There are some days that just feel like they'll never end.

And then there are other days that just. Never. End.

Am finally home (just the 12 hour day) after a day that's seen me almost get run over, drive 40 miles up and down the 10 mile stretch of road between my home and work trying to find a hole in the hedge village hall in a hole in the hedge village, got frightened by a manic horse and, just to top it off, trod in a dead rabbit.

It's days like this the city girl in me wants to run screaming back to London.

The County Council Rural Area Committee were meeting at a village not too far from my house this evening, so I got despatched off to cover it. A meeting at 7.30pm on a Thursday night is never going to inspire feelings of joy (any stories from it are a week old by the time they appear in the paper, it's rare for anything good to come out of it, and because it's so rare for reporters to turn out to them all the councillors on the committee suddenly metamorphose into table thumping parliamentarian wannabes, with (what they think are) soundbites spewing forth like a fountain of crap until an hour long meeting has stretched to three.

Yup. Nowt worse than a Thursday night meeting.

Except perhaps being incapable of finding the bloody meeting and instead driving in the pitch black between farms and fields trying to find (a) any kind of sign, (b) anywhere with a light on that didn't look like a house (c) somewhere to turn round after I'd driven ten miles in the wrong direction.

I found the village easily enough and, having parked the car in the car park of the village pub, was practically jumping from foot to foot with glee that my crappy sense of direction (which is legendary in our office) had not let me down. Hah! I showed them.

But a quick walk along Main Street (which is a lie by the way) scrape up a few houses and a post box. No village hall. So I go into the pub, which falls silent as I enter (lo! It is someone from the Outside. And a woman. Alone) and with a heretofore unknown fortitude refuse a drink before asking someone (anyone) to point me in the direction of the village hall.

It's like stepping into Royston Vasey. There's much scratching of heads. And finally, after a long silence the self-appointed spokesman points out of the window into the darkness.

"Out there. That way. Past the pub. Down the road. The road curves to the left. You need to look on the right."

I say thank you and rummage around for the car key. He shakes his head. "It's literally over there. You don't need to drive. And there's nowhere to park."

So off I trot. In the mud. Which smells suspiciously of horse poo.

The hall looks like a house. It's dark. It's got one of those signs that's supposedly a piece of chopped up tree trunk with Viola Villa etch inside in swirly calligraphy.

So I walk up a bit further. It's a big field. There's a building on the other side of it, about 300m up the mud trench (no pavements here). So I keep trudging. I get there. It's a shed. There's a tractor.

By this point I am already ten minutes late for the meeting. Having arrived in the village ten minutes early.

I hear a sound behind me and (in a sign of my desperation to find the place) instead of fleeing from whatever is making odd rustling noises and heavy breathing move towards it and open my mouth to ask if it knows where the village hall is. As I do it neighs. Loudly. I jump a foot in the air, yelp and drop my notebook into the mud (which, remember, smells like horse poo). So I begin trudging back to the pub and the car.

I get back to the car. Check my multi map print out. It's the right road. It's got to be here somewhere. So I get in the car. I drive five miles back towards home peering intently left and right to find anything which could conceivably be a village hall. Seriously. I am going so slowly a man in a tractor overtakes me. As street lights begin to appear, marking the return to civilisation, I do a dodgy three point turn and drive back the other way. The five miles I've just come, past the pub and then five miles further on. Still nothing.

So I turn around again. And drive back to the pub. Park up and go back in. By this time my shoes are muddy (I notice belatedly I'm treading dirt into the saloon), I'm clutching my notebook like a bible and am beginning to look frazzled around the edges.

Spokesman man has gone home. So the barmaid (who apparently isn't from the area and so doesn't know herself where the village hall is) bellows over for Lois. She'll know apparently.

She points me in the opposite direction to the Spokesman man. Says several sentences very quickly that I don't understand and finishes 'you can't miss it'. I wait for something else, and when she doesn't, say "Over there?@ and point in the direction she's been gesturing with her fork full of steak pie. As she says "That's right love" I see it half chewed rolling round her mouth like a tumble dryer.

So off I trudge again. The area she has pointed me too is pitch black. It's windy, it's cold and I have to cross the road to get there. I check both ways (it is national speed limit zone) and begin to walk... and almost get run over by a lunatic in a 4x4 whose headlights are so bright I'm almost caught like a rabbit in headlights before I chuck myself at the other side of the road. Dropping my notebook again.

As I lean down to find my notebook I find I'm actually standing in a dead rabbit.

Trying hard not to weep with frustration, I fish out my mobile to ring my news editor at home to see if she can tell me where the blasted village hall is. She's out. I leave messages on her landline and her mobile and go back to the car, dragging my feet along the ground trying to get rid of the rabbit entrails on my shoes as I go.

So now I'm home. It's 9.15pm. I got home ten minutes ago wanting to vent (having left for my meeting at 7pm). And it was a complete waste of time.

And while I know the meeting would have been a waste of time, I begrudge wasting time that way than the rabbit entraily way. Although on the plus side I'm off work tomorrow (long weekend at home, yay!) which is just as well as I'm too annoyed to laugh off people taking the piss out of me about it yet.

Maybe once I've given it some time.

A year or two.