An inauspicious start

Flying out to Barcelona today for a conference where I will join RM who flew out on Friday. With the array of buses and trains to get to the airport I was already looking at a 10 hour stop-start journey, and then this arrived. I briefly considered a taxi to the airport from home but £80 is a lot of money (especially on top of a conference fee of £850 plus flights and hotel all of which in these financially challenging times we have to pay ourselves).

Anyway, I’m somehow already on plan c which is to turn up at the station and get any train to Manchester, and I will then make a decision from there re. trains or taxi to the airport from that point. Wish me luck, I think I’m going to need it.

PS. I hate flying both for the environmental impact but also the rigmarole, so I try to do as little as possible. I shot myself in the foot with this one by accepting an invitation to join a symposium presentation, which once accepted for the conference committed me to going. I realise I should be grateful for the opportunity and the privilege but I just find the whole model of conferences so unsustainable I resent having to be part of it (alas despite the challenges, still a requirement for our jobs). AND this one always means we lose the August bank holiday. So the pervading mood was not good in the first place!