Back in 1943, Abraham Maslow proposed a theory about a hierarchy of needs in his paper entitled “A Theory of Human Motivation” (in Psychologica Review). His theories paralleled many other human developmental psychology theories of the day which focussed on describing patterns that drive human motivations. Maslow used terms such as “physiological”, “safety”, “belongingness” and “love”, “esteem” and “self-actualisation”. But over the last 72 years, the hierarchy has been modified and as I sit here – in a hotel in Bristol – I am acutely aware of just how true this is….
To be frank, the journey to Bristol was pretty good and Gertrude (my Satnav) did me proud, delivering me and the yet-to-be-named new car to the front door of our residence for tonight. It was not Gertrude’s fault that in order to travel down many of the roads in the city centre, the wing mirrors needed to be manipulated considerably so as to not be damaged or cause damage to parked cars. Nor was it her fault that manoeuvering into the hotel car park required three attempts so as not to rearrange the paintwork on the front bumper….(narrow is an understatement).
Checking in was fairly painless and I am now fully versed with the morning’s 0.8 mile walk route. However, the challenge is the Wifi. Yes, I have Wifi, of a sort, but I do question whether one bar of Wifi signal constitutes a ‘solid signal’. I really think not. Whilst I am grateful that – though I am only staying for one night, which will actually be around nine hours at most – I have FIFTY hours of Wifi usage, I think it may well take me NINE hours to get one email out and most likely, I will not manage to consistently participate in the online meeting I was hoping to attend later on tonight.
Perhaps the icing on the cake is the bed in my hotel room…. Quite when I last slept in a single bed, I really couldn’t tell you and I am sure that trying to wriggle around and get comfortable won’t be an easy task. Thank goodness (no offence), I am only here for one night and then I can head back to the comfort of my own home…. after quite a large round trip tomorrow from Bristol to Swindon to Basingstoke and back. Oh heck…. never a dull moment…. (well, there might be if this pathetic Wifi continues….) and let’s hope the wing mirrors remain in one piece!
