First day

Phew, two episodes in a row. Now my eyes are if not square, certainly slightly red around the edges. Which is also to do with yet again, lack of sleep. I went through a weird body clock shift when I was away, and woke up at 6am every morning, which is a time I usually have no knowledge of. Nor did I want to have knowledge of it. The only benefit was having plenty of time in the mornings to get ready and eat a leisurely breakfast before going into work. I did start pretty early, 8.30 most mornings, so finish time was 4.30. A long day, and again, I have gotten used to a different style of day, starting later and finishing later, with the chance to walk around, do chores. Here I was in an office, with very little time for wandering about.

I was very nervous the first morning: for one I didn’t know exactly where I was going, so I left really early, stopped my car in the vicinity of where I knew the place to be roughly, and phoned them. After a couple of calls, I found my way and was met at the door.
What I think I was most worried about was being a nuisance. I know that it’s difficult for the people you are going to, to find things for a work experience person to do. So I wanted to be as useful as possible. But everything went very well, the people were really nice and kind to me, made me drinks asked what course I was doing and helped me. Everywhere I go it seems, I rely on the kindness of strangers. And I have rarely been let down.

So I entered the world of publishing. Something I know not much about, but wanted to learn about. I was honest about that to begin with. I had done some research on the company first, but I wanted to ask things as well rather than go in pretending to know everything.

I was working with a company called Shire Publishing who have been in existence for over 40 years, they used to be an independent company, but have very recently been bought by a larger company called Osprey, who produce military history and war-gaming books - my friend Carlo would have loved it there, I’m still to tell him all about it. The range of books was astonishing: from incredibly esoteric titles on such mastermind subjects as the archaeology of rabbit warrens to broader non fiction on West Coast shipping and The Victorian Hospital. I wish I could have just sat and read the books, they were fascinating. I had no idea there was so much on such seemingly narrow subjects.
I found myself also editing, proofreading, and using InDesign, which was less daunting than I thought. So a good first day, and I was looking forward to the rest of the week.