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It’s that time of year when blogging goes to pot. Thursday night is our Awards night. Thursday, Friday and Saturday day times is Mac Expo, out in Olympia. We’re doing the magazine. I’m writing a labs test. We’re sending a book off to print. There’s marketing to be signed off, a script to be written, forward features to be planned.

In short, the days are too short to blog.

If I had been blogging, though, I’d probably have started around about Friday night, getting home after the first run-through of the awards show, and then quickly progressed to Saturday evening. By then I’d have just got in from a long wet walk through Hampshire with the walking group. A good turn out of 22 or so, meeting up either on the train out of Waterloo, or joining at various stations along the line, before clambering out again at Petersfield, with turns out to be very pretty and quite suburban.

We were quickly out in the middle of nowhere, though, among muddy wet fields churned up by the cows, which showed an unhealthy interest in our passage through their pasture. I nearly lost a boot on more than one occasion and, as we emerged from the woods into a wide open field we all got utterly drenched as the heavens opened with some of the heaviest rain I’ve seen in months.

With all the walking, though, and frequent stops for gin in the pubs we passed on the way, we all dried off by the time we took the train home from Rowland Castle which, it turns out, seems to be devoid of any kind of castle at all.

I only realised how caked in mud my trousers and boots were when I arrived home.

The next day - Sunday - around to Emilie and Luke’s for lunch with Kathryn. Ems works for Good Housekeeping, and had baked us a fantastic stuffed pepper meal with salad and potatoes. I always feel particularly grateful when eating at friends’ houses as, being a non-meat eater, they invariably sacrifice everyone else’s carnivoristic tendencies to suit me.

We went walking in the drizzle on Hilly Fields afterwards, then retreated to their cosy front room for coffee, chocolates and Scrabble. You’d think that four writers playing Scrabble would only lead to arguments and disputes, but we were all very well behaved. Even when Luke roundly thrashed us, finishing first with a clear lead of 100 points.

And then back to work, for two busy but wonderfully productive days. They say that any job will expand to fill the amount of time allotted, and I’m thinking perhaps that’s true. With so much going on, our deadlines seem to be approaching at high speed, coming out of nowhere, yet it’s all getting done without complaint.

To celebrate, we’re all taking off Friday afternoon next week to go ride the slides in the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern. Can’t wait.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 25th, 2006 at 12:06 am and is filed under Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.