It has been a while! Sorry dear readers.

We are less than four weeks out from the Festival, so it really feels like it's just around the corner. It is all stations go, and it's starting to feel like I could easily work on this full-time over the next four weeks. Sadly however, I already have a full-time job, so I currently have no life. 

Surprisingly though I feel that I'm balancing things fairly well, although the doctor last week thought otherwise and ordered me to rest for two days. But after a relaxing rare day off on Saturday, involving snorkeling, massage and a quiet dinner, it was back to the battle stations on Sunday. My brief lapse in health was an important reminder however - that at all times I must prioritise down time if I'm going to get through this in one piece. I make sure I schedule in about an hour everyday away from work, which usually means I end up at the gym or yoga because if I just watch TV I can't stop thinking about work. 

The key tasks over the next four weeks are finishing the map of the Festival, including marking which works need power etc, which will need to be done in the next few days. I also need to lock down performance times and the tech specs of each work, plan bump-in and bump-out, think through the stage management timings of the day and the volunteer duties. 

One thing I'm learning is that in some cases, getting these details out of artists can be like getting blood from a stone. There are a few who are fantastic and consistently meet deadlines for information, but the majority need to be chased up all the time. It's interesting to see it from this perspective – usually I see it from the point of view of the artist and always think 'why won't they get off my back?' but now I understand. When you have over 100 creatives to coordinate there is just no time to muck around with chasing them all up, and you need as much information about their work as you can get. It's all about trying to minimise the amount of surprise requirements you'll have on the day, particularly in an outdoor festival like this where there is limited power and other resources. 

In addition, there's still the job of approaching some of the businesses around Chippendale to secure their permission to attach works to their buildings, use their space etc. The residents are a lot easier – I've approached a few already, and it's easy for me to do so because they're generally only home after hours, when I'm not at work. With the businesses it's the opposite, and it's becoming almost impossible to find time to approach them during the day. I'm going to go down there at lunchtime and see if I can get some of it done, but it may come down to taking photos and handing it over to my assistant curator to do if she can. I'm starting to get a little worried about this because the map needs to be locked down by the end of this week for marketing reasons, so that doesn't leave me with much time. 

So I will cease my slightly panicked rambling and get back to work (where I currently am), while worrying about this Festival. I feel quite confident that it will all be ok, but I am definitely running on adrenalin and starting to find that I'm waking up in the morning already feeling nervous. 

Essential oils and yoga for me.