untold blisses

As a public sector worker, I get to sit at home and watch Husband travel to Copenhagen or Cape Town, and I don’t really get to leave the office.  So it was lovely to get the chance to escape up to Lincoln this week for a three day conference with a colleague.  Even lovelier as we had the whole of Monday afternoon to explore the city.

We had a bit of a worried moment when we were kicked off the train halfway as it had broken, but we were quickly moved to another platform where this train awaited us:

A Skyfall train!  Husband was most jealous.  Sadly, I did not drink a martini on board, but I did have a tuna sandwich.  Bond often ate tuna sandwiches on a train from Peterborough to Newark Northgate (at least, that’s what I’m told).

But we eventually made it to Lincoln, and we were greeted by a beautiful sunny day.  We dumped our stuff at the hotel, registered for the conference and then took ourselves off to find a tea room.

I’ll confess to not having a high expectation of Lincoln before I went – to be fair, I didn’t know that much about it – but I completely fell in love.   We wandered up the narrow streets, marvelling at the independent shops and views over the water.  We did have to stop halfway up Steep Hill at Bunty’s Tea Room for some cake, but Steep Hill was very steep.  Tea and cake was a necessity

This photo does not accurately represent the steepness of Steep Hill!

At the top of the town was the Cathedral, and we took a quick look inside.  It was amazing.

I should point out that we did work on this trip as well.  The conference was hosted by the University of Lincoln, so we spent most of the time on campus.  I have already looked to see if they have any jobs (sadly, they don’t for me – boo!)  I love it.  Such an amazing campus, and the main administration building was right on the marina.

I would never leave my office if I worked here.  And the library!  Just look at it!

It’s housed in an old warehouse and looks stunning.

There were several intense seminars and workshops for us to attend, but the energy and attitude that their VC and Registrar had was absolutely infectious.  Lincoln is a relatively young institution, and they have great aspirations for their students.  It seemed like such a positive place to be and did renew my love for the HE sector (although I did keep a little bit of my cynicism over a few things, but that’s ok!)

I’d like to go back to Lincoln to investigate a bit more.  If only to go back to Bunty’s Tea Room for some more cake.  On the work front, I don’t have any more conferences planned so I’ll retreat back to my concrete office block for another year, waiting to be let out again.  Sigh.