It's the refrain of that Noel Coward song, "There are bad times just around the corner", I can't get it out of my head, I'm afraid. I tossed and turned all night because of the work permit problem. I've just written a really quite nasty email to the HR Hologram about all of this.

I can't believe the attitude sometimes.... HR Hologram's boss, the last time there was a problem with a work permit (in that case created because they didn't want to pay a lawyer to get one, and let the receptionist do it instead!), told me it was my fault for being from New Zealand. I ask you!

And I get extremely tired of the people who tell me they have five different passports etc etc and never have any problems going anywhere. Nowadays I usually just say, are you offering to lend me one of them? And if they carry on, I ask them, what is their point? Do they consider themselves superior to me because they have five passports? That normally shuts them up.

We used to have one of those in the office - I'll never forget, one day when a colleague who is Italian, but lives in the US, got refused boarding at CDG because they didn't think he had the right papers, she arrived on the scene, and, on being told what had happened, her first remark was "that's never happened to me, I have UK, USA and Australian passports". I just looked at her and said, Diana, we are all thinking of Luigi at present, not of you. Poor guy had to stay in Paris an extra week while his paperwork was sorted out. You should have heard his wife on the phone, it was in Italian, but my goodness, it was perfectly plain what she was saying.

It was fairly miraculous that last night I managed to do most of the rest of Mary's Pin Pillow, I am just finishing off the back of it now, and then it needs to be assembled. I have to make tassels! In fact I have to make four tassels for Mary and eight for Pretty in Pink, oh dear. I did also manage to trip over the hem of my nightdress last night and fall flat on my chest, do not ask me how, so I am in a bit of pain from that, although I am not as black and blue as I thought.