I am sitting at a rented desk space in a big Victorian building. Downstairs, Doozer is in the creche. This is a very clever arrangement. Or it would be, if I actually could think of any work I could do. Not that I don’t have work to do, but in my current state of wobbliness, sitting here wondering of Doozer is ok, or whether he is still pulling the sad and abandoned wailing face I saw as the door swung shut, I cannot actually concentrate on any of the pieces of work I have to do.

So I am writing a blog post instead, and drinking coffee. Lots of coffee. In fact, now I think of it, the coffee may not be helping with the concentration issue. My current list of ‘Things I Would Rather Be Doing Than Doing Work’ goes, in order of attractiveness:
a) Run downstairs, snatch up Doozer, bundle him into my arms and run away home, far from the strangers and the weird open office.
2) write this blog post.
c) get another coffee. Right, got one. I should remove this list item really. No, fuck it, I can always have another-nother coffee.
d) Read everything I’ve ever written on my blog and take screengrabs of any particularly good sentences for using on the back of my business cards.
v) See whether I can run straight up the wall if I run at it fast enough. I think I probably can.
6) Thinking about what haircut I should get and where I should get it. Maybe I should get a perm. Are perms still a thing? I’ve never had a perm. Maybe I should get one, if they’re still a thing. I’ve drunk a lot of coffee.

Daycare is a necessary thing. And a good thing. I’m not just telling myself this to feel better about the look of panic on his face this morning as I passed him over to a soft and smiling stranger and started backing out of the door. But soon I will be working most days on something new. And, though I have been cramming work into evenings and shoehorning it into nap times for the last year, this is not a sustainable way of doing things. If nothing else, it would be nice to use evenings for other things. Reading. That is a thing I used to do. Going out and eating dinner. Another very pleasant thing. Knitting. Something I have never successfully conquered, but could do, if I had evenings. See also: Quiltmaking. I have never actually attempted a quilt, but I feel that if I did, having evenings in which to quilt would be something that would be useful. And besides: Doozer is a happy, but sometimes shy little person (very much like his parents, apart from the ‘little’ bit. We are quite the opposite of little), and being in a creche should, I think, help him feel more secure with other people and about mingling with other babies, etc. Yes.

My back is a bit stiff. This is due to an exercise class I went to yesterday, and nothing to worry about. Shouldn’t have mentioned it, really, but my fingers had finished typing the sentence before I thought through whether it was a sentence that needed to be typed or not. Goodness, don’t your fingers work fast when they are given the right fuel. I should go and get another coffee. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

38 minutes to go until I’m supposed to pick him up. Maybe I should go down a bit early? No, no, I shouldn’t, we have paid for three hours, and three hours we will use. Three hours and unlimited use of the coffee-making kettle. I bet they thought that deal would work out in their favour. They were wrong.

What can I tell you? In Brighton, it is raining. That is not merely conjecture, for those who might be new to this blog – it is evidence-based fact, and no mistake. I am in Brighton, looking out of the window, and it is raining. There. Anna Pickard: liveblogging the important stuff like weather, since 2001. Did I start this blog in 2001? Crumbs. It seems so long ago. I wonder how much coffee I’ve drunk since then? Quite a lot. But not quite enough. I’m going to go and get a cup of coffee.

Good lord, but coffee is amazing stuff. Did you know that in 1908, they managed to propel a cow into space just by …

NOTE: TWO DAYS LATER

And at this point, the post ended. Not because I died of a caffeine-related heart condition – though goodness knows that would have been fair – but because, leaving the office space to head into the kitchen and get another coffee (yes yes) I heard a crying coming from downstairs. And you know when it is your small person crying, even though I had always imagined that all screaming babies sounded the same. So I tiptoed down the stairs to check (no idea why, it is an extremely large and well-insulated building, there is no reason why tiptoeing would make any difference, and yet, I did) and though I peeped in the door as surreptitiously as I could, I was spotted, and then there was no disappearing again. With tiny arms wrapped like climbing vines around my neck, I gathered my stuff, and ran home as fast as I could, there to cuddle and kiss the top of his head and mentally swear (erroneously) that I would never let him out of my sight again.

Next time it will be better. This time, it was not fun. I couldn’t waste this post, though. It was the only thing I only managed to get done in the time there