A bad day

I stayed at a friends house again for my last night in Bracknell. I enjoy their company very much, and we have a very nice Indian take away. We had way too much food as usual, but I managed to get it all in :D. We stayed up pretty late watching photos from my recent holiday, and then chatted for a while. It was a lovely evening really. But one of their children was ill and was crying for an hour or two in the small hours of the morning, and the older one decided she wanted in on the action and played up as well. Having gone to bed around 1:30, they kept me awake from around 2:15 through 4:30. I felt so sorry for their mother, who seemed to be stressing about them waking me. The alarm went off at 6 and I struggled out of bed, not looking forward to my last day at work.

I tried to have a shower, but gave up on hot water, so just a rinse of the head and face and got out again. Seemed like tons of kit I had to take to the car, and then headed for work to find there had been an accident on the M4 and there was now one huge snake of cars lying on the motorway. People doing the usual lane jumping to no avail, with the result that it took hours to get to work.

The website build was still failing, even with CC.NET 1.4.1 though the service at least no longer deadlocks, and the web dashboard has a few nifty new display features. Mostly I liked the status bar below the project being build, and the overview of builds on each project's home page.

Work went okay, and the leaving ceremony was as awkward as I've always found them. I was overcome by the pressure of it, and didn't feel the loss and sadness that I suspect will still come.

The drive home was worse than the drive in. I didn't think that would be possible, but it was. The traffic was down to a single lane heading for the M3. Once on the M3 things were fine until I approached the A303 off ramp, where a sign told me that at some junction the 303 was closed. CLOSED! Great I thought; at least I had no reason to rush. Things were fine until I reached Yeovilton. Turned right towards Taunton and had to endure the afternoon drivers on the way there. 30 mph in a 50 zone. By the time I hit the M5 I gave up on restraint and let myself fly away from it all at nearly 100 mph. I felt bad for speeding, but the motorway was pretty much empty, with a whole spare lane between me and the 3 other cars I could see.

I got home tired and worn out. My kids came out to meet me, daughter with a beer and son asking if he could take something inside for me. Poor kids, I could not be angry with them and asked her to put the beer back in the fridge as I really was not in the mood for a drink. They helped me unpack the car and take things inside. Having not eaten, I gobbled a slice of bread (dry) with a few slices of pack ham and a packet of crisps. I washed it down with a Pepsi and sat on the sofa with my head on the armrest; eyes closed and exhausted. I decided that rest was in order and tomorrow I'd push myself again for job hunting and self-study.