Seminar …

I tumble out of bed and stagger along the landing. The study is full of piles of “stuff” waiting to be sorted. Expenses forms, receipts, bills to pay, recipes to read. Taped to the shelf above my desk are three pages of A4 with “things to do this week” printed on them. There’s more handwritten additions to these lists than things crossed out.

I check my mail and read a few news sites and blogs, check the stats on my site and wonder how to publicise it more widely. After a negotiating a bowl of cereal (both milk and Special K spilled on the floor) I shower, dress and head out.

Driving to the office I turn the music up loud and sink into the leather seats trying to calm the thousand thoughts in my head, nagging and reminding me what I need to do today and what I forgot from yesterday.

We grab a coffee at the office and setup in the room before splitting up to take separate conference calls on different matters. He has the luxury of the room, I’m camped out in the corridor. There’s loads of empty offices with family snaps on the desks and jumpers and umbrellas on hangers but I don’t know the dynamics of this place. It would be easy to use one of them but I would be risking the owner suddenly appearing.

The call drags on for an hour and moves us no further forward. Already I know the feedback I will get is get it done faster. The response will be “How ?”.

The seminar starts, despite us both needing a half day to prepare and structure it. Again we all introduce ourselves and hope that this time will be the last time as we drag together the lacework of resources spread across the country. Then I talk, using Netmeeting and the Wiki we illustrate points and nudge them gently towards getting things finished. We both field questions and try to provide helpful direction and advice before we hang up and hope that they can get all we need done today completed.

Lunch is Chinese. We must be here early as no one is eating and the kitchen is in overdrive. We stretch out lunch as long as possible but still not the full hour we should have. The afternoon is more one on one calls as we review what they have done, fix their problems and plot their progress.

By six it’s time to catch up with the all the work we should have done, trying to clear the email which came in today, before we leave, lingering in the car park trying to agree when to meet tomorrow.

I drive home on the A roads and not the motorway, calling people to get updates on what is happening and trying to sort things before people go on holiday next week.

At home I speak to Anne about Daisy’s birthday next week, trying to remember to book the evening out in my diary before someone thinks a call with the States then would be a nice way for me to spend an evening. I catch up with K’s day, watch a few goals from the England team and wonder why we didn’t play like that a month or so back and then watch the F Word.

In bed I finish my book, a fast read callled Aggressor by Andy McNab, set the radio to sleep mode and listen to Late Junction.

Tomorrow I will do this all over again.