Wednesday. I get up and write some more diary entries, as I’m still not quite in the right mood for story writing. Then I get a text message that the website at work is down, and looks like it might have been down for a while. So this means I need to get the kids ready and get myself ready, all while trying to coordinate some diagnosis and remedial action–mostly over SMS–and then get to work as quickly as possible. Of course I’m late leaving, because I’ve been focusing on trying to sort things out at work instead of getting ready, and of course the Elderbeast picks up on the stress and picks this particular morning to give me a hard time as I’m trying to all but abandon him by the school gates.
I arrive at work and go right into crisis mode: I need to coordinate things with my team (who are brilliant), two separate external parties, and our internal management. There’s no time to get coffee, but one of my awesome colleagues goes out and brings me one back. We get the site up and running again almost within an hour, but the rest day gets swallowed up by reports, communications, further remedial actions, and all sorts of things that only really happen when you’re part of an organisation so big that one side is barely aware the other even exists. It’s an energising and frustrating day. I’m drained by the end of it but pleased with my efforts and those of my team; and, for the most part, pleasantly impressed by the support given by those around us towards resolving the issue. My emails run well into the hundreds over the course of the day and are still coming in when I get home.
I get home, grateful that I thought to buy some pasta and sauce over the weekend to use as a potential emergency dinner, for tonight we dine on Emergency Dinner! I knock it all together and pour myself a very large glass of wine as soon as I can get to the bottle. I have every intention of collapsing into bed almost as soon as the kinderbesten are despatched to sleep, but I’ve also planned to file my consent papers at the Family Court tomorrow afternoon and I need some time to make sure I’ve got everything I need. There are multiple documents, and numerous copies required of each: some only need a photocopy; some need two copies plus the original; one document needs an additional FIVE copies. I’ve got most of it, but I still find I’m missing four items. I email myself a list of what I need to print out the next day.
And then, somehow, I’m still up and staring at my PC at 10pm. I get myself to bed, but manage to spend yet another hour being drawn into a black hole of internet articles covering various aspects of Doctor Who production: it’s exactly the sort of minutiae that I find oddly compelling.
Finally, I turn the light out. The day has certainly been an experience.