August Review

 This will be a short review as most of the time was on holiday.

Got one running event in just before leaving, a second time at the XCR Ballarat 15km, this time just over 54 minutes and about a minute better than last year. Somehow I managed to run every day on holiday, although besides parkrun was limited to jogging around 10 or 11 kilometres.

Haven't been following shares while on holiday, but did manage to see several crash individually due to a bad annual report. Somehow came out ahead for the month though.

Getting some more sports happening now, back to weekly Premier League highlights and even got to attend a couple of matches.

The to do list was occupied by all of the last minute holiday planning, never been able to finish early. Might have to start the next holiday planning now.

Wasn't a very relaxing last week of work, was busy right up until the last afternoon.

That's it for this month. Some holiday reports will be along later.

• Books
• None
• Movies
• Talk To Me
• 6 out of 10
• Music
• None
• TV
• None - just the usual
• Video Games
• Nintendo Switch
• Luigi's Mansion 3
• Just started for a couple of hours
• Zelda Tears of the Kingdom
• Finished some missed main missions except the final mission

Europe 2023

August 9 - 10

August 11

August 12

August 13

August 14

August 15

August 16

August 17

August 18

August 19

August 20

August 21

August 22

August 23

August 24

August 25

August 26

August 27

August 28

August 29

August 30

August 31

September 1

September 2

September 3

Europe 2023, September 03

Had one last run at Hyde Park in the morning, then did my final packing and got a train at 11am to Heathrow. It only took 10 minutes more on the standard Elizabeth Line than the Heathrow Express, and much cheaper.

I dropped off my bags and had lunch while waiting for the gate announcement. I still had the front row of premium economy which was good. I'm not sure if the extra leg room is any better though because there's a solid wall in front, whereas you can extend your legs a fair way under the seat in front by comparison - maybe not so much in regular economy.

My preference for vegan meals didn't seem to make it across to the return flights, all the remaining edible items on both meat meal options weren't very good. Otherwise the first flight wasn't too bad, from about 2:30pm departure to 9:30pm arrival, or 12:30am local time in UAE.

Only had a two hour connection so pretty quickly was through to the final departure gate. That was followed by:

• A 15 minute delay announced shortly before boarding
• An additional delay with no time estimate now
• A final "small" delay of 7.5 hours

All we were told then was to go up to the gate to get a meal voucher. People were very confused and dispersed in various directions - waiting around in the middle of the night when you need to sleep is very different to during the day.

I walked around to see if there was any good sleeping options but every area was identical. The reclined seats were the best option but I couldn't find a relaxing position, also there was too much noise and too many people around. I got up and went walking again, ended up doing a whole lap and got back to the original abandoned departure gate. It was about 30 minutes later by this point and some customers and staff were still standing around.

By luck I turned up just as one manager finally took charge and walked all of the remaining people up to the business lounge. Once I got inside it appeared that lots of other people had been there for some time already and set up camp in the best spots, no idea why they didn't tell everyone immediately to go straight there - this cannot be the first time it's ever happened.

I found a couple of good spots to join two leather lounge chairs together, but there was lots of noise coming from some machine I couldn't locate. So I ended up walking all the way to the other end which was quieter but more occupied. I tried to combine two more chairs but they were a bit smaller, so couldn't stretch out fully. So just went down on the carpet instead since it was soft enough, with a jumper for a pillow. Unfortunately it was freezing cold in the terminal - while it was still 35 degrees outside at midnight. I got a small amount of sleep but mostly interrupted by being so cold.

Regular business customers starting coming in around 6am and probably wondered what was going on, plus there was hardly any seats left for them. I also think I saw most the Japanese men's soccer team hanging around, makes sense since international qualifiers were about to start. I finally gave up on more sleep and checked the buffet areas, they were similar to those in the hotels.

We got to board the plane roughly on time but took forever to get everyone in and seated, so many people with the biggest possible carry-on suitcases. I still have no idea what those people possibly need to pack with them on the plane, they never even open them during the flight.

This was the one flight that got downgraded to regular economy, but was comfortable enough once the seat back was reclined. At best I got a couple of 45 minute sleep windows, but usually just resting and trying not to get too tired from watching movies and keeping my eyes open. So I didn't end up watch anything on the entertainment system again.

Had lots of screaming babies this time, and also older kids like 4-5 years doing the same in the front section of economy which was quite annoying. The 13 hours feels like it took forever but eventually got there.

Before landing we still had to fill out the stupid arrival card with way too much information. When you're totally exhausted the last thing you want to be dealing with is pen and paper work. Even worse, on the way through arrivals the entire e-security system broke down just as we landed and had to be rebooted. By they time this was discovered it had already swallowed my card in the second stage of the process, so I had to go back and line up again for another ticket.

The baggage carousel took forever as usual, then another long line waiting for people to hand in their declaration forms with nothing to declare. Somehow while collecting my bag I found my repaired wheel was completely smashed apart again, no idea how this could happen when the other wheel was still fine. The broken off parts of the wheel were stopping it from rolling so just carried it a short distance to the bus and train instead.

And that was it for the longest travel day ever, probably about 36 hours with at best a few one hour sleep sessions. To make things worse I started to develop a bit of a cold and fever towards the end of the final flight, no idea where I picked that up from.

