Not being a Knight Templar (relevance for readers of Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code) I am generally unphased by Friday 13th. It has about as much relevance in my life as not walking on cracks in the pavement (honestly, I do that because of my heels, not superstition) and touching wood (when was the last time you did that and there was any real wood within reaching distance?). But today has been a lesson in why one shouldn’t denigrate ‘believers’.

I set my alarm early to leave home early to prepare for my first client early. I even prepared last night by ironing today’s clothes and a clean makeup cape ready to bring with me, early. So far so good. But I really did not want to get out of bed today - I hate dark mornings. Then I dallied about and faffed around, eventually leaving barely 10 minutes earlier than normal, and without my neatly ironed cape! 

I plugged in my hands free to my Blackberry, only to discover that I must have not only left it switched on all night, but that the ghosts were using it, and had completely exhausted the battery. Discovering this about 4 miles away from home - where my charger was sitting in a drawer in the kitchen - made me really happy, not.

I got into the office to find I had lost my keys; I left my equipment in my car so had to go back to the carpark for it; because I didn’t have a working mobile I couldn’t log into my paypal account to process payments; my PC has been doing really stupid network things all day, and I have just spilt my ‘quick cup of tea before I sneak off early’ all down my trousers. So now I have to sit hard up against the radiator to dry off before I go out so it doesn’t look like I have wet myself.

I am going home to go to bed and wait until it is not Friday 13th anymore.  I know there are lots of things I should be doing, but the way today has been so far, I suspect that driving home will be about all I can cope with. I was going to write about book groups and book events at Wigtown and Imprint, but that will all have to wait until I am stronger.

Fingers crossed and off I go………