One of the benefits of working for a remote company is that rather than going to the same office day in day out, we meet up in a different city every three months. We have two days together to catch up, get the latest updates, have conversations that are better to have in person, and then we all head back to our own corners of the UK. Of course there is fun involved too – I can’t confirm or deny whether there will be karaoke – and it’s a great opportunity to get know each other offline.

This afternoon I arrived in Bristol for this quarter’s meeting. It really is a great way to visit places I’ve wanted to see more of, though it’s ironic that the last two meetings have been in places I’ve recently visited; I came to Bristol for the first time in years in October and our meeting in Leeds in January followed an (albeit brief) visit as part of a Yorkshire holiday last summer. I’m not complaining, it’s always nice going to back to these places and there’s always different parts of these cities to see, but there are still cities I’ve not been which I’d love to check out.

This is only my fourth trip to Bristol. Aged 11 I came here for a week long school residential. My mum came as a parent helper and obviously remembers a lot more about it than I do. My memories mainly revolve around the youth hostel lift playing up, walking into a bin on the street and my friend Gemma having to throw things at me in the night to get me to stop chewing my tongue in my sleep which made a horrible noise.

The next visit was for a funeral and then when I came last year for a girls weekend, I stupidly wore new shoes which turned out to be very uncomfortable and it rained heavily, both of which dampened the experience a tad.

Fortunately today I made it to the hotel just before the heavens opened and had an evening to explore and enjoy the city before the meeting officially starts in the morning. I’m staying on the other side of the city to where I stayed last time so there are new places to explore, but I’m pleased that I quite quickly managed to find my bearings in comparison to where I went last time.

Many years ago there was a possibility I could move to Bristol. It was the early days of my civil service career, and as part of the government’s plan to move more of the civil service out of the south east of England, the agency I worked for was going to be relocating. Six locations were shortlisted, and Bristol was one of them. They ended up moving to Manchester, and in the end I decided to leave the organisation and stay in London, but I often wonder what if I had moved to another city rather than staying in London.

I’ve only had a few hours to explore today but I’ve liked what I’ve seen. It may only be Tuesday evening but the city has been alive with a real buzz. The post work crowd in bars relaxing into the evening with a beer. We had to wait for a running group of what felt like hundreds to go by before we could cross the road and continue wandering along the harbour side. One of the local breweries, Left Handed Giant, was already pretty busy before the aforementioned running group turned up for a rewarding pint after a 6km run.

Tucking into ‘the mothership’ (pie, mash, mushy peas, cheese, crispy onions and gravy) st Pieminister, washed down with a pint of their own pale ale, was the perfect way to end the evening before heading back to the hotel to rest and energise ahead of seeing everyone tomorrow.

Sadly technology is not on my side today (it may finally be time for me to replace my ageing iPhone) so I’m not able to share any photos, but maybe I’ll update this to share more about my time in the city, including photos, later in the week. Now it’s definitely time to curl up in my spacious hotel bed and get some shut eye