Monday

My husband and I are very fortunate to live in a beautiful stone Rutland Water village, so each day begins with a walk with our black labrador, Merlin.

I also check and feed our flock of Ryeland sheep, very important just now as the ewes are heavily pregnant and look like tubby woolly teddy bears.

Driving to my office in Peterborough, I review a customer call logged late on Friday for a six-year-old computer file server with two faulty drives which we do not maintain.

Saturday was spent tracking down replacements that are hopefully being delivered this morning.

We recently introduced the new YOU Care service that allows our engineers to remotely monitor servers 24/7 and spot any problems immediately before the servers fail, but our client doesn’t subscribe to this.

I make a note to visit the client soon to review their needs and will suggest they upgrade their service package to YOU Care package.

Hardware or system failure accounts for 78 per cent of all data loss, and it can be devastating for a business.

Sadly, 60 per cent of companies that lose data close within six months.

The drives arrive with us by lunchtime and we work throughout the afternoon and evening to rebuild the server and to try to restore the data from the customer’s back-up tapes.

Some 34 per cent of all companies fail to test their tape back-ups and of those that do 70 per cent discover failure.

Tuesday

I have a meeting with online networking site I Patter, which is aimed at connecting and promoting small businesses throughout the UK.

The rest of the day is spent producing a tender to provide hardware support on a large number of Tally Genicom printers and also a server upgrade from MS Small Business Server 2003 to SBS 2011.

Wednesday

Is the day I work from home. Microsoft Small Business Server allows me to access my PC in the office and I can therefore work just as effectively without being in the office.

I have access to all emails and documents and can also access our Sage accountancy programme.

I work on plans for the business rather than in the business.

I update sales targets, P&L and cashflow projections, and write a monthly email newsletter for our customers informing them of our change in logo and corporate identity along with suggestions on system upgrades.

Thursday

I visit a customer for whom we have recently installed a new HP Proliant server with Microsoft Small Business Server 2011 to discuss the advantages of our YOU Care Package.

New business cards arrive and they look great. The rest of the stationery is not due to arrive until Monday. I spend the afternoon applying to register the YOU Care logo as a trademark.

Friday

I spend a lot of time designing the navigation on the new website particularly the headings and content.

I plan the layout and pass to our in-house web team to put my thoughts into reality. Now all I have to do is all the content. I drop into Waitrose on the way home for their Valentines offer of a meal for two for to give me the night off cooking.

Saturday

I hoped to do a training walk for The Royal Marsden Hospital Fund Raising March which I am doing on March 11, walking 14 miles from the Marsden in London to its sister hospital in Sutton, but it is minus 13C and paths are icy and snow bound, so I put it off for another week.

I light a log fire in the lounge instead and snuggle down to watch the Six Nations rugby.

Sunday

Minus 6 this morning and I meet two equally mad friends for a 3.5-mile run. This allows me to feel good about eating my full English breakfast before starting the preparation for the week ahead. I plan and cook some meals on Sunday and pop them in the freezer.

I always cook a proper Sunday lunch, as it’s one of the few times my family get the chance to sit down and spend time together over a meal.

My youngest son, who is a meteorologist in the Navy, always makes an effort to get home for it if he is not on duty or at sea. However, this weekend it is just a phone call to catch up before he goes back to sea.