A mammoth undertaking

Now is the time of year when every time the postman calls he seems to be bringing loads of holiday brochures. And my email inbox is just as bad – the majority of my emails seem to be from companies trying to tempt me to go away somewhere based on what they (or their algorithms) think I might be interested in – ancient ruins around the Mediterranean, river cruises through Europe, cottage holidays in  rural England, and hotel breaks in Bickenhill. Bickenhill? I didn’t even know where that was!

It turns out that Bickenhill is the postal district of Birmingham Airport. I’ve done a number of trips to Glasgow University in the past year, and have usually decided to stay overnight beforehand at an airport hotel rather than trying to get from Malvern to the airport in time for a stupid o’clock flight. However, on a couple of those occasions I was travelling with a colleague who lives near me and would have been happy to pick me up from home and drive me to the airport at 5am. So since I was turning down a perfectly viable lift, I didn’t feel that I could charge work for the hotel and therefore booked and paid for it myself. Hence booking.com now apparently thinks that I have a yearning to go on holiday to the outskirts of Birmingham! No thanks!