Shattered

Plans to come home from band practise and carry on with study stuff totally unrealistic. Can't stay awake a minute more. Exhausted. Feel a hundred years old. Bed. Please.

But here's yesterday's super blog. A bit of dull reading anyone?

BIGGEST BLOG EVER!

Well, here goes:

Up at seven o'clock. Hideously early as went to bed at 3am. Then couldn't sleep. Usual routine:

sink wash (showers take too long), locate a clean top and yesterday's jeans, put kettle on. Start packed lunch production line. Rummage through fridge and cupboards. Choose things that strike an equilibrium between healthy and boring. Make tea. Wake kids. Flap about looking for bags, lunch boxes, drink bottles, P.E. kits, flute and music books, permission slips that need signing etc.. Should organise stuff the night before but never do.

Eat breakfast - snatch mouthfuls between flapping. New cereal on offer, Activa. Tastes like cardboard. Look for my bag, books, paperwork, keys, purse and phone. Only two umbrellas. Give them to kids who have further to walk to school. Pissing it down. Peg it down the hill at 7.55am to get lift to Falmouth. Get wet.

Chat in car with co-student about Professional Writing course. Long journey from Penzance to Tremough campus. Still raining. Traffic slow. Fortunately, countryside an antidote to the road. Arrive at gestapo car park – no, we do not have our pass yet – at 8.50am.

First lecture, 9.00am, uninspiring. Badly presented historical background to English as a language. Random scrawl on the whiteboard. Mumbley, incoherent explanation. Touch on punctuation at the end - far more useful. But run out of time. Split into tutorial groups to critique essays:

'Higher Education should only be for the rich'. Frustrating as run out of time. Again. No opportunity to read or receive feedback. Last week's homework returned. Not a single comment or indication it had been marked at all. Break for lunch.

Join the others in refectory 11.45am. Sandwich filling soggy already. Excuse self to visit careers library. Access fund-finder programme on their computer. Pants computer skills make typing in personal details and info laborious. Press search. Receive 32 potential matches for bodies and organisations to approach for money. Press print. Rewarded with a pile of paper.

Second lecture, in the Media Suite at 1.00pm. I.T. How to use Adobe photoshop to format and crop digital images. Need to post picture to go with personal biog. for bloc. On-line webzine. Also for personal blogger site, Under duress. Tricky. Am a serious techno-phobe, but good to be hands on. Photo vaguely flattering. Me with funky plaits and cool glasses frames. Surfboard tucked under arm. Taken with number one son who's gurning. Crop him out. Final image not bad.

Call into library. Reserve required text Hero of a thousand faces. Drive back to Penzance.

Jump out top end of town 3.28pm. Go to Acorn theatre. Ask for Mark Thomas contact details. Want to interview him for bloc when he's down to do show next month. Will be behind the bar that night anyway. Chat to Acorn director about trials and tribulations of study. Cancel a shift can't make now because of guest speaker.

Go to Barcleays bank to enquire about Career Development Loan. £3120 fees owed now. Gulp.

There in person but end up talking to someone down the phone. More forms to wade through. Decisions to make. Better to pay as much as possible up front? Or borrow the lot?

Trawl various shops for stationary. Purchase highlighter pens, flexi ring-binders and pre-divided Pukka notepad. Spot today's Daily Telegraph in WHSmith. Features article on blogging, so buy it. Comes with free Horrible History book on the Saxons. Bonus. Buy three umbrellas on way home.

Ignore bad luck superstition and test out brollies. One faulty with broken metal strut. Cycle back to shop for refund. Forget to take purse. Won't give me cash as paid for by card. Fetch purse. Need the exercise though. Sat on arse all day.

5.25pm peel potatoes and chop veg. Whilst on the boil, squeeze in quick game of chess with youngest son, Billy. I win. Check bus timetable for buses to Hayle. Make phone call to arrange lift for eldest son, Eddie. From Hayle, to Carn Brea swimming pool. Currently doing a surf life guard qualification. Wants to work the beaches next season. Fold dry clothes hanging on racks. Put away. Clean bins – kitchen and wheelie. Finish cooking. Scoff dinner at speed as modelling tonight. Make sure little kids ready for scouts as will be picked up shortly.

Running late. Dash to Arts Club. Take car to collect kids after. Quick strip. Strike a pose, 7.04pm. Try and stay awake. No heating. Not very warm. Chat in the break about shortage of models. Regret can't take on too much at mo. Recommend son as potential candidate as has recently turned eighteen. Resume the position. Enforced stillness leads to racing thoughts.

Session ends at 9.00pm. Drive to Newlyn to pick up kids and deliver them home. Drive to Hayle to pick up surfer son. Stop for petrol at Tescos. Air machine faulty. Stop at Jet garage to inflate tyres.

Sit in car sending text messages whilst waiting. Wonder why Eddie not got his license yet. Remember that I can't afford lessons. Or insurance. Drive home.

Help youngest daughter, Lucy, with science homework. Explain what enzymes are. Sign her diary. Hang wet laundry on recently emptied racks. Row with other daughter, Rosie. Dishes abandoned as she stomps off upstairs. Furious. End up doing dishes. Downstairs a total tip so tidy up a bit.

10.45pm, brave the computer. Write email to Mark Thomas's agent. Write it again, as somehow deleted at point of sending. Write email to Angela Stoner. Ask if she'd be willing to submit article for bloc. Write email to course co-ordinator re this morning's lecture. Perceived as spam. Bounces back. Write email to postmaster to gain clearance. Send email again. Check own emails. Log on to student site. Check notice board. Log onto blogger. Write short posting for regular blog. 12.30am, start writing this time capsule blog for National Blogging Day.

Collapse into bed 1.55am. Completely knackered. Fridge motor grumbling noticeably loud. Can't sleep. Brain in hyper drive. Can't stop thoughts spinning. Should try reading a book but keep thinking will fall asleep. Any minute now. Sleep.