gave myself a haircut, which took time, and so needed to wash my hair, or rather my head. But the boiler wasn't working. It needs repressurising all the time but this was a new problem which just required the reset button to be pressed. Which worked fine... After 8 times and 20 valuable minutes of trying.
   
3. I went to get some Euros from town and then planned to catch the district to Victoria for the Gatwick Express. I forgot my hat, so had to buy one. But then on the way to the station I realised my jacket had a stain so I ended up having to go home and change it.
   
4. By now it was quicker to get the Piccadilly line from near the flat, but I was getting increasingly worried that I'd miss the flight.
   
   Luckily I got there in time. The Gatwick Express was quick, and I'd checked in online so beat the queues, meaning I had bought all my toiletries and was sat with coffee in departures 30 mins after stepping off the train.
   
5. When I got to the hotel, a certain bank had blocked my card because I didn't ask their permission to use it abroad. I'm sure all the fraudsters are using stolen card details for hotel bills and not for buying laptops, guns, or drugs. Luckily, I had another card but on top of everything else it was causing me some anxiety.
   
   
   So I tried to sort it online, but couldn't get my wireless to work anywhere in the hotel. Later I found out it only worked in another building in the hotel, but I couldn't get it to work there either.
   
   

Though I probably shouldn't have worried about it, by now I was pretty fed up and I wasn't able to fully enjoy the surroundings, though Braga was very handsome, and Bom Jesus spectacularly resemblant of a level from Tomb Raider.

I did manage to give my paper a quick read-through though. One might have added 'having to cross out and correct large bits of the paper and the slides' to the list of 'fings wot went wrong', but I've come to expect that by now. 

And I did manage to get online with my phone, and saw my account was (as I should have expected) fine.