Super-organised Me

With my mum in hospital, I've had to be very organised this week - and, all things considered, I've done not too badly.
The daily routine has been adhered to with military efficiency:

6am Deal with personal stuff - letters, emails, domestic chores.
7am Shower and get ready for work - Sod's law, I've had builders in this week to rip out my kitchen and bathroom, and, if they're here, they're here at 8am.
8am - Down to work; our October deadline was on Friday and there is a lot to write about this month.
4:30pm - Home briefly to see and feed the cat and check mail (maybe manage tea with Caroline if time permits) before heading out to hospital. My mum's in the Royal, and I've been picking my dad up in Priestfield on the way, and the trip from Drylaw can take anything from 30 - 45 minutes. It doesn't seem to matter which route you take, road works are everywhere!
6:30pm - Visiting time. My mum's looking and sounding a lot better, but in a long talk with her doctor last Monday we were told that she will be kept in for at least 7 - 10 days. My mother handled that news far better than I thought she might, and my dad seems a a lot more settled in his own mind now that he knows what is going on. Visiting ends at 8pm.
8:30pm - Drop dad off at home and pick up any shopping I need before going home, then a light supper with Caroline if I didn't have time earlier (I've no kitchen so cooking is slightly problematic - Chez Pick's menu is currently rather limited and the healthy diet is no more!) before checking emails and going to bed, knackered, usually before 11pm.

Because of this schedule I missed a couple of evening meetings this week - Inverleith Neighbourhood Partnership and Drylaw Telford Community Council - but other than that I managed to get everything else done that I had to.
Monday saw first of the presentations to the Fairer Scotland Funding Panel in Forth. Six projects - all offering very different services - and the Panel will have to decide how best to allocate inadequate funds to support these. It will get harder - there are another ten projects to see on Thursday, the the really difficult bit begins when we start talking money ....
Got the last of the P1 pictures this week and also met a really nice local photographer who is staging an exhibition at North Edinburgh Arts Centre - some really nice images from Morocco, well worth a visit.
It was an unusually pleasant week for weather too, so on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning I finally managed to get my grass cut - due to all the rain we've had over the summer it was almost knee-high so it was a relief to finish cross this off the 'to do' list. I also had to go and pick tiles - this proved less of a trial than I thought it would and it was remarkably painless; they even had them in stock so I was able to take them away, so another job done.
Following phone calls from Forth branch members, I also submitted a letter to Labour Party HQ in Glasgow to express my own concerns over the recent selection process. There are questions to be answered about how this was conducted, and unless these answers are forthcoming our candidate does not have a legitimate mandate. However inconvenient it may be I think the selection meeting should be re-run - with the Labour Party's honesty and integrity under scrutiny like never before I believe it's essential that we are seen to do things right and get the campaign off to an untainted start. The letter went off on Thursday and I'll be interested to hear the Party's views.
Meanwhile, with everything else going on in my own wee world, there were lots of things happening in the wider world too. Gordon Brown's speech to Conference was a good one, although he is not one of the great natural speakers - Neil Kinnock, for all his faults, was an inspirational orator and one of the best I ever heard.
We also saw the American financial meltdown, with the resultant tremors felt all over the world. Here, we've seen another bank, Bradford & Bingley, nationalised - whoever would have dreamed that we'd ever have heard that word again in modern day politics? There was the Presidential hopefuls' 'head to head' - because of the parlous state of the US economy this eagerly-anticipated debate got nothing like the coverage you would have expected, and from what I've seen and read it was a bit flat, the pundits' vedicts being a rather disappointing draw. And there was the death of Paul Newman - one of the last of a generation of genuine movie 'greats' - died yesterday. Yes, lots happening out there, but with so much happening on my own domestic front there just isn't the time to digest it all.
Today, more clearing out of Drylaw Towers to allow the builders to come in and do their worst, lightened (perhaps) by a trip to Easter Road this afternoon to watch Hibs humble the mighty 'Gers! We live in hope ...
Then it's back out to hospital this evening.
One benefit of getting up ridiculously early is seeing some glorious dawns - the above picture is of an impressive sunrise over Drylaw this morning.
That's all for now then, folks - I've got a house to clear! See you next week.