If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

A brief reminder of what it is like to work today. It’s shocking how quickly you slip into the ‘normality’ of time off work. This morning’s 7am alarm was a shock. Fairly normal for a working day, but in the middle of a week off it’s a jolt. Still, I was showered and dressed and sipping tea well before I needed to be sitting at the ISDN and was ready with my notes when the call came through. A very short piece this morning, so a gentle easing-in.

That done, I mooched off in the car in the direction of Maldon so I could take pictures of the town from the other side of the river. The roads were practically empty, and the sun was so bright and low I had to dig out my sun glasses for the first time in months. It was warm enough to open the windows a little and I could hear birds chattering excitedly at one another by the sides of the road.

Unfortunately I arrived to find the sun in the wrong place. It was behind the town, rather than behind the river so the front of the buildings would have lost their details in the shadows. I skipped that idea and headed back to Chelmsford to look at the new PC World by way of some more windswept countryside. I was the only customer when I got there, so it must have been my poking around in the component boxes that inspired the ’security to zone two … security to zone two’ announcement. I put everything down and walked out past the eager-eyed security guard who had taken up position on a pedestal by the door.

I found everything I’d been looking for online anyway - and even then decided to hang on a bit longer until I really need to buy it. My monitor is on its last legs. It makes a raspy spitting noise every few minutes and blanks out for a second or so before the picture fades back. It’s not at all happy.

The rest of the day was spent buzzing around the countryside avoiding the approaching storm clouds, or sitting at home trying to set up the broadband connection on my Xbox. Had more luck with the first of those two jobs - dodging the rain. The Xbox, though, will remain decidedly disconnected until I work out a way to get my Ethernet connection from the study to the lounge without drilling through the walls. Hmmm.

Caught a train to London some time around three and stretched out in the wonderfully empty carriage. It ran fast and on time, too, which was a bonus. If I travelled at this time every day I’d be wondering what commuters have to complain about.

Arrived at LBC just before Gordon so chatted with Sam about this Sunday’s show, then with Gordon when he arrived about the Tablet PC competition we were running. It’s a fantastic prize. Certainly the best we’ve given away in the two and a bit years we’ve been fronting the show.

A guy called Peter won it in the end, having answered two questions and fought his way through the switchboard, which was flashing full for a whole 25 minutes. I’ve never seen so many calls come in all at once. Literally every line had a little red light flashing on top of it for the first 15 minutes, and then for the following 10 there was just one or two lines free at any time.

Some sterling answering and writing and sorting things out went on behind the glass while Gordon and I continued with the show and took photos of each other during the travel news.

All in all, a very fun evening to top off what has to be one of the most relaxing ‘working’ days I’ve had in months.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 7th, 2002 at 11:49 pm and is filed under Journal, Radio. 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.