32 hours in London, and a Friday round-up

I have a confession to make. I spent 32 hours in London earlier this week…and I slept for about 12 of them. That’s with just one overnight. I landed at 9:15 or so in the morning, and made my way to my hotel, which was this old guest house type place in downtown by Hyde Park. They let me check in early, and despite my having actually slept on the flight over (empty flight — I got four seats to lie flat!) I immediately crashed and took a 3-hour nap. Then I showered, walked around London and went to my evening speech. After, I stayed up fiddling around with email and on the internet until 11, figuring I’d do my usual wake-up-at-4am international travel routine.

Nope! Maybe it was the melatonin. Maybe it was the cold room in the old guest house, which made the down comforter I was under particularly cozy. Maybe it’s that London is pretty dark this time of year. Whatever it was, I slept and slept and slept. I stirred at about 6:45, then thought better of it and went back down. I finally woke up for good around 8:15, but just to make sure, I stayed in bed until almost 9.

Yes, there are wonderful things to see in London, and perhaps I should have gotten up earlier in order to see more of them. I did manage to do some window shopping on Bond Street, and see an Al Weiwei installation before my lunch event (photo), but I’ve been in London before, and perhaps I shall be in London again.

The sleep, on the other hand, was awesome.

In other news: In honor of Halloween I went to two separate Halloween parades at the kids’ school. It was that kind of week — New York, London, and two Halloween parades.

I was reminded again on Friday of why, despite the “flexible” nature of my work, I find regular childcare critical for getting work done. I have the kids on Friday, and I make do. While my daughter had dance at the YMCA, I put the baby in the play room. My 6-year-old was home from school (he has afternoon kindergarten, and it was a half-day). So he sat with me in the lobby and played on his Kindle while I used the YMCA’s Wifi to file a story. But it was kind of stressful!

I’m adding seasonal flair to the usual career advice pieces with a post at Fast Company called “7 Strategies From Ghost Stories That Can Liven Up Your Presentations.” Think more campfire, less PowerPoint.

Nature runs a story on time diary studies finding that, as long-time readers of this blog know, we work less than we think. So why do people feel they must be busier than in the past? I’ll be writing something about this soon.

I’ll also be writing about the couples-working-100-hours idea.

NaNoWriMo starts on Sunday!