Well that was a week and a half!

Or actually just a week! It started with a visit the week before from one of our Non-Execs to have dinner with a bunch of us to tell us about the Canadian market that he’s helping us get introduced into. I found out that a colleague and I had been included in a proposal for a Client that we were hoping we’d win. It was useful too for me to meet him as I was heading out to Vancouver to do a seminar to some potential Clients the last week of October…

…and so it transpired: I was out – economy class – after work on the Tuesday. The plan was to do the 9.5 hour flight, ‘regain’ 7 hours due to the time difference, meet our Americas President and the Non-Exec for drinks, etc. Sadly, a four hour delay on the tarmac at Heathrow put paid to that. At one point, the pilot told us that we might miss the last flight slot. That would have caused serious problems for us as I was the only one with the virtual reality/augmented reality stuff loaded onto an iPad. We were on the tarmac long enough for me to watch the first two films from the decent selection of recent titles that I enjoyed:

• Alan Partridge – Alpha Papa
• Fast and Furious 6
• Iron Man 3
• Now You See Me
• World War Z

So after the long flight, I landed at Vancouver, went through customs and out the other end to get a courtesy bus to the Hilton … which took a little while. By the time I checked in it was 1.30am local time, so a quick decaff and then it was bedtime. Up at 7.00am to get ready for breakfast with my colleagues and it was off to downtown Vancouver for a meet and greet and then do my thing, which went down very well with lots of interest.

Back to the airport to do some catching up on work e-mails using the work presentation MacBook Pro Retina rather than my shite work laptop before an evening flight home … overnight, landing at around midday. Films on the way home were:

• A Good Day to Die Hard
• Pain & Gain
• Zero Dark Thirty (though I didn’t get to see the last half hour, so looking forward to that on Sky next week)

I stayed up until late Thursday night to try to get back into the swing of things. 6 hours’ sleep in 3 days.

Friday and it was in to the office for a catch up and to be told that yes, I’m back out to Toronto in December … and in the meantime, there’s that proposal I was included in which seems to be coming our way. So next week it’s Chicago (and possibly Toronto).

Friday night and it was off to the Roundhouse at Camden with friends to see the Cult who were really, really good.

Saturday evening there was a party in Epsom to go to, so another late night.

A lay-in on Sunday was much-needed before lunch and shopping and then heading back to the Roundhouse in Camden again to see Lacuna Coil who were excellent!

Phew!