Real Business

Hit the office early this morning, fired up with creativity and ready for what should have been a day working predominantly on new designs.

Am all too aware that am still not 100 per cent (either mentally or physically) and, unfortunately, it's always creativity that suffers first.

As usual, one step forwards and two back.

My son is back for the week, training my terrifyingly new sales force.

Succumbed to temptation and allowed myself to get sucked into Junior Apprentice.

Completed interviews for sales admin job – even though the CVs keep flooding in by the hour.

Feel like something the cat would never have bothered dragging in.

The immediate focus of my week is – quelle surprise! – recruitment.

Second-in-Charge and I went on an "assertiveness course" in Cambridge last week, which was fascinating. Lots of useful content but will have to start practising being assertive. Sadly, I'm not going to change all my bad habits in one go.

My apprentice-style programme for sales and customer-service teams was dented in the first week by the resignation of one of my employees late Friday.

After indulging myself with a trip to see Mr Crowe cavort around as an early Robin Hood (an extremely enjoyable couple of hours for those who haven’t seen it yet) and catching up with emails, I finally managed to take five minutes to look at the new cabinet.

Week continues with training for my new sales and customer-service teams. It's incredibly rewarding to have a group which is actually motivated and open to learning.

Last week's office-swap heralds an entire new era.

For the first time I can remember, I really couldn’t be bothered to watch the election results last night and have done little more than glance at the hung parliament result this morning.

Wake at unearthly hour. Wish I could blame dog, neighbours or even avid excitement over election, but no – yet again the incompetence of my work force causes me to stagger from my bed, pulling hair out prior to actually brushing it.