Well once again, it's been a while... but it's been a pretty manic week all in, so you'll have to forgive me!

Having said that, all is right with the world -- just a bit busy is all!

I got the front page splash this week and it's a great story, an exclusive, the design of the front page is beautiful and I'm just so so proud of it it's making me smile as I write this. It was a major incident which I found out about on Monday, but I sat on it so none of the other papers could get wind of it which meant I had to phone all the people concerned on Wednesday morning with three hours to deadline. I came into work and had to call the company concerned, the MP, the head of the council and try and put together the best story I could in a really short space of time. And everything fell into place, the head of the council said some REALLY emotive, evocative decent stuff and it's just fab

When I first started at the paper every front page was a good one, and there still is the satisfaction of seeing your name on the front, but some weeks (especially during the summer) you know it's because there's not much out there. Usually me and the senior reporter get about equal amounts of front pages, but when you get a stonking one where everything comes together the feeling is hard to beat - that's when the harvest festival stories seem worthwhile and I REALLY love my job!

Then when I got back to my desk from buying lunch someone called to say there was a major RTA (road traffic accident) in our patch, which set the adrenaline going again and I jumped in the car (taking my sarnie!) with our photographer and went out there. I don't like RTAs when there's lots of blood and gore but this was a happy medium - no-one was seriously hurt but it was quite dramatic, and I was able to get interviews with two eyewitnesses and the woman whose garden wall had been knocked down in the crash. They said emotive, evocative things, we got some *fab* pictures and the police even let us down to the scene to see everything.

It probably sounds really weird and I can't properly explain why, but when you're out on jobs like that and you're focused on getting the information to make your story the best it can be it's an amazing feeling :D so basically I was very hyper, but now the adrenaline has stopped flowing I'm a bit knackered too! :lol:

And then Thursday saw a major politician come to Oxdown (not Major I hasten to add, much more major than that!) so I got to interview him, which was great fun indeed -- my chance to channel Jeremy Paxman or something! Of course I had to keep it as local centric as possible, but I did sneak in a question about the Hutton Inquiry which was fascinating too.

Now this weekend is going to be a chilled out and happy one - I'm anticipating wine and takeaway tonight (and possibly some RPG-ing to emphasise my geek girl credentials), all I have to do first is get through two hours of driving lessons!