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So, this exchange has been bothering me. I struggle to get people to come visit me as it is, and this would be fair enough if I lived somewhere far away, but I live in Belgium, the journey from England is roughly 300 miles. There are bargain flights here all the time, and so… Dad is in bold, my replies in italics.

Had an interesting meeting last week with a guy from a company called Entelec. They put sensors and things into buildings making "Intelligent Building Systems". Bit like what I do with a company in Leigh.


Anyway, they wanted to do some joint development work with the university, particularly after seeing the stuff we do and the similarities. He said "you really should come and see one of our flagship installations", saying to spend a day there looking it over. Where is it? Only Antwerp Railway Station….. they manage all the behind the scenes sensor controls there. Just negotiating a trip over hopefully, stay a couple of days. Won’t know until mid February really though


xxxx
 
I WAS GOING TO EMAIL YOU TODAY INSISTING YOU VISIT SOOON!! NOW IT’S FATE, YOU HAVE TO!!!!!!!!!!! Mat and I are considering taking time off mid feb or 1st week of march so if you could time it with that would be great. PLEASE COME AND VISIT!


Well am really trying. Won’t meet the guys again until 12 Feb, so it won’t be intil after then.

We have to see whether they want to work with the Uni too.


Also hints around the department about some job as International Coordinator. Keeping my eye out for that one

xxxx
 
Well you know,  you could just book a trip over sooner without it being for uni…!
 
well I could do, but you keep overestimating my funding I think.

Without being too melodramatic, I live month to month on what comes in, no saving etc. Monthly outgoings on that house are pretty large, only one income, Christmas still being paid for. I’d need to find around £300 for it, not being the sleep on floors type any more. Better coming over by car when I have more time too, share the expense then with ose perhaps.

This is still why I rely on organising things alongside what I can get some external funding for when I can.

Definitely want to come over, just have to organise a few things

xxxx
 
Well this place is brand new, right behind my building and costs 23 euros a night – it is super nice looking. http://www.hihostels.com/dba/hostels-Antwerp—Central-Hostel-008033.en.htm


There’s no way it would need to cost 300 quid, if you got the ferry (40 quid?) plus petrol (50?) plus two nights in that place (50) then we cook meals at mine rather than go out to fancy places – the trip could cost a total of 150 quid, then if you need spending money on top of it for speculoos paste…. Obviously Kate and Anna come over all the time, and they really have no money, so I know plenty of ways to have fun in Antwerp on a budget, mostly by cooking nice food at home and going out to see free stuff! 
 
am hoping to sort something. Another hurdle is that I teach until 5pm on Fridays and from 11am Mondays. They don’t just do "days off", so have to fit in around that too.


Summer term is better, no teaching then.


That place is a hostel…. hmmmm not sure about sharing… old fogey that I am. Petrol would be about 3 tanks of petrol, which is around £200. Ferry is hopefully around that price, but probably more like £90 when I just checked prices, for inflexible times, which would be OK.


That’s why I was after some funding……


xxxxx
 
Well, sharing and sleeping on the floor are all part of living on a budget! I know it’s a hostel, it’s just I’ve never seen such a fancy hostel, and it’s run by hostelling international, who are really reputable. It was built by our building just a year ago. If ferry and petrol is that pricey, it makes way more sense to get a cheapy flight, there’s plenty from manchester and liverpool to brussels, charleroi and antwerp! All for around 50

quid return usually. Is there not a reading week you could take advantage of? And obviously bank holidays around Easter. and I know there’s a flight that gets into Brussels around 10 so you could always do after work on Fridays, and fly back Sunday evening… I just want you to know there are plenty of affordable options, it really doesn’t have to cost so much! xxxx
 

It will have to be after Easter probably, unless I get MMU funding and time off for the visit.

I know you love to organise people, and perhaps there’s a small hint of assuming I don’t know how to travel/arrange hotels etc, but I hopefully can assure you that in the past 54 years I have actually done travelling, arranged local and international flights, trains, ferries, coaches, cars, bikes, walking, stayed on floors, in tents, outside in the open, in cars, in hostels, all manner of dubious places, and been able to find prices, organise travel/accommodation all on my very little ownsome! (and sometime even for other people, including families!)

We don’t get reading weeks in our department, never have done (considered a con really….)

I know you would love me to get over, and I really would too. It’s just a case of timing, finance, and work opportunity. If I get offered an Antwerp trip to see this companies stuff, all the better, as I get flights etc paid, and official time off.

I’ve managed to arrange a conference trip at Easter that will be paid for, so that period is probably dodgy, it would have to be summer term when teaching stops. I’ve got all the dates down in my google calendar anyway for what I am committed to, and you can always peruse that

xxxxxxx

I didn’t reply for quite a while after that as I was getting really frustrated and everytime I typed a reply I came off like a total bitch, so then…

hello over there


Just making sure you are OK. Been bothered that you may have been upset by my having to spell out reasons for travel/non-travel


xxxx
 

And I guess my final word on the whole thing:


I am upset a little, but it’s only because (from my point of view) the reasons you give for not being able to come over are all very solvable. Of course I understand it’s impossible for you to get time off out of lectures, Mum works the same hours as you but she got a flight after work on Friday and left mine on Sunday evening which worked well. Of course driving here and taking the ferry is very costly, but Kate and Anna come over all the time on the various super cheap flights from Manchester and Liverpool. And of course you can stay in the proper bed upstairs if sleeping on the floor bothers you! We’re happy to accomodate. 


I suppose I just disagree that coming to visit me would be a costly, difficult procedure. There was no assuming that you were incapable of organising yourself at all. There’s probably something I’m missing, and that’s why I wanted to stress that these are just from my point of view and I’m probably not seeing some bigger picture. I’m also just disappointed that I make the effort and spend the money on coming over to visit everyone in the UK and not a lot of people return that – and I will happily (and have done in the past) pay for peoples travel over here, because I understand it’s not easy to free up money to travel, and it’s been a year and a half since you visited!


So the offer is there for me to find and buy a ticket that fits around your schedule, and we can put you up and feed you and all the rest – that way there’s no need to worry financially. And if you still don’t fancy it that’s fine too, just want you to know that I will always try to make it as easy as possible to visit me here in Belgium because it’s the only way to get people out here half the time anyway!! xxxx
 
So. I feel like such a douche, I don’t want to be guilt tripping anyone into coming over, it’s just that his reasons for not being able to visit seem really flimsy, and I get the feeling that he’s either blowing it out of proportion in his head, or he just can’t be bothered to visit. Like, it seems stupid to insist on staying in a hotel, taking time off work, driving here when all of those things make the journey way more expensive and difficult. What I really want to say but won’t is, if you REALLY actually wanted to come over here, you’d find a way, you’d make a compromise. Kate, Anna and Mum all love visiting, and they all come because they miss me and want to see me. They take crappy public transport, they heft their bags along awkward journeys, but they VISIT! 
But yeah, I didn’t want to say any of that to Dad because I don’t want to be making comparisons and fairness and all of that, it’s just in the back of my mind these things are cropping up. I know he likes to tag any travel/holidays onto work trips to save on airfare (he goes to Malaysia a lot because the university send him out there to teach). Though even though his flights to Asia are always paid for, he still manages to pay for fancy hotels, days out, essentially three weeks travelling around Asia. So I never take the "I can never afford this" excuse so well….
 
I dunno. What do you think?