While away with work over the coming weeks, I am staying at a rather big, rather expensive hotel on the outskirts of a big city in the UK.
Any novelty that might have been had through “living in the hotel” has been destroyed before the end of the first night. It all comes down to one thing - no internet.
No internet means no Skype video call with my children.
At (their) dinner time this evening I sat down in the hotel room, and looked around for an internet cable, or a leaflet explaining about WiFi. I even looked in the wardrobe. Nothing.
A sinking feeling came over me as I realised that none of the rooms in this wing of the hotel have any form of internet what-so-ever. The hotel does have some things though; 1970s decor, vandalised Playstation controllers, and wood splintering off the bathroom door.
Mindful of the minutes ticking by, I called home on my mobile to break the news to our children - that they would not be seeing Daddy after all.
When our youngest had her turn on the phone she asked;
“Why you so far, far away Dad?”
“Because the people I work for told me to”
“Why they tell you to go away Dad?”
It’s sometimes very hard to explain things to a 4 year old.
“Because they did, and I have to do as I’m told…”
As a last resort, a little later in the evening I tried both of our 3G dongles in the netbook, and my work laptop. For a few moments we thought we had a solution; the BT dongle gave a steady 3G signal, and video worked in Skype. It then ground to a halt, and hasn’t worked since. The Vodafone dongle worked in the netbook only, and Skype on Ubuntu refused to attempt a video call without hilarious lag.
So - I’m looking at 6 weeks of Monday through Thursday with a stone-age internet connection which appears to be as reliable as a baby’s bum.
In fairness the evening meal (part of the room booking price) was really nice. It probably helped that I am here with colleagues, so didn’t have the “single person in busy restaurant” experience that I’ve had in the past (it’s a pretty damn lonely one).
One thing about the meal though - one glass of wine cost the same as two bottles of the wine we have at home. I guess that’s how Paris Hilton pays for her idiotic dresses.