24 hours

Work developed an exciting side for just over 24 hours then disintegrated into nothingness, but I enjoyed the buzz. Points were scored for working till 7 on Tuesday to get up to speed on the requirement, and more points for being able to get into the London office for a client meeting planned for 2pm which didn't happen until about 6, was inconclusive and eventually let me off the hook just after 7 on Wednesday, having eaten into the time I should have been at the London Ladies. The overall feeling was one of relief since the second plan was to have stuff ready for first thing this morning.

I made an idiot of myself managing to 'lose' my handbag and convince myself that I must have left it in the supermarket basket yesterday when I'd about-turned to be able to return an urgent call from work. I *did* search *everywhere*, and still couldn't find it. Off to the supermarket instead of the station to ask if I'd left it there yesterday. Contents being far too much folding stuff, all my credit cards, mobile broadband thing, address book and assorted other so-what. They hadn't seen it. Rather than get on the train with a pocketful of cash from the stash at home and my mobile phone (which had been in my pocket)to try reporting the loss to the police etc, I decided to look 'once more' at home. Eventually, it was discovered on top of the cooker, behind the big print I'm planning to have framed to give to my son. For once, I had left myself acres of time before I was expected anywhere which is just as well since it takes almost two hours for me to get anywhere in London and I did manage to get to the station in time to get to the office 15 minutes before the planned meeting, Which didn't happen for another 4 1/2 hours.

Joy was in the office and came over to suggest we get together to catch up, but she'd gone by the time I was clear, and I as already late for the LLM in any case. Not sure if it's even possible to resurrect our social connection (haven't spent any time with her since just before Pam's funeral in 2002, seeing her there doesn't count) but I'll pencil it in as another option.

The LLM was relaxing and fun as usual, Shani was in the pink and had brought her own throne so she could look down on us lesser mortals. Rebecca hade made a cake for Dale's birthday, and I threw a strop when Mr J crossed the threshold, refusing to talk to him until he'd uncrossed it. Principle, my dears! Either it IS or is NOT 'Ladies only'. If one chap can get permission to pop in for five minutes, then why not any chap? It was made more amusing, but changed nothing of my strop that the said chap is a good friend of mine and I was delighted to see him. We had a lovely long chat after I asked his girl to advise him I was happy to talk to him outside but wouldn't do so 'inside'.

I was going to get the bus from the stop conveniently right outside the wine bar, but it had been taken prisoner and made to wear a hoodie. I couldn't be bothered to find out where the understudy was so I walked to St Pauls with Dale and took the tube instead which won me an extra few minutes of talk time with Dale, and serendipitously (is that a word?) meant that I was in the carriage Stella got on at TCR - amazement! I haven't seen her for ages and we had the briefest of brief chats before I had to get off at the next stop but I'm very glad I had the chance to bump into her.

I think I'm suffering Filofax withdrawal, replacing my ancient PDA doesn't hold much attraction since, as with all of these wonderful pieces of tiny technology, it requires a support network of the proper transformer to charge it and a charging pod or leads to up/download whatever you've collected on it. This tends to erase any headlined 'small is beautiful' features when it comes to going away since you have to take a collection of plugs and leads with you to feed electricity to the PDA, mobile phone/s, bluetooth earpiece, notebook laptop, camera, and any other cute little electronic gadget billed as being portable and life-enhancing. It doesn't matter how small the gadget itself is, the peripherals are clunky and often bigger than the gadget.

Increasingly, old-fashioned paper seems a better option. My latest lovely gift from Mark is a smart leather address book, the kind with gold-edged paper, titled and divided 'Blondes, Brunettes, Redheads' (he demanded a section of his own). In my best make a feast of things tradition, I've decided I now need to get another Rotring pen as the most perfect spidery writing implement, or find my fine italic fountain pen and use the blackest of permanent Quink to write in it. Such things are the gold threads in life's tapestry. Till then, I'll use pencil, easier for people like Rachel and Craig who seem to move every year.