So tonight is the Lost season finale - how will we cope next week? As Andrew returns tomorrow, it is recording for us to savour at our leisure.

My friend Leila has an intriguing theory about the hair conditioner in the 10K race goodie-bag. Her proposal is that conditioned hair will lie sleekly and silkily against the head, lessening wind resistance and thus giving the competitive athlete that vital edge of a few nanoseconds. It's a theory, and so far it beats the hell out of anything else I can come up with.

Have just finished the new Pratchett. Enjoyed mainly, liked the Wee Free Men but I thought the Bogles in the Underworld were pants. The little fellers should have had a more worthy opponent. Somehow, they just didn't seem frightening, it felt as though someone had suggested there ought to be a villain at that point in the narrative.

What can I say about work? We are very busy finishing off our presentation for Friday, and I at least am starting to feel nervous. Because of the video file, the size of the Powerpoint file is enormous, which causes problems in itself if we want to look at it on anything other than the computer it is being stored on. In my experience, large Powerpoint files seem to have a tendancy to just hanging and freezing - I am quite worried about this. Fingers, toes and everything else crossed. J, the "young man" who has joined us, is making valiant progress on his ever increasing task list. Unfortunately, he can't come to the presentation with us because he has a prior engagement with a football match. So we will prob take one of the Enforcement team to help and support.

Had a very grumpy meeting with my boss P this morning. On arrival, thought he looked awful and he cheerfully admitted he was coming down with some sort of lurgy. I hate this, I really do. I mean, why do some healthy people think it is OK and heroic to struggle in to work, and "bravely" struggle through, while they infect everyone else. They are usually the ones who say "Oh, I haven't taken any sick leave this year" while their colleagues are felled in their wake. In particular, there are lots of people in the world who have really compromised immune systems and just don't or can't bounce back easily. My immune system is shot these days - I picked up a cold after a conference in London at the start of the month and I am still struggling, and sound as though I am smoking forty Gitanes a day. And I'm not happy about it (in case you hadn't noticed!) There, the luxury of a blog. I can rant!! Apparently, P's wife had begged him to stay home (sensible woman, I like her already) but no, he was determined to prove his machismo...sigh.....

A very proud day. Andrew completed the 10K in around 56 minutes. Last night, the rain as we lay in bed was horrendous, we both imagined how miserable it would be if it stayed like that. However, by this morning the weather had brightened considerably. We hurtled down the M4 to Swansea, found the parking easily on the Rec, and got out of the car. There was an overpowering smell of damp grass - why is that such a powerful and wonderful smell? Andrew had fun nearly piercing his nipples several times trying to attach his race number and muttered a lot when tying his chip to his leg. We then strolled over, past groups of lean, shaven headed men smelling powerfully of Deep Heat. Andrew was by now looking more and more nervous. Finally, at 1pm the race started, with around three thousand competitors. It was a marvellous and inspiring sight to see them all running away in the sunshine towards the Mumbles. I waddled back to the car for a bit to read my new Terry Pratchett, which I am enjoying very much. Aye, crivens!

By about 1.45 wandered back over to the finish, and there he was, pinching my bum while I leaned over the barrier waiting for him! Pink, sweaty, very happy and tasting very salty. He had a carrier bag given to all finishers. When we investigated the contents, they included a race medal, a bottle of Strawberry Conditioner for hair (why no shampoo?), a pen, a lolly and a certificate. I am puzzled by the conditioner - perhaps the company believe that athletes have special hair needs? Obviously the pen is for signing autographs for dazzled fans and wives but again the lolly? Pure sugar, no obvious health benefits. I wonder.

Enough wondering - it is sufficient to say that I am incredibly proud of him and that he has gone even further in my estimation. After the race, we visited favourite aunt H - who was also proudly waiting and was able to provide a hot cup of tea and a shower for the weary athlete, thus earning his undying gratitude. After a very nice chat, we left and headed home. A much deserved roast beef and in honour of the occasion, and all his hard work, I made an apple and blueberry crumble. The weary athlete is now reposing in a hot bath, surrounded by Joan Collins style layers of fragrant bubbles, looking pink and contented. Any minute now, he will emerge to take his place in bed and read for a bit before a well-earned rest. Zzzzzzz.....

The photo I have posted shows him just by the start line doing his stretches about 10 minutes before the gun.

