Hit the ground running

9.04am...not bad for a Monday - especially as I no longer have an office. If you haven't heard after 41 years of publishing it was finally confirmed that Press Gazette has closed.

It's a strange feeling - Wednesday was actually my last official day, by which time I was being paid on freelance basis rather as a member of staff so who knows if I'll ever see the promised cash for those days ever appear.

Thursday was spent at home re-ordering my room into a workable space on by Friday - the day on which news was supposed to break - I was having a chat with some contacts at a radio station about doing some producing/presenting (it's all about the multimedia baby).

I popped into the office to hand in my invoice in person - these accounts can be slippery things when the shit hits the fans - and received a call from the editor inviting me to join a contigent of reporters who had forsaken the doom and gloom of the newsroom for the solace of our local - The Old Bell.

I'm one for commeraderie but spending the afternoon waiting for the Grim Reaper to appear in the company of copious amounts of alcohol wasn't really the way I wanted to start my weekend, so instead I jetted of to Knightsbride to relax in true fashion - in the hands of my wonderful hairdresser Junior Green.

A couple of hours later, feeling both relaxed and gorgeous, I was on the road to meet up with my boyfriend when I recieved the call.

It was the slightly emotional sounding Dom saying, "That's it. It's all over. We've all been made redundant with immediate effect."

We'd all been fearing it, and to be honest expecting it, but I don't think anyone realised what a horrible punch in the guts the decision would be.

Like a family reacting to a death we flocked together. It felt like a wake with staff, old timers, subs and hangers on gatherered back in The Bell, which felt like our make-shift front room. As we reminisced, were were passed the point of complaining, there were last-minute reports of a rescue bid being made in the closing seconds of extra-time but as far as I know it never materialised.

I'm not very good in sad situations, I find the genuinely depressing, so I left after half a pint. Half an hour later and I was at the Frontline Club, celebrating their third anniversary with the great and the good of foreign correspondents and spooks (or Walter Mitty's) as Martin Bell likes to call them.