Despite my avowed determination not to return to my pre-COVID life of Buses, Trains and Budget hotel rooms (the forgotten sequel to Planes, Trains and Automobiles) I also know I can’t cope with a winter stuck in my tiny flat working in my bedroom – not without real risk of some mental health issues!

So after a little research I have taken a studio office at Pithay Studios in the centre of Bristol from the 1st of October. It is far from glamorous – it makes Ainsley’s Steam Pipe Trunk Distribution Venue in West Wing look like the Google offices – but it is a private space, with a door, with no chance of people using my desk or walking past too close. It also means it’ll be easier to arrange to occasionally see people – depending on Boris’s latest rules!

The studio is a complete blank slate – it basically comes as an empty room with power and fibre internet – the rest is up to me…and as I’ve always wanted my own office (I blame all those detective books and then reading about Cory Doctorow’s old writing cave in London) I’ve immediately gone into day dream mode.

As is my wont I dived into the research of what I should get to furnish the office – wildly swinging from hugely over the top to penny pinching in the blink of an eye.

I’ve ended up with this ‘shopping list’ of things I’ll need to get to make the place feel like somewhere I’m going to spend 40ish hours a week in – I have a bunch of smaller items from my bedroom ‘office’ that I’ll take (keyboard, mouse, webcam, headset(s), microphone, mouse mat, USB hubs) and I’ve had some great suggestions on Twitter so this is my list at the moment –>

• Desk
• Chair
• Monitor
• Riser/mount for monitor
• Router
• Some kind of backup storage
• Desk lamp / light bar
• Power extensions
• Whiteboard
• Clock
• Rug
• Arm chair
• Coffee table
• Bookcase/storage
• Picture frames

…anything missing? As I mentioned on Twitter I don’t drink coffee/tea, don’t want a TV on the wall so I can pretend to be Dashboard Dom and am going to avoid the beer/cola fridge 🙂