breakfast at the harrogate moat house is a bit of a sorry affair: the scrambled eggs look like they have been living in the place for quite some time and got really depressed by its charm (or absence of it rather). staying away from the sausages (they don’t look any less suspicious) i get some bacon and mushrooms. the tea is ok and the toast is still toast (some uk hotels have the tendency to get carried away with the toasting process and the end result often resembles something that miners might have brought back home from their job rather than a bakery product).

after breakfast it’s set-up time for the demo: this morning gprs at first refuses to play along, shortly before the show opens though i finally get the demo up and running…pheew. not having real, live internet though causes the demo to run sluggish all day…the gprs network in harrogate is not exactly what you would call speedy or thick — probably tied to the royal pump rooms somehow…

the first day is very slow: not a lot of people come by — i guess most of them use monday as the travel day (sensible). after the show stops at 18:00 i grab jonathan, the mannequin, drop him off in my hotel room (i hope he’s not going to snore tonight) and am off with my camera to bettys for some recovery time (a tearoom blend tea, a carot & coriander soup, and a yorkshire rarebit). the atmosphere is — as always — quite nice: subdued light, a piano player in the background…quite relaxing; i enjoy it very much.

at 19:30 i settle my bill and am off to a short stroll taking pictures. the new sony f828 is fantastic and a lot of fun to use! is become quite chilly and so i’m back in the hotel shortly past 20:00, get a pint of murphys (they don’t do guiness here, the whisky collection is on the cheap, low-quality side as well, just one single malt…) and settle in to watch ground force on tv.