Weirdly I had worked myself up into a frenzy by this morning, thinking my trip to Amsterdam yesterday was a waste of time and that my team, my company and I as a human being had poured loads of effort into trying to win a big prize that was not attainable. It’s not like me to be so gloomy or so ‘half empty’ at all.

I was in the office today, typing a note to my boss in the USA to ‘manage her expectations’ and say I thought we’d not won the project when my phone rang. It was yesterday’s client, happy as anything and telling me we had, in fact, been successful in our bid for this enormous contract. Unfortunately I can’t put this into context because of the commercial sensitivities surrounding both the project and its importance to us but needless to say it was a wonderful feeling and an amazing achievement because it was putting into action the project work that I have been involved in for the last year.

Yep, the project that has been responsible for my constant travelling and my lack of personal time has finally borne fruit for us. Hurrah.

So, I spent a happy hour on the phone to her instead and talked her through how we’d won it and what the next things are that we are going to try to achieve for the business. That gives me such a buzz.

When I arrived home, I got another really nice surprise, an email note from Jackie Moffat, the author I started communicating with last year when I read her book. It was only a ‘round robin’ but the context of it, its relatively short circulation list and its title made me realise that I had touched her life too. I agonised so much about whether to contact her and tell her how much I’d enjoyed reading her book in case she thought I was some sort of weirdo, so to find out in this way that she has obviously felt she’s had something back out of the email friendship that we share too has really put the icing on the cake of my day.

Now to break open the first of those bottles of Harrods fizz that were the spoils of my ‘Boss of the Year’ award……

Last year I was happily emulating the great Bill Brandt again and even longer ago, a mouse was occupying my thoughts