One of the fish has died. When I came home from work, I went out to the pond to check on them. It was floating on its side in the water, so I scooped it out. This is sad, although the other fish appear to be darting around at high speed, ate their food and seemed healthy. Not quite cold noses and waggy tails but that type of thing. I told Andrew - he was very sad.

The weather forecast for tonight is for storms - the first of the equinoctal gales. It will be good to be in the house, warm and cosy, tucked up on the sofa with my cross stitching. Today has been a busy day. Finance meeting went well this morning. Then got involved in a discussion with D, our Enforcement Manager, on preparing for Bonfire Night. The police and Fire service want us to take a robust line on removing rogue bonfires before they are lit, often from open spaces. We will not be popular doing this - usually this results in needing a police escort, getting stoned and other such fun things when you try to take away what is often perceived (wrongly, I believe) as "harmless fun". D had done a note to circulate to other departments asking for their co-operation - it will be interesting to see the response.

J, our new post-grad has got stuck in today. Has had induction, and fell on our GIS system with cries of glee. His little eyes lit up and off he went, tail wagging gleefully. It's so nice to see someone enjoy themselves at work. We worked on a list of agreed tasks which helped both of us to clarify what he's doing, and will also help him feel a sense of achievement as he ticks them off. Ja is arranging for him to have a hi-vis, door fob and all the other accoutrements and has been very efficient in doing an induction with him too. Let's hope he works out well and we are able to provide him with a good experience while he is with us.

Tomorrow, I am going to the Flytipping forum held at the University of G, some 20 miles away. If the weather is good, I might wear my lovely new shoes. Oooh, the shiver of excitement as I imagine their pink gorgeousness................

Ah Wednesday.... Heroine and role model from the Addams Family Values films with the incomparable Christina Ricci...

One of those strange days today. We've all been busy with our submission for the Cleanest City Awards - we are shortlisted finalists and go up to Northampton next week to present to the judges. Needless to say, I am nervous and excited. I also need help in pulling together the presentation, chasing down facts and figures and sorting out the judging packs, or "leave-behinds" as I learned they are called in Marketing Land.

After our colleagues (from the same department, mind you) were spectacularly sniffy and unhelpful this morning, we have gone to an agency we use, Randstadt - and they've delivered the goods. The goods in this case being a young post-grad who wants to get into environmental work, has lots of good experience, well qualified and with a good attitude (so far anyway). He joined us this afternoon for our meeting, coped well, was positive, didn't look too frightened and says he'll be back in the morning. I can't refer to him as A YOUNG MAN - that sounds ridicolously arch, yet he is in his twenties and he does seem just so young, and shiny and happy. Not just him, but other young persons we have kicking about the place. On his CV from the agency, it said one of his hobbies was Wakeboarding, and I had to go and find out what that was, which also made me feel about a hundred and three.

On a more cheerful note, received our monthly accident statistics and was reading them. Fortunately, all were relatively minor. One featured a member of the office staff who closed a filing cabinet drawer on her own hand and the other was so good I just sat and laughed out loud. The unfortunate victim sat down, but the chair wasn't there, so ended up on the floor. Duh!! I realise that Homer Simpson is not always a caricature. How on earth do we legislate for this? My favourite all time accident was one of our staff who got bitten by a squirrel.

Another busy day tomorrow. A financial meeting in the morning with our service area accountant, who I like. He is thorough, professional and unfailingly helpful. At the moment our trading account is adrift by just under fifty thousand pounds on an annual budget of around seven million, so I am not too worried, but there are some issues we will need to continue to manage quite robustly. It's important we don't allow the deficit to balloon too much otherwise we end up with a painful few months at the end of the financial year. In the afternoon, we have our monthly meeting with all the service area senior managers. These do have a tendancy to be a little bit dull at times,but tomorrow should be interesting as P will be lobbing a few casual hand grenades in I think as he has plans for shaking up the management structure. Am looking forward to it - it will be held at our Highways depot, I think. The meetings rotate around the three service area main depots, with as a result regular confusion and there are always at least two or three people who arrive late for every one because they went to the wrong venue.

