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that she needs something printing off for a school governor meeting and can I (quickly) do it for her. This is fine until I realize it means that she'll be going to a meeting straight after to school at 3:150pm. Though never said this is clearly a euphemism meaning 'Can you collect the children from school at 3:00pm'. Sigh...

2:45pm - Time for a quick coffee and a catch up on email and a couple of phone calls. School beckons.

4:10pm - The last hour has been hell. All three kids have been involved in a three-way fight for the TV remote and someone has knocked blackcurrant squash all over the kitchen floor. It's no good, this home working just isn't working so I decide to write the rest off the business day apart from periodically checking and posting messages and emails to make it look like that all is well at the office.

8:15pm - All the kids are in bed but I want to chill-out for a bit before playing catch-up. Before long it's gone 9:30pm and I'm thinking about whether it's worth starting again at such an hour but I do what I can to make it look as if my day at home really was in the interest of the company.

10:50pm - Time for another coffee. Not a wise idea at this hour but I'm beginning to flag. I decide to quickly go on one of my forums and subsequently waste another 40 minutes. I'll just do another half an hour and I'll go to bed I think...

12:00am - Midnight and all of a sudden I'm wide awake - I knew I shouldn't have had that coffee. I decide to turn the TV on to wind down and before long I'm watching re-runs of 70s sitcoms and America's most wanted.

As I stare into the middle distance I reflect on the day. I've been working on and off for 15 hours but probably could say that only five or six resembled anything like being effective. Woe betide me if I decide to give up the day job to become a writer!

Learn more about this author, Jeremy Orbell.
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