I thought March was supposed be the mad month?

A couple of weeks ago, I discovered that my boy Neko (the cat), likes dry semolina. I discovered this as I was making shortbread and he came to help. I was so busy defending the butter that I was taken quite by surprise when he aimed for the semolina. 

In my bid to teach the tribe to use the toilet, the litter tray has successfully migrated across the bathroom floor and next to the toilet. I've also used a low cardboard box full of books to raise it by a couple of inches. Rio and Neko are totally unfazed by the project, although I don't think any of those books will be touched by human hand ever again.

Callie, on the other hand, isn't quite so sure about the idea.

Last week I went to a DIY show at the NEC in Birmingham. It was a very good show, with a much better atmosphere than most of the trade shows have had for a couple years. Even when some of the demonstrations on people's stands didn't go to plan - glue guns not gluing, jam-free nailers jamming, straight lines going wonky - it was all done with good humour and only added to the event.

And it was my favourite kind of show where I spent most of it taking pictures. Not like the camera phone effort here, but proper ones with my big camera. We had a stand there too which was great for resting feet and back now and again, but was a bit naked so I didn't take a picture of it. The only problem was trying to write stuff and details at the same time.

Insanely I decided to go up both days by train - mostly as an experiment, but also because it's cheaper. The first day was a disaster, (I'm actually not going to rant, I promise) with the Southeastern superslug hanging about outside St Pancras for half an hour due to points failure, so that I missed my connecting train from Euston. Fortunately, my boss also missed the train because of tube problems, so we both ended up on the same later train. 

On the return, the Virgin train was half an hour late - because someone had run a van into a railway bridge support. But, I've had this theory for a while now, that there are some frustrated Formula 1 drivers out there driving trains - we have at least one on one of my regular trains home. And one such was clearly driving my train from Birmingham that day, because we got to Euston something like just five minutes late. The second day was just perfect.

There was one scary moment at Birmingham International - there were several thousand people on the platform meant that those of us on the yellow line couldn't step back - when a cargo train came steaming through at a squillion miles an hour just two feet from the end of my nose. *gulp!*

The trouble with the spring trade shows is that they often collide with our press week, and this one was no different. So with being out of the office seeing people, the show, sales still selling over and beyond the last possible moment and such things, we ended up with almost no time to put the issue together. We made it a bit more than no time by working through the weekend - albeit from my own sofa with Star Trek on in the background - but we are just about done now and I'm knackered - looking forward to a large glass of wine tomorrow and a lie-in Saturday.

Additional problems meant that last Friday I had no Mac at work because super duper new power cable died. On Monday is decided to work again, but Friday I may have been in a bit of a strop. Possibly.

It has been a good week at work for goodies - I guess the other mags realised that we were going hell-for-leather - Monday was home-made chocolate brownies from one lady, Tuesday was a pack of Fox's Rounds from another, and today has been cream cakes from a visitor. *burp*

With all these deep and meaningful issues and topics on our website, the one story that has actually prompted debate, discussion, comment and opinion is the one about tradesmen getting propositioned. Go figure.

On Tuesday I decided that improving my handwriting is a must as I couldn't read any of the notes I'd taken at the trade show. Good job I have an excellent memory for power tools and cute bloke's faces.

Neko had a poorly tummy over the weekend, which meant added cleaning up type fun. I knew that the semolina was never going to end well.

I tried to get rid of some of my old books. They're only worth something like 50p each with zero demand behind them, so auctioning them is pointless, and boot-fairing them is too much hard work for little to no return. So I decided to donate to charity. It's really, really difficult to give to charity - mostly because whoever you speak to doesn't know the answer to absolutely any question you care to ask. 

'Are you taking books?' 

'I don't know, you'll have to ask Fred.' 

'Can I speak to Fred?'

'I don't know where he is.'

'Well, when is the best time to catch him?'

'I don't know, he doesn't come in very often.'

'Can I leave my number for him to call me?'

'I don't know if he'll get a message.'

'But he will if you give it to him.'

'I don't know if I'll see him.'

And so on...