Stop

Ohmygod. Anastasia is not going to be the next Pussycat Doll.

I would go over and change the channel but I just face getting up out of this chair. I'm not drunk and I've been to the gym so I don't have much to rant about.

Except my yearning for a holiday.

I dream about holidays. The last time I took any time off work was back in June - a week for my birthday and it was hardly relaxing. Two long-haul flights in a week, and five nights of partying / drinking / eating etc.

So it means that I haven't actually had any sort of holiday since March.

Right now, getting out of bed every morning feels like having to climb over a massive rock only to find another one right in front of you.

The pace of work is relentless.

Every week we get a blank slate and have to fill it with 22 minutes of television. It has to be topical so we can't really do anything in advance.

Tomorrow I am going to go into the office, build the running order, find stories, book locations, type scripts.

Thursday it will be filming day - somewhere in the UK, on Friday we edit. Every week the same relentless routine.

On Saturday I usually have to go into the office and finish off the mountain of paperwork that goes with it. Making sure songs are cleared, copyright logs are filled in because there isn't time to do it on a Friday.

Today I woke up at around 10am, I didn't get out of bed until around 2-ish and then it was only to go to the gym.

I got back home, watched some TV and at around 6-ish got back into my pyjamas.

And tomorrow, Monday, the cycle starts again. At least 60 hours working each week.

It's not that I am physically tired. Despite me moaning about my shoulder I have still been going to the gym. I eat healthily.

That's not what gets me down - what is most difficult is coping mentally.

I love London but it's so bloody hard.

The tube, the weather, the over-crowding, the pace, the distance, the time it takes to get anywhere. Being stuck in traffic, being stuck on a train.

Grabbing the last free copy of the Metro in the morning and finding that you haven't put a pen in your bag to complete the Sudoku - that's the sort of thing that pushes your day from being a medium tedious one into a bad one.

And amongst all of that, somehow you have to find time to socialise, do the laundry, pick up the dry cleaning, shop, go to the post office.

I want to have finished my current project at the end of December. Please let the next one start in February, the one I want.

I need a holiday - for the whole of January. And it still won't be nearly enough.