Working day.

6.45 ( Get up

8am ( Arrive at work and eat a bowl of cereal and read my emails, with five children I am like a rat leaving a sinking ship. I have a think about what I am going to do and plan my day. We are fairly flexible about working hours so there are a few people who start early and leave early and there are those that start early and finish late.

8.30am ( We start taking calls for the mail orders in our customer service centres.

9am ( Plan the marketing activities and what mailings we are going to do.

10am ( We are trying to develop the retail shop side of the business so I have a look at the way the shops are performing and also look for new sites.

12.30pm ( I usually try and stop for lunch and read the sports pages of the newspaper.

1pm ( A big part of my job is the financial side of the business so I have a look to make sure we are keeping on target and see where we are at, working with the accountants.

3pm ( I also spend quite a lot of time on recruitment; interviewing people for jobs or planning future recruitment.

6pm ( I try to spend time at the end of each day having a look at how the mail order side of the business has performed because it's a very numbers driven business and we have to have a tremendous attention to detail.

6.30pm ( I like to get home for 6.50pm so I can see the first children before they go to bed, unless there is an evening event.