Andy Mitchell from Radio Wave

All ready to wake up in Stoke
Sheffield Central TravelodgeSheffield Central Travelodge
Sheffield Central Travelodge

This week I’m being sent away on a two-day management course.

It’s very exciting, I’ve never been sent away anywhere for two days before, least not by work.

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Now I know there must be thousands of people far more important that I’ll ever be, happily tripping from Premier Inn to Travelodge up and down the country every day, all being very important, some of them in freshly pressed shirts, others not so pressed. They probably take being abandoned in random places like Slough very much in their stride.

In the Mitchell household however, it’s never happened before, and so the sense of excitement is mounting every hour in much the same way as it did when Mr Hallam piled us all on a Standerwick bus in 1973 and dispatched us all to Knowsley Safari Park for the day.

I don’t get many trips out from work, if any, so this is indeed something that’s been eagerly anticipated since the first invitation email arrived last November.

Mrs Mitchell has been asking if I need a packed lunch, and what am I going to do with my time in that hotel room all alone on Thursday night, and make sure you phone, and have you packed your pyjamas? Etc.

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For the main part of the two-day course, I imagine I’ll be in some stark meeting room somewhere with a lot of other people who are also brandishing their overnight bags all day because the Premier Inn doesn’t allow check ins until 2pm.

I wonder if they’ll laugh at my old school kit bag which will double up as an executive travel case for the night?

I’m not a seasoned grown-up business traveller, so I don’t have my own collection of impressive grown-up cases. What’s it going to be like waking up in Stoke?

I’ve never done that before, though I’ve heard the stories.

Will they be able to teach me something I don’t know when I get there? Almost certainly, but I might be able to pick up some management lingo to impress everyone when I get back.

I do hope there are grapefruit segments for breakfast and those little jam pots you can stick in your blazer pocket for later.