isolating in Novotel London Bridge

 Since testing positive for Covid on 2021-12-14, I've been isolating in hotel Novotel London Bridge .

I've tested positive with my LFTs 2021-12-14, 2021-12-18, and 2021-12-20.

I have a view of the shard. 

Despite being in central London, and being able to see a lot of space, there is hardly ever a person in my view.  This adds nicely to the apocalyptic atmosphere.

At night there is a cheesy light-show by the top section of the Shard.  Are they still constructing the top 15 levels or so, or is it supposed to be like that?  It's just  a frame, a shell.  With scraggy edges.

I moved the furniture around so I could do yoga.

Overall I'm grateful to the hotel staff, but it's not the slickest service.  It's not a mega-cheap hotel.  If I was running it, I'd probably do a daily package, going each morning to isolating guests.

I told them I was positive, and duly got a paper letter under my door, a standard guest covid letter.

My initial stay was for 5 nights.  I extended by another 7 nights to go to the end of the isolation period.  The total room charge is around 2300 GBP, or just under 200 GBP per night.

After 5 nights, I got an invoice by email, and someone started knocking on the door soon after mid day.  They hadn't processed the extension to the stay.  They then claimed I hadn't confirmed it.  Looking in the whatsapp, I found that I had confirmed it, straight after they'd given me the price.  We got it resolved, but it's a bit annoying having to deal with mistakes like this, especially in what's positioned as a decent hotel.

Communication with reception and room service is via whatsapp numbers.

I was surprised to get two visits from employees without masks, shortly after I told the hotel I was positive.  The first was from someone responding to a fire alarm alert.  I had taped over the fire detector because it had flashing lights.  I offered to remove the tape, but they said no need.  The second was the next morning.  I said you should probably wear a mask, because I have covid.  They said they were exempt.

At this point I messaged reception to say staff should know to treat my room differently, and it didn't seem fair to send a mask-exempt person to my room.  I suggested leaving deliveries outside the door and knocking, with no need to wait for me to open the door.  This has worked well since, but I was surprised I had to make the suggestion to them.

Reception is responsive, room service less so.  I have to get reception to chase room service when they don't notice I've tried to order some food or drink.

The 1080p TV works with an HDMI input, that the hotel engineer and I set up the previous day.  It's not suitable as a work monitor, but is nice for watching my own TV.

I've had a couple of deliveries of fresh towels and shower gel, at their initiative.  I had to ask for tea and (instant) coffee to use with my kettle.  They only bring this if asked.

They've brought food deliveries and amazon deliveries to my room just fine.  Deliveroo portions are tiny, so I have to buy about 50 GBP worth of food to get a large meal's worth. So room service is cheaper after all.  The hotel staff tend to ask whether to bring it up, instead of just doing it.  Delivery drivers seem to want to make everything depend on realtime communication.  Instead of just delivering to reception as per instructions, they call.  I don't know what would happen if they didn't get thru, but, given people's propensity for being unable to continue with something if a piece of realtime communication fails during The Great Retardation, delivery would probably fail.  The only failed food delivery so far during my stay was from Uber Eats: [0].  It was around 50 GBP, again, but I'm not sure yet if they've charged me.

[0] <https://wibblement.blogspot.com/2021/12/uber-spammers-glitches-annoyances.html>

The extra charge of 5 GBP per delivery is waived for isolating guests, according to the letter.  But a couple of times, when I ordered on room service, they told me there's a 5 GBP surcharge, and waited for my response instead of processing the order.  On these occasions I had to tell them again that I was isolating.  It's only a minor annoyance, but it's not necessary for a guest to correct small mistakes by the hotel all the time.  It's just a question of being well-organised as a matter of implemented policy.

They gave me a couple of extra LFTs so I can monitor my infection status.

Kindly, they got me some Vitamin D tablets near the start of my isolation, at my request.  They threw in some fresh fruit themselves.  I don't know exactly who paid for this.  But I'm happy to forgive a few minor service issues, because of this kindness.  Thanks, Novotel London Bridge staff.

I got some groceries from Gopuff (that's their name) and filled up my fridge.

The windows open a little, so I get fresh air.  I'm not getting any sunlight, tho.  The terrace is tempting.  It seems designed for going on, but there is no access.  It was tempting to order a tool from Amazon to undo the window, so I could go outside, but I decided not to do that.

I moved the furniture so I have enough room for yoga.  I'm not working out hard, because that's generally a bad idea when fighting a virus.

I'm watching The Office US, Schitts Creek, and Parks and Recreation.

The bathroom has underfloor heating.

I did some laundry in the sink and shower, treading it underfoot, and it's nearly dry.  So my laundry state is better than when I came in.

I asked for a glass glass, crockery cup, and some cutlery.  The toothbrush holder in the bathroom is still plastic, wrapped in more plastic, and it falls over when you put a toothbrush in.  I don't like that.  I may ask for another glass glass.  It's sad that one has to say glass glass, instead of just glass.

The bluetooth speaker works.  The room has USB A charging outlets by the desk and by the bed.  The bedside light is badly designed for reading, dazzling the reader.

My sleep has crept forward.  I fail to fall asleep when I go to bed, and then oversleep in the day.  I tend to be a bit like that anyway.

I've made progress on designing something, that I've been meaning to do for several years.

I've more or less trod water admin-wise.

A friend, who may have been the source of my infection, but probably wasn't, kindly had a book delivered to me.

Today someone is drilling in an adjacent room.  I wonder if they're also isolating, and ordered their drill on amazon.

The wifi is annoying.  I have to reconnect every day on three devices, by typing my email address into a form, kind of a captive portal, which has been deliberately made so the browser doesn't remember it.  This often follows random network glitches.  "Why can't I ssh to this server?  Is it broken?"  Then, the realisation that I have to go thru the captive schmortal thing again.  Sometimes it comes up by itself, sometimes I have to contrive for it to come up.  Sometimes re-connection works, sometimes not.  There is always cookie consent spam to get out the way first.  Do the people making captive portals realise what pricks they are?

There are 3 RJ45 sockets in the room, but none of them have a link.  I haven't tried asking the hotel to enable a port.  If I was here much longer, I'd ask.