Monday

Didn't manage to avoid work entirely over the weekend - when I looked at my to do list for the week ahead I decided that I needed to get some things done in advance so spent an hour on chapter 6 to get up a head of steam, completed the ESRC review to get that out of the way and tidied up my funding application on the basis of one set of helpful comments from someone else who was working over the weekend...

Monday morning, early start, amazing sunrise. Useful conversations with colleagues before a morning of meetings with five of my academic advisees. Four very cheerful first year students, one slightly anxious second year. There's quite a big difference between the demands of first and second year modules and this can come as a shock to students who have A levels in relevant subjects and coast through the first year. In between appointments, managed to put together slides for next Monday's lecture on literature reviews for MSc students.

Pleased to recieve an invitation to a reception at the House of Lords the week after next - a Tomorrow's Company event with speakers on the topic of  "Investing in stewardship". One of the speakers is a journalist whose pieces about Cadbury I have been reading for the book, it will be interesting to meet her.

A meeting with my co-author to catch up and then a meeting about revising the departmental research web page. Tasks associated with chasing and updating research colleagues about various issues take nearly an hour - all stuff an administrator could do... Home to do some more concentrated work.

Husband greets me with news that Beanie walked across his laptop keyboard and now the screen has turned 90 degrees and some of the keys don't work properly. I pass him the netbook and tell him to Google on "screen turned 90 degrees". One of the first hits says "My kitten walked across the keyboard and now my screen has turned 90 degrees." It is very easy to rectify. The keys didn't work properly because she'd obviously pressed Num Lock as well.

It is now 4pm and I feel as if I have achieved very little although I'm rather tired. Will put feet up after clearing email and organising papers for tomorrow's day out - two meetings and lunch at LSE and an audit committee event at ICAEW where I may find potential interviewees for my next project. Good to get out and about. Must remember to take new business cards - all had to be replaced after university rebranding.