Well, it’s taken me a while to update the website, but I’ve finally had a chance to go through my phone and pull out a few more photographs. Back at the hotel this evening, but managed to talk myself into one of the new rooms with a sleigh bed and renovated bathroom…

The poor receptionist didn’t even realise that there were two different types of upgraded rooms — so I decided to prove that I was the saddest corporate traveller out there. I took pictures to show her the difference between this room and the other executive room, which isn’t nearly as nice. Apparently they’re classified the same way, so you’ve got to request it by room number.

I really need to get out of the house more often.

Well, I survived my first day at the office. I played nicely with all the other children, and no one stole my milk money. I spent most of the first day doing normal first-day things – figuring out where everything is, reading the internal website, redesigning my resume so it fits their in-house style, and drinking too much coffee as I meet everyone.

I’m not crazy about the commute, but it looks like I won’t have to do it too often. The actual office is really nice. It’s relatively new and really well-thought-out. They’ve given me a snazzy new laptop, but some of the typical consultant drawbacks are still there – I still don’t have a desk of my own.

My new office

I’ll spend most of this week settling in, taking care of all the administrative details that starting a new job entails, and getting my head around the projects that I’ll be working on. It looks like I’ll be working on two projects right now, one internal and one external, which should keep me busy until March.

This much is clear — they operate at a different pace here than they did at my old organisation. And for the first time in more than two years, I’ve worn a suit to work.

He’s in the Sheraton Hotel at Heathrow Airport, that’s where he is. Yes, another night in a generic airport hotel…

Worse still, I’m paying for the hotel out of my own pocket — something that I haven’t done in a very, very long time! Still, I decided that I needed to be well-rested for my first day at Axon, and I didn’t fancy getting up at 5am to beat the traffic on the way in.

They’ve sent up a basket of fruit and a bottle of wine. Wasn’t that nice of them?

It’s official. For the first time since I moved into my new place back in May, I’ve had to turn on the heat. No thermostat here, so it’s an on-or-off affair.

I seem to have set it to “Hades”.

I decided that my life wouldn’t be worth living if yesterday’s photo was the only one I put up. So I thought I’d include a nicer one today as well, to keep Aude happy.

I almost didn’t believe my eyes this morning. After a week of rain, Sunday was a beautiful, sunny day. After brunch with friends at my place, I decided to take the Corvette out for a run, since my opportunities to put the top down are limited (part of the compromise you make by living in England).

My mother sent me an email the other day criticising me for not including a photograph of Aude on here yet. I pointed out that you can see half of her head in October 13th’s blog entry, but apparently that’s not good enough. So here’s a picture of Aude after our ride in the Corvette. And that’s her in the background with the Corvette in the picture above.

Any other photo requests? (Ahem – perverts need not apply!)