31 July 1997
My dear folks,
It’s been a rainy old sort of a day, quite welcome after two stifling ones. The first started out around 0500 on Tuesday when I awoke without prompting after my return from Canada – not with any enthusiasm I might add - & made an early departure for work to catch up on the changes. There are half a dozen operational notes entered in the log each day & it’s a full time job to stay up with them. My jet lag caught up with me by lunchtime when I took 40 winks on the boss’s couch. Another 40 late afternoon just saw me through the shift. I felt as though I were wading through a thick soup all day.
I had another early start on Wednesday when things were going a little better until the bombs went off in Jerusalem. Very horrible for them & very frantic for us. We started a rolling news programme at 1100 that didn’t finish until 1600. By that time both the desk editor & I were desperate for a pee. We’d neither of us managed to get away for a moment & were run ragged. I collapsed on the floor of the reporters’ room for 30 mins with my raincoat wrapped around my head. My team is accustomed to my little naps & assured several anxious souls who rushed in to report a body that this was quite usual – so they informed me afterwards.
There was a letter from the BBC in my pigeon hole concerning my board for a job with OnLine. Unfortunately, it said, they couldn’t tell me whether I would be appointed until the “autumn” because they didn’t yet know what their budget was going to be. There are presumably scores of other souls waiting in the same limbo. Mr Birt, our DG, & his mates, I may add, have just had mega pay rises (unlike their staff), presumably for managing the BBC better! Unbef..king believable!!!! I come to understand why employees join unions & get to hate the establishment.
Today I was off. Utter bliss! Most of the morning went on overdue phone calls, filing & correspondence. I took the worst of my moth-eaten suits to the charity shop over the road & the best of them to the dry cleaner to kill off any remaining moth bugs. It had just the tiniest repairable hole in it. Then I did a serious raid on Mr Sainsbury because the fridge was looking like an Arctic waste. I climbed nervously on the scale to assess the damage from the extended party I’ve been having in Portugal & Canada - & instantly put myself back on the wagon & diet. Hoo boy, but one can do a lot of damage to one’s weight programme in three weeks. Not that I regret an instant. I had a ball from start to finish. Especially the finish. I got VIPeed on the way home, upgraded to Business Class & met at the door of the plane by a charming concierge who accompanied me through the terminal. I dropped her a note to thank her. First & last time I’m likely to get that treatment! Was it Shakespeare who asked what’s in a name?
Mr Mavis must be pleased to have me back. Stef said he’d been going on to the patio & wailing after her family left my flat, so she’d taken him downstairs during the day for the remainder of my absence. I say he must be pleased only because he’s not wailing any more. He totally ignored me for the first day – other than demanding his supper, & today he condescended to sleep on my lap. Other than that, he’s minding his own business & apparently keen that I should do the same.
Blessings
T
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