End of the contract

My contract with InterContinental Hotels Group is finished - and today is my first day back home. The contract has been a really interesting one but I'm quite glad not to be doing the travelling any more. Two hours each way every day from Hampstead to Windsor and back, plus the slow journey into London on a Sunday evening (usually with a bus for part of the way) and the crowded journey back to Diss on a Friday evening, all added up to too much time on public transport - not to mention an obsession with trains.

On my last afternoon IHG gave me an enormous bunch of flowers, and then thank goodness arranged for a taxi to the station, which was a great treat especially as it was p***ing with rain. I managed traipsing across London OK - the worst bit was the Central line from Bank to Liverpool Street. I missed the first tube, walked right up to the end of the second one and just looked pathetic. The flowers made it back to Hoxne remarkably un-squashed in the end.

What now? I'm hoping for a few weeks of work with Aviva to take me through to the summer, but we'll see what materialises. I'm trying to work out if I should wait for my beloved ex-boss to get together the money to take me on, or if I should be pushy elsewhere.... probably the latter.

It's been very interesting to realise how our trip last year enabled me to do the contract I've just finished. Skills acquired include:

• Living out of a suitcase
• Keeping clothes, toiletries etc. in multiple locations
• Relaxed capability to use public transport
• Living in cities
• Sleeping in noisy, hot, light locations (Hoxne is always quiet and dark at night)
• General flexibility and being ready for the unexpected

On Saturday we had our friends Vanessa and Sebastian over for dinner. They ended the evening by talking half-seriously about buying a boat and sailing away...