I’m sadly laid out chillin’ to Meatloaf, and I’m reassessing my belief that everything happens for a reason. Really I believe everything does happen for a reason but there are a few things that have happened over the past few days to which I just can’t see the reasoning behind. Let me explain:

This week I’ve been to regional conferences; I left for the first one with a rucksack of clothes. However, clothes were about the only things I remembered. I forgot my NEC badge, my toothbrush (like you do), my phone charger (the worst of all!), and my belt. Ok so I can survive without all these, apart from the phone charger, so it wasn’t too bad.

I left on Sunday night to avoid paying the stupid peak rate train fare to get to the regional conference and stayed at a friends in London. I set off on an already delayed train which continued to go slow the whole way. I arrived into London St Pancras 35mins late which isn’t actually too late. I then caught the underground to Liverpool St and had to wait 40mins for an overground train (not to bad but it’s now hitting 20mins to midnight.) I caught the train and got to my destination by about 12.30am. Conclusion: that wasn’t too bad a day.

The next day (kinda) I got up at 6.30am and headed off through the maze of the underground to Paddington Station. I managed to catch an earlier train and got to the first regional meeting on time! All good!

The conference finished at 5 and I left with the Reading delegation to go and give a talk to the Reading LGBT group. So far still good! I got there on time had a quick drink and some food ready for the meeting. Before the meeting I went to the cash point to withdraw some money. This was the point that I found out that my card had just expired! I couldn’t withdraw ant money and I had a total of £2.50 in my pocket, but I didn’t panic. I reasoned that I could go to the bank in the morning at 9am and withdraw cash over the counter and still get to the conference the next day on time.

So I carried on with the night and got up the following morning about 7.45am. I got ready and walked through the rain at 8.45am to catch the bus into town (which didn’t really put me in a good mood.) I got into town at around 9ish, I asked for directions in town and found my bank, walked up to the door and……. The doors didn’t open. Tuesday is the ONLY day in the week that my branch doesn’t open till 10am and the conference started in London at 10.15am. Gonna be late then.

I wondered round WH Smiths for an hour, which may I add, I didn’t think was possible. I couldn‘t call anyone because my battery was almost dead and I got extremely bored. When the doors finally opened I went in and got my money and set off to get my ticket to London. At this point I was so late that again I didn’t have to pay peak rate thus a saving of £4! (every little helps.)

I arrived into Paddington and rushed straight to the underground with the directions I had been given. Wrong directions may I add! I managed to take the longest route possible but made it to Southgate tube station. Only to find that when I asked, there was no University campus near that stop. Having very low battery I tried to call round the NEC and get directions but all had their phones off because they were in the conferences! I was near to tears at this point as it was now approaching midday. I compensated for this reaction by having beans on toast and waiting for someone to text me directions before my battery completely died. 30mins later I got directions and was off again. I got to the right stop got on the right bus to the university and found the conference 3hours late.

I had a good conference again and then I headed home (Leicester) from the conference at 5.30pm. I got to St Pancras got on the train and promptly feel asleep. An hour into the journey I got woken up by a ticket collector who I gave my ticket only to find that it wasn’t accepted on that train so I paid the excess fair begrudgingly and tried to go back to sleep.

I got home with no more problems that night and although quite stressed I was feeling glad to be home, I had my tea and went to bed. That was one day I was glad to see the back of. All I could think was that tomorrow can’t be any worse.

How wrong was I? WAOW..WAOW..WAOW..WAOW…… FIRE ALARM! 3.30 in the morning. Normally not a problem. I ran down to reset it as the entire building was woken up… but….no it wasn’t having it. Everyone tried… we couldn’t get hold of the landlord or any of the emergency contacts we were given….. I might add at this point there was no fire….. the fire brigade came…. and left…… and at 5o’clock with the alarm still deafening we had to make the decision to go back in and try to sleep. I must say I’m incredibly optimistic at 5 in the morning. We taped socks around the two sirens that we had directly outside our rooms in an attempt to muffle the sound and tried in vain to go to sleep. Sleep didn’t happen until the siren stopped at 7.40am. 4 HOURS of constant sirens!!!! That in turn made me late for the next regional meeting because as soon as the sirens stopped I feel asleep and slept through my alarm (quite ironic really). It also made me incredibly grumpy and tired so this may be why this blogg is a little stroppy and rambly.

Going back to my opening remarks I have no constructive idea or any idea as to what possible reason there could ever be for that fire alarm. It didn’t help me meet the women of my dreams, it didn’t help me avoid near death or win the lottery it had no reason!? The only result of not having a charger was that I got lost . Again, I didn’t find the women of my dreams! Not having a belt just meant my jeans kept slipping down and no toothbrush just meant I bought another one. The only foreseeable reason for all these events is that it’s given me something to put in my blogg!

P.S. Suggestions welcome!

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