TV star in the making

Tomorrow I am going to make my television debut at approximately 4.30pm on Canterbury Live on CTV.

Oh yeah, I'm awesome.

I'm also a nervous wreck who is not planning on getting very much sleep tonight. Instead I'm going to try to decide which is worse, making a complete dick of myself and never being invited back, or not making a complete dick of myself and leaving open the chance I might have to go through all of this again.

My stomach is in knots at the moment. I downloaded today's episode to reassure myself that although it's television, local TV won't be nearly as bad as national TV. After all, it's got that relaxed Canterbury vibe going.

That didn't work. My adrenalin decided that it may as well start making itself useful as soon as the first guest appeared. I understand the logic. It's like going out and doing some jogging before heading off to a marathon.

It doesn't matter that none of the guests died, or that no one looked particularly worried - apart from the moment when a picture frame crashed down behind the presenter. My nervous system (or extremely nervous system) has decided that the worst possible thing I could ever do is get in front of a camera.

Oh, and did I mention it's live television?

Yep. That's right. No dress rehearsal, no second chances, no time delay even. Oh God. What if I accidentally swear? What if I'm the reason that CTV gets its license revoked? There I'll be, chatting away thinking I'm doing fine, and instead everyone's wild hand movements won't be because I'm wonderful and they're impressed - it'll be BECAUSE I'M SWEARING ON LIVE TV BEFORE THE WATERSHED!

How long now? Nineteen hours and six minutes to go. Not that I'm counting or anything.

Breathe Katherine, breathe. Just think - this time tomorrow it will all be behind you no matter what happens.

That, or you'll be dead.

HAPIness with HAPIfork

In order to make my first day back at work less grim, I had the forethought to order a nice gift to welcome me back to the office. As an added benefit this morning I was so caught up with unhappiness that my holiday was over, that I forgot completely and therefore it was like a surprise gift.

A surprise gift that had been thoughtfully pre-opened by customs to make sure there weren't any nasties hiding in it.

I unwrapped and slit open, and pulled out, and slit, pulled, opened, untwisted, pulled, and I had a HAPIfork in my hot little hand.

For those of you who don't know, a HAPIfork is a wonderful invention that electrocutes you when you eat too fast. Think of me as one of Pavlov's dogs, and electrocution as a bell, and I'm salivating already!

Here is a picture...

I picked green because... nature?

I'm so looking forward to lunch tomorrow. I couldn't use it today until I took it home and loaded up stuff on my computer and charged up my fork, but tomorrow...

Bite. Ouch. Bite. OUCH. Bite. OUCH!!!

Oh the fun will be endless.

I want my hour back. #DaylightSavings

My holiday comes to a screeching halt today. I've been living a blissful life for the past two weeks. Doing nothing except the stuff that I felt like doing, and only then when I wanted to.

But tonight I'm going to go to bed in holiday-land, and wake up tomorrow in the real world. I'm not looking forward to the transition.

This is all terrible news to me. I've been trying to adjust myself, but honestly I'm on holiday so I'm not trying anything very hard. But yesterday I got some bad news. Daylight savings.

You mean I lose a full hour - on the last day of my holiday?

It may make a difference to some people. Maybe someone out there gets some sort of joy out of having an extra hour of daylight at the end of the day, rather than at the beginning. But not me. I appreciate an hour of sunlight before I get to work as much as I like an hour after. Maybe more. My body may get up inconveniently in the middle of the night, but my brain is pretty much non-functional until I put a few rays of sun on it. A back-to-front vampire student.

Now I'm trying to pretend that I'm starting to feel sleepy at a time that last week would've been five-thirty. If we were normal people that would be a time we'd start to consider eating tea. As it is we do that closer to three o'clock because we're old before our time, but still. You want me to go to sleep in half an hour? Good luck with that!

If I were to take the place of Pollyanna right now I could say that since I wouldn't enjoy today much anyway it's lucky that this is the day that only lasts 23 hours.

But I'm not and I won't.