It has been a very busy month at work – which explains why my blog has come to an absolute standstill. We at a very busy stage of the project, which means that there isn’t much time to focus on putting together entries for the blog – but I am also travelling constantly. Last week was Paris, London, and Zurich. This week is Paris, Zurich, Geneva, and Barcelona.

Luckily, most of the travel is by train, so it isn’t nearly as stressful as if I were constantly having to catch flights all around the world. But there doesn’t seem to be any end in sight, at least not before August. In August, all of Europe goes on holiday at once, so there should be a brief respite before things pick up again in September.

More and more of the travel will be to Barcelona as the project progresses – not a bad place to spend the summer and autumn, as the hotel is right on the beach and the weather will hopefully remain good.

The Swiss office has a big marketing department. We took advantage of some of the props to take a few photographs.

And yes, this is as fun and exciting as tax gets.

One of my team members posing with a marketing bear

The team poses with the bear. You can tell the consultants from the clients — check out who’s wearing jackets!

More team photos

My team thought that it would be funny to replace me with a jackass. I don’t know what they were trying to imply.

View out the office window. You don’t get views like this in downtown London or Paris!

View out the office window. You don’t get views like this in downtown London or Paris!

I haven’t had much of a chance to update my blog in the past couple of weeks — I have been travelling a lot, and my client’s wife went into labour last week so I now have twice as much work to do with him out of the equation for a few weeks. I have been up to my eyeballs preparing workshops, and most of last week was spent in unglamorous airport hotels across Switzerland (but I did get a chance to catch up with some old friends, so all was not lost).

I will try to put a few more entries here in the next day or two, as this weekend and next weekend are both public holidays in France so I’ll have some time on my hands, but for now I thought I would just stick up a couple of the photos I have from a few weeks ago when Jerome came to visit us for a few days in Paris.

Jerome seems to be enjoying his weekend in Paris

Brother and sister…

I’m officially a convert to rail travel. This week, I’ve done Paris-London by Eurostar, London-Birmingham by Virgin Trains, and Zurich-Paris on TGV. Without exception, the trains have been quick, reliable, comfortable and clean. Yes, I’ve heard all the horror stories about what happens when trains go wrong. But door-to-door, I think they’re just as quick as taking the plane and far less hassle, as I can work the entire journey.

As I type this, I’m enjoying a lovely glass of Riesling and a scallop and saffron risotto as I watch the Swiss countryside go by. It’s much more agreeable than the cold cheese sandwich and lousy cup of tea I had on my flight from Birmingham to Zurich last night. I paid more than €560 for my economy class flight ticket. My first class train ticket cost me €132. I can’t understand why anyone chooses to fly in Europe.

On Monday, our meetings were held on an active production site with a chocolate factory just outside the meeting room we were working in. Everywhere you went, there was an overwhelming smell of cocoa – I felt like any minute Willy Wonka was going to pop out and say hello. It was really bizarre. I raided the factory shop after our meetings and have come home with a suitcase full of chocolates – I figured they’d make good conversation-starters at the office.

I stayed in the Radisson SAS hotel on Monday night. Those crazy Scandinavians have their own unique sense of design. The room looked like a cross between a Bang & Olufsen stereo and a TV test pattern, all the carpets and soft furnishings a rainbow of reds, pinks and purples.

After my short flight to Zurich, I managed to arrive in Zug around 11pm, only to discover that the hotel had managed to give away my room (and, this being Switzerland, they’d given it away with remarkable efficiency – it had been resold by 7pm apparently). They finally managed to find me another hotel room at the motorway hotel – the very last one, a handicapped room and very noisy at the top of the stairs. It certainly wasn’t the Ritz.

It’s nearly impossible to find a hotel room in Zug (note to investors: building a hotel in Zug is a sure-fire winner) so I’m back in the same motorway hotel next week. Hopefully they’ll put me in a nicer room next time as a “regular”.

I’m back in Paris today and for the weekend, a chance to catch up on a load of admin at work and unpacking at home.