A good meeting with the current leader of the Ipswich Partnership helped to lift the mood somewhat yesterday. He seems a lot more on the ball than the previous head and wants to do lots to help promote Park & Ride. Obviously we shall see how it goes but any help with pulling in the punters is fine by me. For my part I merely have to look again at the concept and prospect of finding some sort of in town left luggage facility and produce a revised all in one idiots guide to using P&R type leaflet (which I was planning to do anyway). Easy life!

I was also fortified by a nice beef and egg on granary roll from Alberts for lunch which gave me the will to get through the afternoon and finish off the first draft New Routes booklet. Now all I need is a bit of help filling in a few blanks and we are probably ready to go to press. Except of course for the fact that Louise from personnel, who has been working on the project with us, is now going off for a six month secondment at St. Edmundsbury Borough Council and the person who will be taking her place on the team is on holiday until next Wednesday, which is also the day I am presenting it to the rest of the group. Stonkingly bad timing if you ask me.

That lead in to a nice relaxed evening and a pretty good sleep. Today however...

Got up fine (eventually after the alarm had gone off half a dozen times and Tawny had taken to attacking our feet) and got to work fine (even managed to clock in at the same time as yesterday despite leaving later). Logged in fine and started reading the emails and tinkering with graphics etc. Phoned Joan to make sure she was up in time for her dentist's appointment. Then from behind came "hello Simon, have you got a minute?"

It was Claire from IT. Richard's nerves had hit him again and it was big brother to the rescue. So he has now gone home (luckily he had a lift in from Mum again today and she was still in the vicinity as he had had trouble earlier in actually getting out of the car it seems). I really don't need to get involved with his hassles at the moment. I have enough of my own to be worrying about. Still, I will do what I can as he really does need to get back in to the swing of working and most of this job is really ideal for him. I know it took him a while to get in to routine when he started his last job, and has had recurring problems since, but there really is only so much I can do. Trouble is, I don't like leaving Ma & Pa with all the hard work of sorting him out, soft bugger that I am.

Anyway, the rest of the team have finally made some decisions on the tender front so I might just get some timetables today...

Joan's trip to the dentist sounds almost as yucky as mine is going to be. She is having a crown put in for a tooth that has shuffled off this mortal coil and today was all the preliminary work. I think she was expecting impressions only but ended up getting drilling and removal and a temporary fitting put in as well. She also made an appointment for me to have a chat about everything on Monday so that should at least put my mind to rest one way or the other.