We received an irate letter today from a resident who had had a fox die in her garden (cause unknown) while she was away on holiday and was very cross that when she had phoned the Council they had advised her to dig a hole and bury it..... I think she expected one of our Fox Removal Team Reynard Special Services (FORTRESS) to swoop in a bio warrior Humvee, wearing full body suits and deploying the special lead lined bio contaminant fox carrier....... on the other hand she could just exercise some adult responsibility and bury the damn thing. Her main gripe was that the fox smelled..... Hello? Yes, it would, it was dead, and they do anyway....But that's the Council's fault. Bit of a rant tonight, I'm afraid. Maybe my next one will be full of lovely butterflies and happy thoughts.

I leave you with the news that the fish flourish and appear to be swimming happily around their new home. It is very exciting. Also that I miss Andrew as he is away this week again and he also misses me, but is particularly sorry about missing the excitement of the fish.

Monday and lots to update.

Firstly, A won a prize for his raspberry tarts. It took two goes to make them, frantic phone calls to his elderly mother in Belfast for advice and the addition of some raspberry liqeur (framboise perhaps?) but they worked! Hooray!

Had to tear myself away from the house this morning and immediately on returning home went to talk to the fish. So far, none appear to have died, in fact they dart around with a surprising turn of speed. This evening they had their first feed - horribly smelly pellets from TetraPak or something like that. They look as though they are made from recycled orange juice cartons.

It has turned into a wild and stormy night. Rain and wind blow round the house and it is now getting dark depressingly early. I did some cross stitch. I am stitching my biggest project to date, a huge item that will hopefully be a Christmas gift. Although at the rate I am going it might not be this Christmas.

Had a meeting this morning with two colleagues from our fleet management office. We have an inhouse garage that repairs and maintains our fleet. They are currently undertaking a review to assess the best likely form in the future. They are not helped by the fact they are based in a listed tram shed, which is leaky, drafty and completely unfit for purpose in terms of modern equipment, working practices or anything very much really unless you were a 19th Century carter needing a new swingletree or something similar.

Also received an invitation in the post from the local Arts Trust who are hosting a conference next month on art and architecture in the public realm. An interesting idea, you might think and I would agree with you, especially as my job is intimately involved with the streetscape. However, the invitation itself was so arty that I struggled to find a programme and nowhere did it tell you any boringly practical details like how much the conference costs to attend, or how to book or if you could attend for a day rather than the whole thing which includes a fearsome amount of evening views/occasions, almost like those 1960s "happenings". The text was so impenetrable that I struggled for a while to identify the theme and what was happening. It was also printed entirely in the most post industrial lurid yellow and black, looking a bit like a 1980s fanzine. Ho hum. I expect the designer (a la Oscar Wilde) would be very pleased that at least I am talking about it, rather than consigning it solely to the recycling bin of history.

Have received a number of emails concerning difficulties in posting comments. You go to the comments section below each day's new post, usually where it says O Comments (now I know why!). Once there, click and follow instructions. Apparently this is problematic, although if an idiot like me can manage it, there should be hope for all the bright, intelligent well-adjusted people I am either friendly with or are related to.

Ah, Sunday, a day of rest. Although this Sunday started in a stormy fashion with both of us having tremendous wind in the night due to something in the pasta sauce last night. Tomato and roast garlic, very delicious, but boy did we make a noise....

This morning, we were both very excited as the day had come when we could visit our specialist aquatic garden centre to look at fish. We also bought many bags of matured horse poo for applying to the garden and lots of bulbs.

Called in at our big Marks & Spencer which is very close to the nursery. Bought the most fabulous pair of shoes. They are a kitten heeled court, with a pointy toe, in the most luscious colour, a kind of lilac-pink suede. I have to say that M & S do seem to be getting their act together - their stock is now looking quite interesting as well as all the basics they have always done. These shoes are truly scrumptious. I will try and post a picture of them later in the week. Other than going to a fresh sushi place, they do the best packaged sushi. Our favourite sushi place is on Piccadilly in London, fortunately close by the Maison du Chocolat, so you can make up for the healthy stuff with a deliciously indulgent truffle or two. Of course, Fortnums isn't very far away either, if you are really stuck. Fave uncle Warwick works nearby in the RA, so the Wolseley is his works canteen. Very starry.

Back to the fish. We have six small goldfish and four Shebunken, which my friend Leila has correctly pointed out sounds like an unpleasant foot disease. We allowed the bags to acclimatise to the pond temperature for about an hour, and then came the exciting moment. The bags tipped sideways and our fish swam out into their new home. It is a very big pond for them, so there is plenty of space for them to swim around and explore. We sat, watching, fascinated. Later, when it was time to eat, we brought our starters out to the pond to eat by the side so we could continue to watch them.

