What is life and why are my trousers too tight? The week has flown by. On Monday I sent out fifteen missives and already five people have asked for follow up information. In the tweedledum tweedledee world that is commerce, we are offering a handful of free workshops to the big rollers, and charging the small fry:-o On Wednesday we went off to a women's business day. The desultory bunch of speakers banged on about the obstacles women face. We were informed, witheringly, that the men who dominate business advisory services are bank managers refashioned as consultants. As half the women there were professionals refashioned as consultants, this was a bit of an own goal. Especially as at least two of them were more articulate, intelligent and successful than the silly buggers up on stage;-) The final straw was when the MC closed the session five minutes early with the classic line: "I know you're all dying to get up and fidget." Too often, we are our own worst enemies.

I'm always suspicious of words that have overtones of wrongdoing. Coaching, is one of these. A grubby amalgam of cottaging and poaching. After a weekend incarcerated at the Holiday Inn, Bloomsbury, learning the finer points of this dark art, I was relieved to emerge on Sunday afternoon and reclaim my life. This morning, however, I woke with a sense of elation. And met every single target I had set myself over that 48 hour period. I am revitalised; inspired. It's damned good ju-ju;-) The one image that defines the weekend, however, is not taken from that strange mix of touchy-feely grande dames and tough young HR execs seeking higher powers. That honour falls to Annie Lennox, sorceress-like in her black tailcoat, magicking shivers up and down our spines as dusk fell on Tower Bridge and Traitor's Gate on Saturday night. There must be an angel, she sang, and for a few minutes, there was. I was seeking respite at the Prince's Trust Birthday Concert. Sitting in the courtyard of the Bloody Tower drinking champagne from plastic cups - me, my girls, and their father - our first non-scoff outing since divorce eight years ago. For all of us, happy in our own thoughts, it was, I'd like to think, life affirming:-)

Last night at a book launch, an elegant woman introduced herself: "Did you know we share a plumber?" It transpires that the same man has serviced both our pipes for over twenty years. Indeed, my weekly cleaning team is supplied by his Brazilian wife. The leylines of industry are curious in their patterning. Earlier I'd commented on a strangely garbed guest in a leather winter coat and knitted red hat. When I saw her from the front, it turned out to be an old friend and colleague. Spotting my expression she said, "I know. The colours don't match." She was sporting the Canary Wharf of all diamond rings: "Good expenses, Darling." The novel being celebrated was self published by a highy literate acquaintance: "It's so hard to get publishers to notice you. This saves time and it's a professional product." True. And the book is well written and interesting. But I spotted four improving cuts on the first page alone. That's what gets lost in the mix. As they say, there's no such thing as a free lunch:-o Indeed, my own free lunch cost me dear yesterday. My date had emailed the wrong restaurant name. I circled Covent Garden ninety million times before finding him. As I arrived, steaming and heaving like a mare in foal, he smiled apologetically and ordered me a large sherry. How predictable I must be! But then, we too go back over twenty years. And now, I'm wading through The Seven Basic Plots for one of our workshop exercises. Well, bits of it. Not a single word is misplaced, extraneous or repetitious. There's good editing for you.

Today I had the misfortune to be on radio discussing the impending divorce of Mr and Mrs McCartney. On listening back to the codswallop that passes for public debate these days, I realised I had referred to our only living legend as a silly old fool on about five different occasions. Correction, given the length of the interview, five consecutive occasions. I am not perturbed by the words so much as their repetition. We are all fools at some time. Age is no bar to that. It was ist of me to presume otherwise. Indeed, I cannot think of a headier combination than age and foolishness. This is just as well as I then went on to lunch with a friend and her octagenarian ma who sends food flying in all directions when diverted by conversation. Her glasses hang on a chain around her neck. Consequently, she is often to be found looking out at the world through bits of spinach and prawn shell. To complete the hat trick I returned home via the Royal Free Hospital. There, I fed a smoothie to my favourite nonagenarian. Her swallow has come back. But one swallow does not make a summer when you've had a stroke:-( Have I done any work? Well, yes, a bit. And a huge pile of ironing first thing. Be assured this slow-down is not a sign of my going to the dogs. That happened yesterday. At Walthamstow. A posse of us went greyhound racing. With only six runners on each card, there's a good chance of being quids in. But as we wandered out in the neon-bright dark, every one of us was out of pocket:-o

We should all be at a party right now, but I've called a nightie day. We don't actually own nighties. It's shorthand for sanctioned domestic indolence. Sometimes we have nightie weekends, only moving from the sofa to order pizzas. That said, I have been to Homebase to buy a hose. And collected our furnace hardened mugs from the art shop. And typed up a lot of notes for Tuesday's meeting:-o Yesterday we visited friends who were recently gonged. I'm not one for medals. Give me a prefix any day. It frees you to stamp on the bastards who hand them out, instead of kowtowing. Gongs shoud be saved for useful folk, like lollipop people and voluntary workers. Anyway, we were lunching in leafy Essex with assorted progeny when a waitress with blinding false eyelashes, had a seizure. West Ham were two up in the FA cup. Our hostess promptly insisted we returned home to watch. This was unfortunate as I'm a Liverpool fan. And I cheered them on. And they won: grabbing victory from the jaws of defeat in a mirroring of last year's European championship:-) Erring on the side of caution, we left for home as soon as they'd done their bit at the podium. Now those really are medals worth having...

