Close-Up: 24 hours with ... Nikki Crumpton, McCann Erickson

6.11am Enthusiasm for chaos wanes: Weetabix, shouting over the din and

life-threatening injuries involving small plastic toys.

7.45am Kiss proffered to jammy snot monster and hug big girl; have a
moment of longing for a private banker husband, so I can stay at home
and face paint.

8.00am A date with John Humphreys, who provides me with all of the
soundbites to look "current".

8.30am Coffee with Leila. Interview someone with no ad experience, but
who is deliciously ideas-driven. Feel compelled to hire them.

9.30am Planning traffic. Briefs, ideas, niggles, inspiration, coffee and
croissants with the team.

10.00am Heinz chat with Neil and Jay. Work is great and I remind myself
to hang on to this island of creative loveliness.

11.00am Meeting with Mark and Stephen. Feel like I'm participating in
the bleeding edge of our industry. Leila enters with urgent paperwork.
Reality bites.

12.30pm Chris Macdonald takes me to lunch to advise me on best way to
write "24 hours with ...". Halfway through, remind him it's "24 hours
with ...", not "48 hours with ..."

2.00pm Ring nanny, sing Wind the Bobbin Up down the phone (to Maggie,
not the nanny).

2.15pm Collaboration session for a pitch. Aware of John Steel's "5 per
cent, 15 per cent, 80 per cent" rule.

3.45pm Call with Vipin in New York on new modelling tools. Sounds like
rocket science.

4.45pm Slap on the headphones for a bit of Stevie Wonder and the
gratuitously sick world of b3ta.

5.00pm Remind myself I've got a job and catch up with Pulse on content
piece. They have 25 ideas, I have one. Dig deep, rediscover island of
creative loveliness, have one more.

6.00pm Call with Heinz client to take her through approach for workshop,
and important chat about where women over 35 shop for clothes.

6.30pm Mad dash home.

7.00pm Walk through door in time for Maggie's bottle and Mina's
obligatory chapter of Harry Potter.

7.30pm Moose plays me latest track he's working on (I'm glad he's not a
banker), while I tap away on chapter four of The Book. (I'll be 104 by
the time I've finished.)

9.00pm Yippee! Life on Mars (make that 105).

10.00pm Live up to personal mantra.