I must confess to being reluctant to rise to the alarm when it went off at six this morning. It's fairly rare that I am slow to leap out of bed, so this tells me I may have been pushing myself just a little bit too hard recently.

It was chilly and so I took my nice purple leather gloves with me for the cycle ride, and I even fitted the lights to my bike for the first time since moving closer to work, but the bike wouldn't start. Obvs some recent mistreatment of my new best friend had caused her to dislocate her drive chain and so I spent perhaps twenty minutes grovelling in the gutter at the bus stop outside the flat trying to re-engage it without any knack.

By the time we had power to the wheels my hands were so entirely filthy I was not going to touch my lights, let alone slip on my gloves, but at least the day was brighter even if it was still chilly.

Arriving at work it mattered not one whit that I was later than usual and had spent a while in the loo trying to remove chain grease while still wearing my helmet and hi-vis which I didn't particularly care to soil either. It didn't matter because the entire IT system was down and there was no access to phones, emails, task lists, drawing files, anything remotely work-related as it goes.

Odd, I thought, how a simple dislocated bicycle chain can cause such havoc.

I did, however, have access to my drawing software, even though I didn't have access to any of the work I was supposed to perform with it, so I spent a happy hour or so drawing up the boxes I wish to make for my storcase and calculating the most efficient way of cutting the fabric I have available.

By the time we were back online I had a drawing and a shopping list including; shears, seam ripper, tailor's tape measure, pliers, side cutters and a rake of dry-cleaner's wire coat hangers.

During my lunch break I enjoyed watching these guys, driving their little gizmo a few yards back and forth and then stopping and extending it to its full height, dropping it back down and starting all over again. I was fascinated. Having watched and photographed I then asked questions. Apparently they were testing the battery. I have been told that fork-lift truck batteries are the best money can buy, and I presume this contraption has one of those, so these guys must have been at it a while. And they had another three to test afterwards!

After work I went to the letting agent to deal with some necessary blah, then to Sainsbury's for some essential groceries, then to the GP to register, then to the dry cleaner to ask for some wire hangers. After that I went to one shop where I sourced shears, seam ripper and tape measure, and then off to the other shop for pliers and side cutters. While I was in that shop I found some ready-made collapsible boxes, which might do very well in the storcase. I brought them home and concluded that I won't need to make my own after all.

At 7pm I stopped pushing myself, a car with Bulgarian plates pulled up outside Yoda's playing Greek music.