We planted hundreds of bulbs. There are narcissi, baby tulips, lots of crocus, oxalis and a huge variety of alliums which we both love. Every colour and height imaginable. Next spring the garden will look glorious. Finished off with a topdressing of blood fish and bone before retiring for a gin. More bulbs will be planted when we have put in some of the bigger plants. The weather stayed dry although it spent most of the day looking as though it wanted to start raining.

Now feel relaxed and happy before the onslaught of the next week. Andrew leaves tomorrow morning for a very early flight.

Thursdays - nearly the end of the week. Our monthly meeting with the unions this morning. We discussed the Christmas refuse collection arrangements and the forthcoming building works to give us a new street cleansing depot. Not too much whinging - sometimes it can be quite a negative environment. At the moment, lots of money is being poured into the waste management services, with heaps of capital investment - improving services, creating jobs, savingthe planet. It is then quite dispiriting when some arsy refuse driver sits there whining that they have to queue for the vehicle wash while the building work is going on.....

Spent the afternoon ploughing through my to do list. We have a system called Comino which we use to manage our correspondence - it's very good. Some of the letters (to Cllrs, MPs etc... ) come to me for approval before they go out. It is a constant battle to get the correspondence completed within the official deadline. Usually the work is done, but people do not always sign off the electronic form to indicate this, leaving the complaint overdue. As a manager, I can view other people's Inboxes, which means I can then chase those who are hanging on to things unnecessarily. Had a chat with D, our Enforcement Manager, about his Cominos and related issues. Other departments often try to push work our way, as we deal with it rather than make excuses not to. Some of this is good. We took all fly-tipping including on private land from April this year, and dog fouling enforcement will soon be coming our way. A case popped up today which indicated that Trading Standards might be trying to get us to take on Nuisance Vehicles (on street, unofficial car sales and repairs) but I think for the moment we are safe. In the fullness of time we could take this, but I would want to raid their budget for the accompanying resources. Funnily enough, that's often where other departments shuffle their feet and look at the floor. Ah, that budget... Um, well, we have other plans for it.

My boss then phoned me later in the afternoon - he had a plan so cunning you could stick a tail on it and call it a weasel. We are currently trying to create a secondment to look at the issue of smoking related litter in the run up to the ban next year - hurrah!! I was planning to use our litter fine income to fund this. However, P, who is a man of truly wonderful intelligence, had an even better idea involving the sideways move of C, trusted colleague into a post covering this and more as part of his overall management restructure. It will undoubtedly mean all kinds of headaches with HR, but hey, we can live with that. P has one of those interesting brains that you just sometimes think "Wow". He's not afraid of thinking big (and I do mean very big, in terms of projects, capital etc) and I like the way he goes for the important stuff without being bogged down in trivia. He has a mind like a knife when it comes to going after the essentials - quite ruthless, but also with a huge streak of mischief. I have no doubt that he got up to no good in school but was probably too smart to be caught. He also has an impressive tactical brain in the snakepit of corporate politics - very instructive to watch. He is a very blunt Northerner who supports Manchester United. However, one of my favourite ex-colleagues also does so I count that as being acceptable ( I am allergic to football generally).

C is now thinking over the offer, hopefully over a lubricating glass or two. Tomorrow, I have a meeting to discuss pedlars (another issue being palmed off on to us) and a meeting with some Tourism people who want to publicise the fact that we are in the final for Britain's cleanest city. We are also looking at using a pressure washer to improve our litter bin cleaning - the ones in the city centre get quite disgustingly dirty very quickly, with sauces from burgers, vomit, fag ash, spilt Coke and all kinds of other items forming a kind of sticky, dusty coating. Also tomorrow the rep is bringing some samples for our new staff uniform. All our operatives wear ballistic trousers but we want an improved top half, so there will be better "branded" polo and sweat shirts, as well as fleeces. There is a choice of styles for hi-vis jackets, and the supervisors are getting a uniform too, with Oxford style shirts and smart trousers. With so many street workers wearing hi-vis these days, it's important to distinguish our staff from cleaners in private malls, building workers, etc... We have a constant battle to find really good wet weather gear. If they keep you dry on the outside, they are often really sweaty on the inside. Or they breathe, but they leak. But life would be very dull if we could solve all our problems..

