Ah Saturday... slept in. The sleep of the just. The sleep of a man who knows he met his deadlines. The sleep of a man who is totally broke till payday and can't go spend any money so sleep is a good option. :)

Kids are going away tomorrow to see their mum for half term week, so we have to pack all their stuff. The kids are not keen, because their mum lives in a remote fishing village and while they are brought up in a rural town, it is still a town and I think being in villages makes them kinda antsy.

Kind of ambivalent about them going away. I love that Mia and I will get to spend some time together for love, fighting or whatever the hell we want to do without being observed. But at the same time I love my kids and being without them is like holding my breath. I can't do it for very long. But it's only about six days. I can do that. I used to go without them for weeks at a time when they lived with their mother.

Anyway. Time to go help them find whatever they are missing. Mia's going out tonight with friends so we can spent a bit of kiddy and daddy time together.

Hattie off sick again today and I have to stay home again. Which means I missed the loast lesson with my first years before their shoots next week.

I took another phone call with the production supervisor to check if they thought they were ready, and they told me yes, so I believe them.

Did all my work for the CDD (web update for the site I did for them www.cdd.ac.uk) and did LOADS of more pages to the screenplay. I might just finish this puppy over the weekend.

Called everyone this morning to let them know I'm at home and can be reached on my home number. I had the production co-ordinator for the group I was supposed to be teaching today call me and talked through their production problems with her. They seem pretty much ready to go, but I said I'll get in touch with her either tomorrow or Monday for a final update on their readiness.

No tech support phone calls, so everything is either running smoothly or the whole system is down and they can't make any calls. :)

Hattie seems fine, although she was really ill this morning. I've not seen her looking so pasty and grey for a long time. But I kept her dosed up with paracetamol and kept her wrapped up and immobile so she can rest and recuperate. She wants to go in tomorrow for the last day of term, but I'm not sure she's really going to be up to it. Maybe she could go in for the morning so I can nip in to work and fix up the computers which I left with all their guts dangling out when I left yesterday. We'll see in the morning.

Mia friend Tonya is coming over tonight so they can watch "Lost". I'll catch up on the freelance work I've been unable to get done in the last few weeks and so when I go in tomorrow I'm all up to date. Now up to page 65 on the screenplay, so it hasn't been a completely wasted day. I think the script is going to come up about 10 or 15 pages light, so I'm going to have to go back and pad a little. Well when I say pad, I mean add scenes and fill out ones I've already done to balance the thing, and make it more solid. It's all good stuff but it's been done at a bit of a run. It'll be great when it's finished.

Teaching was a joy today. I had that really cool group again, the ones who are just SO up for it and attentive and just brilliant. I even said "oh thank god it's you guys" when I walked in through the door.

Showed them the Rodriguez stuff from yesterday and they dug it.

Again they astonished me with their level of readiness. The most complex problem we faced was what were they going to bring for lunch, which we debated at some length. They even handed me a folder with lots of lists and photos in it. They are ready to shoot this thing now, never mind in a weeks time.

Had to leave early because Hattie my daughter had a parents evening. Got a call earlier from her Grandma saying she had to come home from school because she passed out. She passed out again at her grandmas. After that she still wanted us to do the parents evening so I came home.

Getting home I discovered my son in his room playing computer games. I thought he'd be at Grandmas too, so that was a shock. Then just as I was setting out for the pickup, Mia calls from where she works in Trowbridge and says all the trains have either been cancelled, late or stop at Westbury, a few miles from home. I decide to go get Hattie, then pick Mia up, drop her off at home and then go to the parents evening with Hat.

Get Hattie, drive like a loon over to Trowbridge, only to discover Mia's not at the station. Call her cell, and she's at the station alright, just not this one. She's in Westbury. AAAAAAAHHHHHHH. It's now getting a little late, and I'm really not sure how to get to Westbury from Trowbridge.

Sigh.

Look up on the map. It's not far, so drive and look at road signs, we get there in about 10 minutes. Drive home real fast. We've missed our first appointment at school, and are in danger of missing the second... we drop Mia at home and arrive at school right bang on the time for our appointment. Wow. A good job all around.

Hattie's really ill though, and passing out cannot be a good thing. She's ill anyway and the pneumonia jab she had yesterday has knocked her system for a loop. She'll need to be at home tomorrow, which means I probably will have to be too. Sigh. I'm teaching. Well, we'll get around it somehow.

Tuesday morning. Finally got up on time and got into work at a decent hour. Did a lesson with the first years again, showed them the 10 minute film school from El Mariachi, one of my favourite bits of inspirational filmmaking material. Seemed like they get it. Plus for fun I showed them "Bedhead" Robert Rodriguez' first short film.

Then we got into where they are up to with their movie. Shocked to discover they still haven't cast it yet. We're shooting next week, I pointed out, whether you have someone to shoot or not, so better get moving. But what if we can't find anyone? they said. Well you are not going to be shooting anything then are you. Reminded them that the point of the exercise was not to have me sort it all out for them but for to them to make it happen. A flurry of phone calls later they started to get something together.

Spent the afternoon getting my new music setup together, more RAM for my laptop and a music interface box for it. When I get some money I'll buy myself one of those fab new USB music keyboards so I can play software synths on the computer.

Oh yeah and PLUS I got some email from a friend of mine. Julian Kershaw is an orchestrator, who has worked on some really cool movies. He's said he'll be happy to help me out arranging my score. I went to school with him. But this was about 40 years ago when we first met, as we met at infants or junior school. Wow, huh? Hooked up with him a couple of years ago on Friends Reunited and we got on like a housefire.

We got the team, we got the talent. Plus I'm up to page 65 on the script so things are going pretty well.

Monday morning feeling. Woke up late again, and was freaking out a little bit on the way in in the car because I couldn't remember if I'd got a lesson to teach at 9.30am. I was pretty sure it was Tuesday the first one this week, but I forgot to note it in my diary so I had no clue.

But the journey in was great because while I was at Matt's he gave me some new music to listen to: a band called "Oojami" and their album "Urban Dervish" kind of dance music with a Turkish flavour; "Afro Celt Sound System" which I've heard before and absolutely love; and something called "Transbalkanica" which is really addictive. Also heard the new Kate Bush album, which sounds really good, and a disc of Finnish Kantele music which is a sort of Finnish zither, as far as I can tell.

Arriving at school it turned out I was free today, so cool. Settled down for another day of ordering stuff people have been asking me for and solving little technical issues as they arrive in the tech and tv departments.

Later we ate nice salmon mousse patties with new potatoes and broccoli and cauliflower florets, one of our regular and favourite dinners. Mia being a Scandiavian person can't go more than a few days without cravin' the fish. And salmon is the favourite fish.

Came home late because I got in late, and went to bed late-ish because we wanted to watch something. American Dad wins again.

Woke up late again, but then didn't get to bed till gone 5am. Having too much fun, and frankly I think I was guzzling coffee too much too.

Decided about 1pm that I was going to clean the house from top to bottom before Mia got home tonight. I hoovered, I cleaned, I tidied, I sorted out and made good. I was at it for about 5 hours, but it looked amazing. The chrome glittered, the carpets were fluff free, the vinyl seats on the bar stools in the kitchen were even clean, which as the kids make their food take a long journey from the counter to their mouths is a rarity these days. :)

The kids were in bed (all ready for school tomorrow) at about 8pm and Mia arrived back around 9pm. She brought me some fags and chocolate, which was great because I'd been craving choc all day but not had the cash to buy some. We went to bed kind of ok-ish early, and watched new episodes of "Medium" and "Lost" we'd downloaded, then fell asleep again to American Dad. Drifted asleep laughing again.