We were away last week and the hotel WiFi didn’t agree with the laptops and I REALLY didn’t fancy doing the blog on my phone. No.

I do feel a bit tired today (and yesterday, etc.) and I reckon I’ve done sufficient hours after our September holidays to negate the break in terms of hours taken.

The few days last week had the same effect. I rather expect it’s my own fault for burning the candle at both ends – and possibly the middle as well.

Weekend before last was a railway excursion (03.30 rise for 06.00 from Westbury) and got to bed 01.30 Sunday morning. Followed that with our local fireworks Sunday evening. 12 hour day including prep time and break down afterwards and severe backache into the bargain. All in all not much recovery time THAT weekend…

Started last week with a bundle of deadlines to sort and the start of a conversation with my accounting software supplier regarding online filing at Companies House. The short version was that Companies House reckoned you could (it’s a slightly unusual set of accounts compared with more “normal” SMEs so we’ve historically always had to file in paper) and the software house said that Companies House said they didn’t. Hmmm. EVENTUALLY the software people have come back and said that – maybe – you could but their software can’t. Not a whole bundle of use but at least an admittance that our friends in Companies House are not telling porkies.

Follow that with a whole morning crouched over one of the sets of charity accounts that have been making my life a misery of late. Then best part of the following day. That had to go to the support team as well in the end. Bizarre page breaks – we had a two line note on a page by itself as a for instance – but having received an explanation of what was done to correct matters I STILL don’t understand how they’ve corrected it. My best guess is errors in the HTML (it’s that or I’m useless so I know which I’d prefer) and that’s well out of my comfort zone.

Then Thursday and Friday off (unfortunately the emails don’t take a break but there you are). Lorraine has an interest in crafting so we go to Birmingham (West Midlands UK, not Alabama) for a loooooong weekend. She does her crafting and I don’t. I had a 06.00 start on the Saturday as well. The good thing is that I’ve contributed to the local economy by sampling their beers. It’s a rotten job but someone has to do it!

Return Sunday afternoon after a few cold days at home and it’s like we’ve let the sodding windows open, the house is so cold. Follow that with -3C overnight (nothing to most people but I am from the UK and it’s normally pretty temperate) and I was seriously regretting working from home on Monday.

Most of the rest of the week has been great for appointments (and positive for new clients) but I – and my PA – have forgotten to leave any time to actually DO the work. AGAIN! Sigh.

Tuesday got a bit complicated in that I worked on pro bono clients for around 8.5 hours in the day. The morning one was the unpleasant one in that it involves some unpleasantness against a member of staff by a volunteer (won’t go into it any further in open correspondence). Unfortunately the volunteer doesn’t see it that way despite an investigation fully apportioning blame to them. It’s unpleasant all round and is seriously NOT what I signed up to do in my volunteering. Can’t back off though or the wrong person wins.

The afternoon was a lot nicer. Acting as a “Dragon” in the local Young Enterprise’s “Dragons Den” event. Second year I’ve done it. Six teams this year which is good and it’s heartening to see the teams learn how to propose their ideas. We backed three of them I’m pleased to say.

Oh well, nose back to the grindstone but (maybe) a light snooze later. Fingers crossed…