Ripping up the L-Plates

I remember the first time, after I passed my driving test, when I went out on the road alone. I'd driven with mum to where she worked, dropped her off there and had to drive no more than a mile to school, where I would park the car, go to lessons and then pick her up on the way home.

I was very very scared, and I seem to remember I clipped a curb somewhere (still do that now though...). Even though I'd been driving the car without assistance before (my car obviously didn't have dual controls, and the driving instructor didn't have to use them often by that stage), it was still daunting, because there was no-one else there to tell me what to do and look after me.

Tomorrow might be fairly similar. The big day has come, and my boss is officially on maternity leave. For around 6 months. And I'm in charge, every day and not just on Fridays.

Most of the time I do run my own files now anyway, and the clients I've discussed the situation with have faith in me. I've led conference calls with my boss sitting in without making any howling mistakes. I now have people in the team below me to delegate stuff to, and who actually ask my opinion on stuff as though they think I know what I'm talking about. But there isn't that protection given by having someone else in charge to ask the tricky questions to, or just run something past when you want someone to say that you're on the right lines. There's also no protection from the dangerous beasts that are partners in other teams who want to try to boost their egos by meddling in things that don't concern them.

Typically, this has all happened when I'm manically busy, and I'm starting to wonder when I'll next see my life again. It's a good position to be in, in a way. I've got a level of responsibility that I could only dream of at this stage of my career in another firm, or another situation. If I do well it will do my hopes of making associate no harm at all. And if I do mess up (not that I think I will) I can blame it on a lack of supervision.

Fingers crossed it will all work out OK, I'm sure it will be an interesting experience at least!

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My back to basics regime is going well. First off, I'm really impressed with myself for starting it when I did. I realised from how my clothes felt that I'd put on a couple of pounds, and I did something about it. I didn't wait for confirmation from the scale, and I didn't wait for a few to become 10 or 20. That's a good sign, to start with.

I finally weighed myself on Wednesday, and it turned out that the damage was about 5lb. I like the fact that I'm sensitive enough to my weight to notice a 5lb gain. But by that stage, operation clean my diet up was already in action, and when I weighed this morning I'd shed about half of that. Clearly water, but still gone.

I seem to have defeated the snack machine monster for the time being, and I'm eating a lot better at home, actually cooking properly and taking my time about my food. Tomorrow I need to write a shopping list for my Friday night shop, and have a major cooking spree over the course of the weekend. I'm looking forward to it, I haven't cooked for ages with mum being here.

With work being busier it's far more important for me to have stocks of food to take into work (not least if I'm going straight from work to running club twice a week), for lunches if I can't get out, and sufficient healthy snacks to sustain me through a late finish if necessary.

I'll have to get more organised than I have been recently, but I've done it before and it's feeling good to get back into the habit, so it should all be good.