As I've alluded to in the last couple of blogs I was approached by the owners of Farmer Palmers farm park near Wareham in Dorset to fill a new role as their Commercial Growth Manager. Incredibly flattering to have been approached and I was ready for a fresh challenge so agreed to take the offer of a new job, hand in my notice at the old job and look forward to the new role working on the farm!
For Red and I the most significant part of the new job would be the commute! My old job had become a lovely 35 minute / 8 miles each way cycle to and from the beach office, perfect in terms of distance and timing to ensure I was mentally prepared for the day ahead and reasonably destressed before I got home each day.
The new office on the farm would be at least 21 miles of cycling each way, and after a little consideration a combination of bike / train / bike again felt like the best solution to the commute. A season ticket for the train between Christchurch and Wareham purchased, train timetable memorised (only joking, but I did look at it before my first day of commuting ) and before I knew it my two relaxing weeks of being unemployed came to an end, the first day of the new commute had arrived.
From previous bike and train experiences I was aware of limited space for bikes on trains and in some cases the need to pre-book a bike space, but nothing prepared me for the first day when it turned out that there are lots of fellow cyclists using the same train for a bike / train / bike commute to work. I was a little nervous about both space for my bike and also the slight chance of Red being stolen (more a perception than an actual risk....) so I stayed close to the bike area standing for the duration of this first journey in to work.
I needn't have worried - once a couple more bikes were added on top of Red (resting against her, not actually on top of Red) the chances of theft reduced. The ride from the station to the farm park initially involved the road which was rush hour busy, but I realised that two thirds of the route on this initial main road actually had a dedicated cycle lane footpath quite separate from traffic.
The last mile or so of the cycle commute was on a bumpy, relatively traffic free country lane and I arrived safely for my first day in my new job.
Day one complete I did the journey in reverse, making use of the aforementioned cycle path back to Wareham station, changing trains in Bournemouth to get back to Christchurch station, a short cycle home and the first day of the new commute was safely complete.
By day three I had realised that I could get off one train station earlier in the morning for a slightly shorter ride to the farm park (slightly different timetables for the morning and afternoon trains so this sadly wasn't possible for the commute home...) and probably because I was getting used to the change of routine the journey home on day three was a little more challenging.....for the most part because there was no train running to get me closer to home.
By the time I had checked the website / South West train app and made a plan , which in fairness I should have decided more quickly ie. cycle home, I messaged Jan to update her and started to cycle home (partly hoping that Jan might be able to drive halfway and pick me up) . Jan however was having a lovely dog walk with one of our neighbours and her lovely dog Chester so was completely oblivious to the train related issue I had encountered, but once home was very kindly able to drive towards me and pick me up.
This last paragraph and a half took about one and a half hours in real life; delays for the most part lying very much with me struggling to find out what was happening train wise. If I had known and / or made a decision to cycle home earlier I probably would have got home in the hour and a half and not inconvenienced Jan at all, and the main motivation for letting Jan know was to ensure my delay didn't mean a delay for her eating dinner.
The rest of my first week was all pretty relaxed in terms of trains and cycling; trains ran almost on time and I was able to get a little cycling in at the beginning and end of each day.
To ensure I was able to see how my new team and place of work operated over a seven day period I made sure I worked a weekend at the end of my second week. The weekend train timetable was slightly different on the Saturday, and as I was eating some breakfast on the Sunday morning at around 6.10am just by total fluke I checked the timetable to ensure I wasn't about to miss my train.
I'm glad I checked because there are no trains on this particular route until after 9am, a good hour or so after I needed to be in the office. Luckily the bike part of the bike / train / bike plan came in handy, and once I'd finished getting ready I headed out on a mini adventure to get to work. 21 miles of cycling, for the most part on a route I had in part used to head home the week before meant I did get to the office on time, added miles to my total for the year (mini win) and most importantly got to enjoy the area I am fortunate to both live and work in.
Eleven weeks into the job and I've now either chosen or through a lack of trains running made the cycle to or from the office around 10 times, over 200 miles of cycling on top of the 12 or so miles the daily commute should include. Cycling to or from work in a planned way is one thing of course, having to cycle in due to an unforeseen train issue is slightly different and its fair to say that the length of time my working day now takes is a fair bit more than back in the old job, and I am really conscious that this is going to continue having an impact on Jan who works from home and doesn't see anyone, me included for around 11 1/2 hours of each working day.
So the new job is awesome, the farm park team are excellent, I was made to feel very welcome from day one and as I write this blog, around 11 weeks into the role its going well, and the choice to change jobs feels like an excellent one (and long may this continue). Conscious that the additional commuting time eats into time I can spend with Jan, but I need to ensure the quality of time with Jan is high.....so no pressure there then :-) .