London

• 9 out of 10

Good

• Free museums
• Frequent trains for the underground and many overlapping lines

Bad

• Didn't find any good comedy or music shows, but maybe don't know all the websites to search
• Loud train noise reverberating while travelling on the underground between stations
• Some long walks for connecting lines in the underground
• Train strikes

TV

• Celebrity Catch Phrase
• Pointless Celebrities
• Strike It Lucky - weird old show
• The Chase
• The Finish Line

Missed Out

• Churchill War Rooms
• Escape rooms - needs multiple people
• London Transport Museum
• Natural History Museum
• Saw escape experience - needs multiple people
• Shows
• Muse in October
• Ricky Gervais in September
• The Chemical Brothers in November

Europe

• 8 out of 10

Good

• Travel between countries - quick and easy

Bad

• The initial travel distance

Missed Out

• Austria - Vienna
• Czech Republic - Prague
• England - Portsmouth and Southampton
• Germany - Dresden and Leipzig
• Iceland
• Spain - Valencia

Europe 2023, September 02

Had to deal with more advertised train strikes over the weekend of course. The Elizabeth line trains to Slough weren't running until 7am which luckily just fit in with my plans, otherwise I had a backup to a closer event at Gladstone parkrun.

When I got to Paddington station there was severe delays on the Elizabeth line due to train issues further down the line. The GWR over ground line had some strikes too, but were still running every half hour direct train from Paddington to Slough, which was perfect for me. It was fairly easy to find the parkrun course from the station, about two kilometres away but just needed to take a few main roads.

I did a usual warmup to check out the course, the grass was a little bit long and damp in a few places but otherwise looked in good condition. Once again I had my usual slow start, and also started running in slightly the wrong direction to the marked cones which were actually meant for coming around on the second lap. I quickly corrected as everyone else was running at a totally different angle, so was about 20 spots from the lead.

I worked up into the top four towards the end of the first lap and finally got into the lead soon after. Like usual it took a long time to take the lead but then I finished over 30 seconds ahead by the end as other people slowed down. Overall it was a good course and I managed to get the U letter parkrun, now just need an I letter parkrun - since there are no X locations so far.

I brushed against some thorny bushes on the way back to the train and got several small cuts, but it was still stinging hours later too.

Back at the hotel I made a booking for The National Gallery after lunch. Again it turned out be pointless to have a booking, there was two divided lines at the entrance but no queue in either one so you could just walk straight in.

I went to the gift shop first which is conveniently near the entrance, bought a couple of small items and avoided anything fragile. Then moved on to viewing the paintings, a mixture of portraits and other stuff, although I still prefer the more modern stuff. They had quite an impressive collection, some of the better ones were:

• Monet - The Water Lily Pond and other similar ones
• Picasso - Fruit Dish, Bottle and Violin
• Rousseau - Surprised
• Van Gogh - Sunflowers

Then I did a bit of shopping in the afternoon, went to the Forbidden Planet megastore but was definitely out of my depth. I though I might find some interesting stuff in either the horror, movie, TV, or video game categories but basically didn't recognise anything. I also had a look at another CEX used video game store but they had hardly any retro consoles and games.

So that was it already for a quick final couple of days in London.

Europe 2023, September 01

Into September so officially out of summer in the northern hemisphere. Had to get up even earlier to run and have breakfast to get to the airport by 8:30. There wasn't many options for flights except some British Airways ones that were about four times the price, so I picked the next best option that was Easy Jet.

The overnight rain has cleared so I was able to do a short run along the river, but it wasn't much fun running on stone and uneven bricks. Had a rushed breakfast and got to the airport in about 30 minutes with two trains again, really easy. A benefit of buying a daily train ticket yesterday was it lasts for an actual 24 hours from time of purchase, so it was still valid the next morning.

I checked the flight status on the boards and it was delayed by 20 minutes already. Often one delay is just the start of more bad news, but it only got extended out by an additional 5 minutes before leaving.

We landed at Gatwick not too far behind schedule then had to get the shuttle across from the north to south terminal for the London trains. Of course there was London train strikes so only one train every 30 minutes was going direct to London Victoria with no other stops. I might have arrived shortly after the previous train had left so I was close to the front of the queue at least.

The best connecting train on arrival was the Circle line, so of course that was down too - due to not enough staff apparently. Instead I had to get two other short connections, but the great thing about London train is there's so many alternative routes (the opposite of Melbourne).

I got the hotel about an hour early but was able to check-in right away, except I had a crappy room in the lower ground / basement level. I was hearing this really loud rumbling sound every half hour or so, but had no idea if it was a pipes, a bus, or something else. I didn't think the underground trains could possibly be close enough to cause that much noise.

I was quite tired from the travel and didn't have much planned for the afternoon so just went up to Camden Markets. This was much better than Portobello Road markets since it's got dedicated stores away from the main street. There was lots of food stalls, vintage clothing, and other stuff like that.

I got an early dinner and went back to the hotel to make some quick plans for the last day. Soon I came to the conclusion the rumbling sound was in fact coming from the underground train as there's a close station to both the east and west of the hotel on the same line. The vibration was ridiculously loud and regular, but seemed to stop a bit later in the evening, or I was too tired to realise any longer.

The good news was this train line only seems to run on week days, so I didn't have to deal with it again.