!

Have been made a permanent production editor - what fun. Although new contract doesn't start until May, allowing me to take three weeks' holiday, which will be spent at home in NZ. Oh, the glories of Palmerston North, once more you will me mine to adore.

All morning I have been receiving congratulatory emails from my workmates, which is nice, however I think I might need to have a word to some of them about their constant overuse of exclamation marks, the use of which makes their emails sound suspiciously as though they were written by 13-year-old girls.

My immediate superior had her hen's night on the weekend and has kindly brought in the remains from her afternoon tea party. I was extremely disappointed to discover that Snickerdoodle cake does not contain any Snickers. False advertising.

Had a particularly bizarre dream that a burglar was trying to steal Skye and Mike's bed. And that Kruse was setting dwarf traps, using pound coins and cask as bait.

The weather has become complete rubbish - it's viciously cold and windy and rainy and it's very hard to concentrate on footnotes when one would much rather be at home in one's jim jams reading Agatha Christie. Or watching Twin Peaks. We've just started the second season and I heart Agent Cooper. Oh, he is such a dreamboat.

As 30 slowly approaches this week, giving me the glad eye over her shoulder and come hither glances that I am incapable of resisting, I ponder the truly important things in life: just how many new flavours have Whittaker's chocolate bars brought out since I've been away? Only five more weeks of not knowing!!!!! All right!!! Look at those exclamation markers go!!!

I have to admit that the main reason I am coming home is that I need a haircut and Brandon is the only person I trust. And I also miss my shoes. And all my clothes. I suspect my father is going to come from work in mid-April to find me buried beneath a pile of dress-up outfits and ludicrous shoes, muttering 'I love you, I love you, please forgive me for abandoning you for so long'.