“Is Jared coming? Where is he?”

These words have so far been frequently uttered, up to 100 times a day in the last three days… Factoid. But then I guess I should have known taking a fella with me who is allergic to ever turning up on time would be an issue. Luckily for me and the lovely Elinor, we have no qualms about leaving the bugger to fend for himself (rather in the same way we’ve both abandoned our children to fortune this week). Jared then turns up, out of the crowd, eyes wild with panic and booze-fuelled paranoia: “Where the hell did you go?? Didn’t you know I’d be in the bar???” He’s had a hangover every single morning we’ve been here! It’s been rather fun in a perversely sadistic way, watching him over breakfast: he’s been more and more grey in colour each day, shuffling food about on his plate before going off in search of the hair of the dog. FOR SHAME.

Observations so far: Cheltenham Ladies College looks like Hogwarts. Everyone started off saying things like “Walk with me” and “let’s do lunch” and even, “But how do we monetize that?” as a joke and now everyone appears to be saying it for real. The SWF volunteers are awesome and know where everything is, even before you know you want to go there. Jason Arnopp appears to float on air in a Zen-like way, fluttering amongst everyone like a bird. Piers Beckley doesn’t look like his blog picture and Phill Barron does. Julian Friedmann appears omnipresent, a bit like Jesus or Cate Blanchett. Oh and absolutely everybody appears to have an opinion on my sparkly eye shadow: 99% thumbs up, though one lady in the toilets asked me if I was a bit old for glitter. Nice!

I have been unable to rein in my uncool on two occasions – I GUSHED at one of my fave Corrie writers Damon Rochefort and randomly grabbed the awesome Olivia Hetreed as she walking past and told her even more randomly I’d read one of her scripts before running off again. *Le sigh*. Still I’m normally *ice cold super cool*(!), so childish enthusiasm has to surface every now and again >ahem<. Got some fantastic notes for you all from some very good sessions and some more obvious tidbits too which never hurts to remind ourselves of. Not writing them now, ‘cos we’re off to the Rocliffe Forum reading, followed by yet more networking in The Queens Hotel. Tomorrow I have some producer speed dating, which just between you and me I’m DEAD nervous about, especially as all my friends with me have done it already. Apparently it’s fine. I know that of course, but blarg — scary. You know how it goes. Oh is that the time?? Gotta dash… Speak soon my lovelies, wish you were here, let’s do lunch. MWAH.