Office

New. Open plan. New building. Memory of PC stolen at some point during unplugging and arriving at new place. Irritated other workers on the new desk-island. Bad start to new work surroundings.

9.55am. Not too bad so far. I'm using a spare PC. Its awfully quiet. I've just had to go into the stairwell to talking on the mobile phone.

11.52am. Right now there is far too much chatting and giggling going on and not much work. There's two in the meeting area. Out island-colleagues are talking with colleagues from anther island - talking about babies. The cataloguing librarians are chatting and tearing off sellotape - chatting in a sort over-the-fence-gossiping way.

16.05pm. Full compliment of colleagues on the opposite island. Boy can they chat. Two people are going round in coats complaining of cold. I on the other hand am baking and would really like to open some windows. My cheeks are red - I can feel them. We've just had a brief blast of Boney M's Brown Girl in the Ring from the cataloguers. Much full room discussion of singing the song in the school playground, or the fact of being far too young to remember such things. I'm almost at the stage of putting my fingers in my ears and going lalala I can't hear you.

16.34pm. There's a great talking bum (clad in tweed) using a guillotine next to my desk. Its talking to a colleague who sits next to me who has wandered off without the guillotine-user realising.

5.30pm. End of the day. Sure I'll get used to it in time.