Thursday. I’m about to enter a Day Of Hell: I have meetings booked solidly from 9am to 4pm. I am deeply unenthused about this prospect. In fact I am so unenthused that I accidentally hit ‘off’ instead of ‘snooze’ when flailing about in the direction of my alarm. As a consequence I get up half an hour later than planned, which means half an hour less time in which to write. Not a great start to the day, and frustrating when I’m really, really into the story I’m working on.

I have a narrow window of potential between my first and second meetings in which I might be able to get coffee. My first meeting almost starts late, and I begin see my window dwindling. Luckily it’s just a team meeting, which means I get to wrap it up early and off I go to get my coffee. I’m then ten minutes early for my next meeting. Go figure.

My third meeting of the day is immediately after the second meeting and, conveniently, in the same room. However, I am then told that the third meeting has been delayed by half an hour. As my fourth meeting is in the city, this now means I have to skip the third meeting in order to get to my fourth meeting. This is convenient as it means I definitely wont to arrive late to my fourth meeting: which needs to finish early so I can get back in time for my fifth meeting of the day.

Since I don’t know when or where I’ll have a chance to eat, I’ve packed some peanut butter sandwiches in my bag. In the end, lunch is provided during the fourth meeting (the one in the city) which is a pretty awesome result. Even more awesomely, the meeting finishes early, enabling us to get back from the city well before the fifth and final meeting of the day is due to start (it’s a presentation by the senior executive group, so I’m determined that we should not be the ones to walk in late).

Another 90 minutes later, the Day Of Hell is finally over. Most of the meetings were useful in some way or other, and I even managed to get some tiny bits of work done in between several of them. Of greatest importance is the fact that both lunch and coffee happened.

And then I have to head straight home as I’ve asked Rachel to help me pick up my new washing machine (she got the older, bigger, fully paid off car as part of the settlement; I got the smaller, newer, still-being-paid off car). It begins raining as soon as we head out, and the traffic proves abysmal, so everything takes twice as long. We need to reverse the car into the pick up area of the store but–hilariously–there’s an enormous truck parked by the entrance. I end up offering to attempt the manoeuvre–prime entertainment in the darkness, and rain, with the windows all misted up. Even more hilariously, another car tries to pull into the pick up area right behind us, successfully blocking the narrow passage left at the side of the truck. I knock on his window and suggest he might want to go back and let us out before he tries to collect his goods. He obliges and consequently we don’t have to resort to blind ugly violence.

We get back and, between the two of us, manage to get the washing machine out of the car and into my garage without any serious injuries. And there it will stay until such a time as I decide to connect it up. Or the old washing machine carks it and takes the choice out of my hands.

After all that, it’s chips, eggs and beans for dinner, because I wasn’t organised enough to get a full week’s worth of food shopping at the weekend; but I am organised enough to ensure that I always have chips, eggs and beans on standby.

The Kinderbeast has claimed his spot in my bed for the night, so I settle him down while I shower (because it’s so damn late) and then order the Elderbeast to shower (because he’s so damn filthy). One of the cats curls up on the bed right next to the Kinderbeast, which is very cute until he decides he’s had enough and demands that I remove the cat.

The Elderbeast decides to spend his evening watching a film with Beryl. Some time ago I picked up a three-disc set of the Mighty Ducks films for him, and he chooses to watch that. It takes a while to work out film one comes first. Most countries just have The Mighty Ducks, then D2: The Mighty Ducks, and D3: The Mighty Ducks. Which is easy. So, we figure the first film will be The Mighty Ducks. No! Wrong! Our set has three films: Champions, The Mighty Ducks and D3: The Mighty Ducks. You see, over here, The Mighty Ducks is the *sequel* to Champions, the film which is called The Mighty Ducks everywhere else.

Confused yet?

In any case, he loves it. I have a blast listening to him giggling and cheering along to the film while I sit at my desk and catch up on work.