Maybe it’s because I had more than 25 years of business travel where I didn’t bring the family along that this one trip is proving more trying.  I’m used to having the hotel room to myself and checking in with the loved ones once or twice a day.  Now that Frank is here with me, I worry about whether or not I need to check in more frequently or whether he’s bored on his own or…. {sigh}

He’ll tell me not to be stupid (except he’ll say “dunnae be daft”) especially because he has family to go to visit.  It’s not like he’s playing tourist on his own – in fact, I think he spent today replacing brake rotors, diagnosing engine misfires and drinking tea with various relations.  Nevertheless, I can’t help but notice that he’s cramping my conference style.

Let’s start with sharing a hotel room.  You would think we’d be good at it by now.  And generally we are except that we stopped renting hotel rooms a while back and have rented flats, suites, or apartments for several years.  It works so much better when you have separate space to retire to when one of you gets on the others nerves or when I need to get some work done and he doesn’t.  For some reason, my work won’t pay for an AirBnB (I’ll work on that when I get home!) and so I picked a reasonably price hotel close to the conference venue.  Which means I got a reasonably priced hotel.  No sitting rooms. No upgrades. Not even a plug near a mirror which I shouldn’t care about except that I couldn’t actually use my curling tongs safely without being able to see my head! (Note: curling tongs means curling iron and normally I wouldn’t need to use them except that Scottish water is so bloody soft that no amount of “product” can get my hair to behave the way it does at home.)

So the hotel room is fine but it is better suited for one person – or at least my style of living when I travel on business.  The tiny table in the corner where I’ve tried to do some work the last few nights isn’t quite the office away from home.  And it doesn’t help that while I’m typing away trying to get things done, my beloved spouse is alternating between the TV, his iPad, and regularly checking with me – “you okay?” or “you done?” {sigh}

And so we made it through the first day.  We have another day apart tomorrow so maybe I will have adjusted to this whole conference spouse thing by then.