I have been networking. With people I don't know. Half of them in industries I never knew existed. An alphabetti spaghetti of acronyms. I doubt I'll get work, but a few party invitations would be nice:-o All this connecting makes me feel industrious. But all it really does is set me up for DVT at my Mac. This has not been a week distinguished by industry. The website boys had a hissyfit. They liked their internet version of Blue Peter's Tracy Island. We hit an impasse. By yesterday we'd parted company. Back to the drawing board. Where can I find a designer who'll work for four chocolate buttons, a bag of Wotsits and a pair of socks? Meanwhile, those around me continue to unravel. A lot of pets are kicking the bucket. One dog and one cat this week, already. I haven't had a pet since Sexpot. My hamster. When he died, my mother lovingly fashioned him a casket lined with scented Kleenex. And popped him into the communal incinerator. For a month, she became vegetarian. As a mark of respect. Which I thought foolish. It's not as if we eat hamster, though I'm told guinea pig is a worthwhile delicacy:-o

After the high comes the low. The website is a mess. The designer showed us a fabulous prototype. Which he then scrapped. "I thought you didn't like it." Why? It's the first glitch. And a big one. I must get my cohort, who claims to be an assertiveness trainer, to assert herself. Apart from that, a good day. My eldest godson has just got MoD security clearance. This means he can earn £1000 a day on government contracts. We celebrated with our second brunch in eight days. And I bought flowers. He's still watching his weight. After a full English breakfast with two sugared lattes, he ordered and demolished a steak baguette and a Coke. I think this stage of dieting is called a plateau:-o

Totally knackered after a day in heels handing out flyers at a business start up exhibition:-o The adrenaline kept us going to such a degree, I didn't know I was crippled till I got home and kicked off my shoes. Am hoping the cameras in the ExCel carpark didn't catch me creeping round level 1B sticking leaflets under windscreen wipers. £3 an hour to park in the middle of nowhere. On a Saturday. It's a joke. The business centre is like Houston Airport at 4am. Soulless. Even by the standards of the wilderness that is docklands. I don't know a single Londoner who's bought there. Except for rental income. But every grockle and passing foreigner is fooled into thinking this outpost has cachet. The architecture of mammon is its saving grace, but only when serviced by young men and women in business suits. At weekends there is nothing to hold the imagination. The exhibition punters scurried round like ants abandoned on a moonscape.

Looking out over London from the top floor bar at the St Georges Hotel, three of us were engaged in a discussion about slovenliness. I am prone, when I have a few days without social engagements, to stay unwashed and let the natural oils back into my skin. It must affect the pheremones too, as I clock the biggest hit rate when I'm soiled. And wearing a red Gap fleece. True. I can't go into Waitrose for fear of being accosted. The only time I got asked out by a genuine millionaire, I was grubby and Gapped:-o One of tonight's party admitted she doesn't shower every day even when being social. "I suppose I'm a slut," she said, "but I never break into a sweat even during aerobics, so I just top and tail." Is that where the phrase originates? We were musing thus after the third member of the group admitted taking ninety minutes to get ready every morning because of rituals around bathing. A woman with very strong ideals, she is abstemious to an extreme. She kept studying my tequila sunrise with concern. The only way I could drink was by turning my attention to the picture window. It left me quite heady, gazing across the glorious spire of All Souls, Langham Place, to the elegant curve in the road where Broadcasting House and The Langham posture imperiously at each other.

A ring on the bell. It's a harassed man with a beautiful bag that he thrusts at me. Inside is a huge, but huuuuge, box of Rococo chocolates. They are, of course, from my online sleuth in Brighton. I find his number and call. "You did a brilliant job and could have charged much more," he said. "I wanted to give something back." What's the line about gift horses?;-)

Up at 5.30. Back on the madness wheel. How does it end? Telewest are putting in a business line. We've another bite on free workshops. Later today we hopefully get our website. I've put together a rather impressive sixteen page rewrite for the designers. That's the pay-off. My eldest, above, begins exam fortnight this morning. I have a friend coming for lunch. She's on a diet. "I just want leaves, no dressing." She used to be such fun:-( That said, I'm trying to get my boobs back ahead of my belly. I hate middle age. Take my enormous arse. When I walked, it once looked like two helium balloons in the last throes of making love. Now it's a giant pancake with no filling. The excess has relocated to my midriff. Gross. On Sunday night I met up with a boy I first encountered three years ago. As soon as I saw him, I remembered why I've taken avoiding action ever since. Lovely to look at, but when he talks his tongue sort of sticks behind his teeth. My mate, H, tells me speech impediments, and/or the physical signs of one, are fashionable. Why? Before leaving for exam hell, my eldest marked out some potential males for me in Soulmates. One was an ex-punk. "What does that mean?" I asked, "Piercing scars?" She was upbeat. "Give him a ring, Mum. He says he has a snoggable mouth." Taken aback, I said nothing. Well, actually, I said, "Leave it on my desk." But I can't help feeling our relationship is a little skewed:-o