The sound of deadlines whooshing by overhead

So I've bookmarked some cottages that looked like good options for the project and made enquiries about availability early next year.

I've been researching the best software and hardware within my credit card budget.

I've borrowed bits of a dismantled bass (Tokai Jazz bass) from Pete to rebuild so that Fraser can practise (and possibly so I can borrow to avoid using sequenced bass).

I've ordered a fuzz box kit so Fraser and I can build a replacement for my long dead and gone Coloursound Tonebender (Fraser is 12 and learning soldering at school. He can't be any worse than me).

In fact everything was steadily creeping along when I could fit it in when, tonight, Ruth dropped a bombshell.

Today she was told that - on the 28th February 2005 - her school will be visited by OFSTED.

And...? I hear you cry. Wassat?

Well, OFSTED is the revenge meted out on all teachers for the misery they put us through when we were at school.

Most of us suffer the anxiety of tests only until we leave school. Some of us continue the indignity through college or university. For teachers in the UK nowadays, it never ends. Which basically means that Ruth needs all the support she can get in the weeks leading up to THE 28TH FEBRUARY 2005! And the last thing she needs is a husband with a midlife crisis swanning off for a fortnight and leaving her with 3 kids and a teenager student, 2 dogs who will walk for miles, and the jaws of hell belching in her face.

Which also means that either I bugger off pronto before the pressure starts to mount ( a month's time) or postpone the project until March.

Postponing the project till March gives me more time to prepare (or procrastinate!), but it also means that I'm perilously close to not being 50 (my birthday is in May). Not much point sustaining the 50th Anniversary Edition Project when you're 51.

On the other hand, going off in January means PANIC!

PS: If it helps to understand the context of this post - I love Ruth.