A bit of downtime while most of my stories hinge on people getting back to me.

Last night, I was up until 1am just drawing. I don't know if anyone remembers this but I mentioned a while back that I'd be designing a garden for Broad Oak Manor Nursing Home in St Helens. Well, the plan was that I'd have that design ready for today so I could meet Vicky in Cafe Nero during my lunch break and present it to her. I stayed up for hours sketching and inking and erasing and hating what I'd drawn but knowing that if I threw it away I'd only be taking steps back.

By the time I was too tired to go on, I had four pages of uncoloured drawings. At that point I thought 'sod it'; the caffeine failed to work its magic so I went to bed. I decided that a few notes here and there plus a verbal explanation of my intended colour scheme would make up for the unfinished drawings.

Fast-forward to today. I had two double-strength cups of tea in the morning and a further two normal ones in work. By lunch time I was trembling with caffeine; in some weird place between falling asleep and being wide awake. The time came to meet Vicky, so off I trotted to Cafe Nero with my sketchbook and its half-completed drawings. Ten past twelve - no sign of Vicky, so I ordered myself a large caffe mocha and a triple Belgian chocolate muffin, found a table and sat quietly, prepared to people-watch for the duration.

Nothing. I guess I must have looked like a stood-up lover, sat there in that corner with my eye on the door, sipping absently at my mocha. 12:15 came and went, and so did 16, 17, 18...

Vicky never showed up in the end. I guess she probably forgot our project in the madness of taking on a new Prince's Trust Team and moving venues from Windlehurst to the college. So I sat in Cafe Nero for the full hour, despite knowing full well that if she wasn't there by 12:30, she wouldn't show up at all. There was no point in going back to work since the advertising people would still be on their lunch break and I wouldn't be able to get in.

While I whittled away the minutes in the coffee shop, though, something bizarre happened. I'd been thinking back on my previous night's doodlings, realising that I'd actually done quite a lot in the few hours that I'd worked. I remembered how good it had felt to draw like that again; how I had at one point just stopped caring about the quality for one minute and just set about creating; having fun.

And a little, long-neglected switch in my head finally flicked back on. I got out my pen, opened my sketchbook to the first clean page, and began to draw.

The first thing I sketched, straight in biro, was the scene before me. The chair across from me, then the one further from that, by the window, then what was outside. Another table near that chair, a sliver of door to the left. Wizzards across the street. Then I flipped to the next page and started a drawing of a rose, based on one I'd seen this morning; yellow and pink and browning at the edges, wilting petals pointed at the sky as if begging for rain.

I've been drawing. And it felt so good.

In fact, while I'm alone in the newsroom, I think I may continue...