Another busy day, but interesting too. Spent the morning at a leisure centre talking about Community Planning. The leisure centre had the most beautiful and stunning view over the waterfront, but internally had obviously been designed by an unemployed psychologist, bored of making mazes for lab rats. The occasional very small and obscure signs were hopelessly confusing, and even worse they had those little Braille bits underneath. Nothing wrong with Braille at all, but I couldn't help wondering how on earth a blind or partially sighted person was meant to even find the signs, let alone read the damn things.

Returned to our depot via Tesco, where I picked up a sandwich, a newspaper and some cold remedy things, as I am a bit snuffly today. While staring at the Echinacea, I bumped into one of my favourite colleagues, A, who looks after a lot of our performance management stuff, bemusedly holding a pot of raspberry jam. He explained wearily that his allotment society were asking all the men allotmenteers to cook and he'd been volunteered for raspberry tarts. Now I've sampled the luscious produce from his allotment regularly (yes, home grown really does taste better) but he confessed that baking was not his thing, and he hadn't done it in years, so tonight was the experiment.

At work, tried to catch up with the avalanche of emails. Some of our public convenience attendants were over for a training course on Breakaway skills, so I had a chat with them while they were on their lunch break. They were explaining that they've recently had a spate of confused men wandering into the ladies toilet in the bus station. This is beccause they are foreign gentlemen who cannot read English signs so the attendants were asking if we can have really big, leave no doubt pictograms on the door to avoid doubt and embarrassment for all concerned. Seems reasonable, so will try to investigate. We discussed the perennial problem of drug use in the toilets as well.

Went back down to Bigg HQ for meeting with boss and another lovely colleague, C regarding a personnel matter. We went in at half past three but as he had nobody else booked in after us, we stayed till 6 - eek! It was lovely though, as we were able to discuss lots of things and bounced around a few ideas - I really like doing this. He suggested a visit to another European city where apparently they have cracked the problem of cleaning behind parked cars.... I will write more on this as I find out.

Drove home, happily, ordered a Chinese and thought happy thoughts about my husband. He phoned after I got in, was just going for a run. His first 10K race is in a few weeks time. He also announced he has ordered a couple more tonnes of soil for the garden to arrive on Saturday - very exciting. We both like dribbling over plant porn, much more exciting than the real thing, I think. This probably means I am irredeemably middle-aged. Other indicators - last winter, I bought vests from Marks and Spencer for the first time, and what's worse, wore them enthusiastically. Also, I don't like very loud music or noisy pubs. Before it ended, I had also reached the point of watching Top of the Pops and bemoaning the pathetic standard of music, unlike the real songs of my youth..... cue nostalgia for the Buzzcocks etc...

Well, my first ever blog entry. I started this because I wanted to submit a post on my cousin's blog, and to do that, I had to log on so thought hey why not?
There aren't any other blogs that I'm aware of that deal with my line of work in the UK, but I'd love to hear of any others , or from similar around the world. My blog will be telling it as it is for my job, which is as an Operational Manager for Street Cleaning, Public Toilets and Waste Enforcement in a large UK city. I won't name which one, although I have no doubt astute readers will eventually pick up clues. That of course assumes there will be readers.

So my day today. Away from my normal lair, and off to the bigg bad world of corporate HQ for our regular Tuesday get together with my boss. He and his secretary (who is lovely) have recently moved there from our depot. They hate it, as it's formal, stuffy and no fun. It was his first day backfrom his leave and he looked relaxed and brown, although it prob won't last.... the authority has budget issues (particularly with Social Services) so watch all us front line staff take the hit cos they can't control their budget. Bitter, moi? After that, got together with one of the other managers, as we are looking at setting up a joint project for smoking bins (smoking indoors will be banned next year, thank goodness, but that will mean a lot more litter for us to clear). Then back to the lair. I like my office. Dealt with the usual tidal wave of email, talked to colleagues, and spent the afternoon putting together a bunch of self congratulatory nonsense for the update of the corporate plan on how we met our objectives for last year. who cares? Most members of the public want to see their streets swept today, not last year. Finished up by putting on my out of office autoreply, washing my coffee mug and tidying up my office. I hate starting the day in a messy office. Tomorrow morning I am going to a meeting in a leisure centre to talk about community planning...... hmmmm. Should be interesting. Apparently I am a key stakeholder. Sounds like something out of Buffy...