So today we went to the Council's cast offs depot. You have never seen such a dump! A huge corrugated metal warehouse thing on a piece of wasteland in a dodgy area of the city. Fortunately I didn't have to take my car and we used one of our people carriers so we could return to work complete with any 'finds'.

I wasn't dressed for the occasion in my suit and 4 inch heels. I knew I had something in my diary but as its generally a meeting I had dressed accordingly. Hmmm. Still I managed not to ruin my shoes and tiptoed very carefully around the plethora of unwanted furniture thrown out by various services. We were on a quest for soundboards as I work in one of the busiest services in the city and it gets a bit manic in an open plan office. As we cannot use duct tape to quieten some staff members - soundboards were the next best thing.

We found some which measured up so I chose to guard these ripped, tippex stained boards whilst my colleague carried them one at a time to the van in her 5 inch heels! Turn your back for a second and someone else would have been off with them. Anyway it was chucking it down so standing guard was preferable! There were no fittings with them but we were confident we could bodge something to fit them.

So finally we arrive back at work windswept, soaked to the skin and with 2 broken nails (both mine :-( ). But we achieved our mission and it cost us nowt.

So I hope the citizens of Leeds realise what lengths we go to to operate services for them with nil cash! The days of ordering from a catalogue and a nice man in a van delivering stuff to your door are a very distant memory these days.

But so far we have saved 780k on my team and still deliver the same service. Shame we do not get performance related pay - or even an annual pay rise! Sheer dedication and determination is all it took.

Let's just hope we get some peace and quiet in the office and it will all have been worth it!