Manchester to Ayr

Today I was at a customer in Manchester which went well and we managed to get quite a few things done and they have quite a few things to do. At the moment it’s 5:25PM and I am in the train off to Ayr. Ayr? Yes, Ayr. Which is in Scotland, google map it and it’s pronounced sort of like the word air. Anyway, it will take me about a good 4 hours to get there and I will have to transfer 2 times. One time in Carlisle which is a good 2 hour trip, then it’s off to Kilmarnock for the second transfer which is another good 1:45 hours to get there and then the last leg of the trip which is roughly 30 ish minutes.

Yep it’s all part of being a consultant for TOPdesk UK. We’re covering the whole country including Ireland and the islands of Jersey and Guernsey. Luckily there are two other consultants who are gonna be heading out to customers as well. But in the meantime my calendar is jam packed until June. Granted I might have a day here and there which can be used but wait time for my services are as of now is roughly 6 to 8 weeks O_o

Guess I will be needing that vacation in the first week of June, which is the week the Queen will celebrate her jubilee and we will have bank holidays on Monday and Tuesday. The thing I like about the UK is that you will always get the bank holiday, even if it falls in the weekend. For example if Christmas falls on a Saturday you just get the Monday after off. Gotta love that. In the Netherlands you won’t get that so whenever holidays fall in the weekend you just have tough luck. The flipside of being a consultant in the UK is however that traveltimes are on average a minimum of 1:30 hours getting to a customer, unless the customer is London based. Looking at my average travel times it’s on average 4 to 5 hour a day. That is half a workday already, but I knew what I was getting myself into when applying for the position in the UK office.

I might sound negative about being here in the UK but aside from longer traveltime I really absolutely love it here. I get to travel around the UK visiting various customers and seeing a lot of different city’s and places. Granted I don’t get to see a lot of the city’s I visit on average but I get to enjoy and experience the regional differences that exist in the UK. And times like this week I get to go to Schotland for two days of consultancy in a place called Ayr. Somewhere I would probably never have gone to travel if not for TOPdesk.

I will be arriving there tonight at 21:30PM and then off to the hotel and sleep. But tomorrow after work I will most definitely go and explore the local highlights with my Canon 500D. Since I am in Schotland anyway on Friday after work I will head off to Edinburgh for the weekend. It’s only a 2 hours trip from Ayr anyway and it beats havng to travel back to London on Friday. I would probably be arriving in London around midnight if I did. So Saturday it’s chill and relax time in Edinburgh and Sunday I will head back to London.

I have never been there but I hear good tings about the city and it’s historical feel. So I am looking forward to the weekend and take some nice pics. Which ofcourse will be spammed on Facebook (the jpg’s) and on my flickr account (the post processed raw’s) at some point in time. Anyway, why am I sitting here in the train typing this while I can still catch some sight of the scenery while it’s still light out here. See you at the next update.