Back Page: My week - Nest of adders, newts and a lone badger

We need to mobilise more people and deadlines are tight for the next stage of the children's centre programme, particularly as we must have the right mix of skills in project management and children's services. The partners are resourceful and responsive, and I can't help contrasting this with my past life as a director of children's services. It did not always seem as though everyone wanted to help clear hurdles.

Tuesday - A catch-up meeting with the senior team. We are all in the same place on the same day so no conference calling, but we talk a lot as it's good to see each other's faces. Our efforts to get a handle on how the buildings aspect of the programme is going are a bit less onerous now. What a nightmare local authorities face. What with nests of adders, slow worms that can only be eliminated at certain times of year, Japanese Knotweed that breaks up concrete and newts that have to be carefully transferred to new breeding places, it's amazing anything gets built. One children's services director told me the other day that a lone badger was single-handedly (or whatever the equivalent is in paws) holding up a whole project. I wonder if it has tuberculosis and could be culled? Is this something that we could add to our advice repertoire?