Not the late, great - the great LATE

Work has been incredibly pressured this week. A presentation at a rehab - which I hadn't had time to prepare - for an all-male group, staff and clients whose problem has been alcohol, explains the combative energy... Very tough to engage in a 'learning experience'. (Come back to work, Nige!) A session with the vaccines manager at Bristol Prison - very useful. A lot of work to incorporate her suggestions... I think about going in early Wednesday, but decide I need to catch up more. Reiki, writing, a walk, and the housework I didn't manage to do at the weekend - laundry, hoovering, cooking, cleaning the loo.

Surely only a bulimic would understand my definition of a clean toilet - it would be a pleasure to puke in it.

At the office - which is manic with calls and emails, impossible to do any sustained work on the pathway - I check with Simon what my deadline is for the strategy meeting on Friday. Friday morning (my day off), so Thursday evening. He mentions a client he's concerned about, and I pass on the relevant info to Russ. Then it's college - which is fun; I'm late but arrive as the class are watching a clip from Educating Rita. This is what I like! Home, deal with my emails, bed.

By Thursday, the pace is up again. I wake from dreams about work - bad sign, stress levels getting to me... I have a meeting at 11am, so I have to be there by 10.45. (She's late, and I've knocked back an interview with 3TR in case she arrives. Botheration. Oh well). No time for lunch - or even a loo stop - before charging up to the BRI to see the locum consultant. As he's offered me some time, it would be very churlish to be late... He's running late (of course), but when I do see him, he's extremely helpful. I'm so relieved - and delighted he's gone to such trouble. It's very useful to have a consultant's eye cast over the pathway - one from a different area, too. Now I'm running hopelessly late... 3TR ring back just as I'm about to get clear of a lorry holding-up the traffic in a sidestreet. I pull over and do the interview. Or panicked gabble. Urgently need the loo.

When I set off again, I'm in a rush to reach a loo as soon as possible, and unsettled from being 'caught on the hop' with 3TR. I assume this chap with two full buckets of water on his handlebars will be turning into Brunswick Square. I give him a wide berth, but have to swerve over again to avoid the panda car pulling up to the junction - narrowly missing said panda, and nearly knocking cyclist off his bike. The policewoman is incensed - understandably, it was a stupid and very nearly a horrendously dangerous mistake. I know I shouldn't be on the road in this state; overstressed and overwrought - but what's the alternative? You've got to take me home because I'm dangerous until I've had some rest. I don't think so - that's not how the world works. 70% of us operate like this all the time - it's just that most aren't conscious of it.

People don't discriminate against adrenalin junkies - without them, the world would grind to a halt.

I'm trying to stuff my lunch down my throat when Sue arrives to do the training track recording... By 4.30pm, I finally get down to the pathway adaptation. Finish at 8.30pm. Can't resist the compulsion to have a fag. Very late for Pen. 9.40pm instead of 7pm. The work world can be as bloody chaotic as the drug world - it irritates me that we talk about chaotic clients. I find employment makes me chaotic just to fit everything in... Lovely to catch up with Pen and John. Drink more than I should.

Up again in the morning to charge over to the strategy meeting at Blackberry Hill Hospital - but well worth it (I was even, miraculously, on time - considering I didn't get in the bath til 8.20am). I hoped to get away early... but of course, more tweaks after the meeting, recirculating the tweaked draft. I slide in an acupuncture session. To combat the smoking yesterday. The liver point pin falls out. Too much wine last night!
I get round to preparing for Monday's training. Only four days late. It's interesting - my work schedules get so tight that if I'm off sick, I need to work extra to catch up. The same used to happen at MGML, and IBD, so it's something about my style of working.

Lyn cancels meeting up this afternoon/eve, so I check out the cinema, knowing I need something to de-stress (even though I shouldn't really take time out for a film). I've seen the only two movies I fancy at the Showcase. I might need time out, but I can't afford the extravagance of seeing a film I've already paid to see!

I drop in to Annabelle's on the way home, having remembered I'm supposed to bring someone on Saturday night. She's setting up for the Fair Trade Directory Launch... so I shoot down to check it out, intending to get changed and walk back down for the start.

As my mother is fond of saying, 'The way to hell is paved with good intentions.'

By the time I've checked that my broadband red bill isn't really a red bill as I did pay it last week, and set up a direct debit for it while heating some tea and answering my e-mails, I haven't got time to walk down. This is why I find timetabling in exercise such a challenge. It's a time thing. There just aren't the hours in the day.

It's a great evening, lots of synchronicities and support. I write an email update for mailing out on my return. And a blog entry. Toddle off to bed about 2am. I was up at 7am, but it's now nearly 10am, and I've done nothing I intended to - except caught up with my blog! So, today, I'm running very late already...