Punctuality

If I have to be somewhere at a particular time then I have to be there, at that time which usually means getting there ahead of time.

I have to be in Weybridge tomorrow at 9:00am.  Well actually there’s breakfast at 9:00am and the meeting starts at 9:30am.  In my head I still have to be there at 9:00am and I’m storing the 30 minutes as a buffer.

Google directions shows the journey time as one hour and one minute.  But this route includes the M25 and we all know that the M25 is the biggest car park in the world, especially at rush hour.

Tomorrow has nothing to recommend it travel-wise.  It’s not a school holiday and there isn’t a fuel shortage or imminent terrorist threat affecting the road network.

I reckon that during rush hour I need to double the Google estimate which would mean leaving at 7:00am.  But that doesn’t take roadworks into consideration.  So maybe I need to leave at 6:45am.

The last time I had to do a similar trip I arrived over an hour early.  For me it’s better early than late and never is probably better than late.

And then there’s the return journey.  I must be back by 3:15pm as that’s the school run.  This isn’t normally a problem because I finish at 12:00 on Thursdays.  Tomorrow however the meeting finishes at 1:00pm and then there’s lunch. 

I’d like to stay for lunch because a) it’s a chance to catch up with people in the industry I haven’t seen for years and b) I’ll be hungry, but I think I’ll have to pass.  Almost every day there’s an accident on the home stretch of the M25 which causes massive delays.  My deadline to get home really isn’t flexible and actually I need to be home before 3:15pm to give me time to walk to the school.  Ideally I’d have time to change out of my skirt and heels for the school run too.

So on Thursdays my working hours are 8:30-12:00.  Hours out of the home on account of work tomorrow will be nine.

When will they invent teleportation?