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Okay, so this right here, this is what it looks like when you are standing on top of a mountain and a cloud rolls over you.

Ian and I took Chelsea up Pen-y-Fan yesterday. It wasn't as sunny as last time I went up! Being cooler made it a much easier hike, though. It isn't actually that far from the car park to the top - about a mile and a half. It's just steep, gaining over 400m in height in that mile and a half. The peak itself is 886m above sea level, the highest point in southern Britain, and the view is fab - on a clear day.

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I think my day off up the mountain was all the more appreciated because work is so frantic at the moment, my team now crossing the threshold from short-staffed to critically short-staffed. Although the department is large, my team is very small - just six of us all together: boss Linda, two receptionists, and three administrators, one of which is me, and out of our admin trio, we overlap but each have our own particular areas of work, with me overlapping the most because I'm the only one that's full time. So that's all been fine, but about a month ago one of my fellow admins left to take up a new job in the Law School (where she's been enjoying watching Doctor Who filming in the courtyard recently!), and then plans for a replacement got put on hold because one of the receptionists handed in her notice as she's also got a new job, which starts next week, her last day with us is Friday. Then last week, just to put the tin hat on things, the other admin was admitted to hospital with pregnancy complications and has to stay in until the baby is born (she's 29 weeks, and her last baby was born at 31). So all of a sudden I am doing three jobs as well as picking up reception cover - and the third job had no handover (and half the procedures not written yet, which I'm a bit annoyed about because she's had months and she knew she was likely to go early, although we'd all hoped not this early!)

On the bright side, S has been in for nearly a week now and still no baby - the longer he hangs on in there, the better. She's also bored enough in hospital to be emailing notes to help me pick up the loose ends of her job, for which I'm very grateful. And after the initial panic, it's been confirmed that an assistant from another team is coming to us on secondment, which will ease the pressure considerably once she's trained. Just need to get through the next few weeks intact - next week being the next big hurdle as receptionist#1 will have left, receptionist#2 is on holiday, and Boss is only in a day or two, so for most of the week our once six-strong team will boil down to just me and a temp!

In other news, Layla-May is growing fast, has no interest in crawling but is desperate to walk. Her mother, however, isn't doing so well - the last few weeks she's really started to struggle, the health visitor suspects post-natal depression which is also triggering her autism, but the mental health team are not being helpful. My poor mum is taking the strain, she's effectively Layla's primary carer at this point

But despite the difficulties, the baby is thriving, which is what really matters.