Yesterday I was feeling very perky and my perkiness has, if anything, grown in stature today. Yeah, yeah, I'm demob happy because I'm going on holiday but I'm also feeling as though I'm achieving stuff at work at the moment for the first time in ages.

For someone so voluble, I was actually stuck for words today when I saw a colleague who has just come back from maternity leave. She'd been back at work a week, when her little baby daughter caught meningitis. The family have had an extremely anxious time but thankfully it's now over and her little girl is back at home. She still has to undergo a hearing test to determine whether the hearing difficulties she's been having during the illness are going to be permanent or temporary but the agony over whether she would live or die has happily gone now. Ainge stayed in the hospital with her daughter but her husband travelled back and forth. She recounted to me that on one night, a doctor phoned her husband in the middle of the night and asked him to return saying 'we think she's slipped through our fingers'. Can you imagine what that must feel like? How on earth would you keep it together to drive to the hospital? I don't know I'm sure. BUT the great news is she's well on the mend and out of danger so that's really great.

Another colleague has spent an hour in my office in a very tearful condition because she's drowning in work - I calmed her down and worked out a plan of action for her and she went off to speak to her own boss about it and got the situation resolved. It baffles me why people feel as though they are failing if they ask for help. In these times of employee rights, we have a legal obligation to resolve such problems, as well as a moral one. Anyway, hopefully when I next see her, she won't look quite so grey or red eyed!

I'm supposed to be at a swanky do in the Hilton in Park Lane tonight but am playing hookey so that's pretty cool too. It's funny how brands alter in your perception as you get older. When I was a young girl, we'd go past the Hilton in Park Lane and think it was the glitziest place in the world. When I was little I wanted nothing more than to stay there. These days it just seems like a chore. And I don't think that's entirely due to the downgrading of the quality of the Hilton chain that has undoubtedly happened in recent years.

Tomorrow I will be where my heart is happiest. In Cornwall. Our little house is getting a huge boost this week, with the new sofas delivered today and a new carpet coming tomorrow. For the first time it will be really comfortable to sit and relax there. I so hope the weather remains good for the next few days. Do you think my good fortune will hold out and things will remain peachy? Or will I get the pip?

Oh yeah baby, lensbaby, get me right inside that juicy succulent flesh!!!

Two years ago today I wrote the inside of my heart out and last year I said 'au revoir' to my wonderful friend Hilary.