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The last couple of weeks have really only been about one thing - coursework, coursework, coursework! It is the last stretch of the taught part of the course so it's non-stop number crunching, late night panic phone calls and that guilty feeling when you're not doing the work (although not right at this minute as I watch Arsenal thrash Sunderland).

I had Easter week off and very disappointedly spent the whole week doing coursework. It sounds like a classic tale of leaving it all until the last minute but it inevitably ends up like that. Although the coursework is given at the start of the module, at that point you have limited knowledge of what is involved and it is only in the later weeks that you feel you are equipped to start planning the work.

It doesn't help that I have recently moved house to sunny Shoeburyness (Southend-on-Sea) and weekends are spent redecorating / shopping at my second home B&Q and gardening. (I can tell my partner Jamie will be reading this shaking his head because most weekends I leave it all to him using the oh so convenient excuse of coursework!)

But once I knuckle down and get into the work it is interesting and as most of the modules are related to my day to day work I want to get the most out of it that I can. I am always wary that at the end of this course I will have a Master's and there is a certain expectation that goes with that. So it is worth putting in all the effort now. The coursework I have just handed in was for a corporate and project finance module. I had to evaluate the performance of Mowlem plc over the last three years. I chose to study Mowlem as although I had read all the published information about the takeover by Carillion I wanted to have a greater understanding of it. And as I work for Carillion it was more than some mindless number crunching exercise!

At work I am entering the final stages of the project I am working on, a new build bedroom block for the Radisson Edwardian Hotel in Mayfair. It is the busy time of the month for us - the monthly valuation with the PQS, subcontractor interim valuations and internal reports. This project has been an ideal size for me to get involved with all those aspects. When I first joined I was managing a few trade packages on a large hospital project and that was ideal to learn the process behind managing accounts. That has gradually increased to managing a larger number and more complex trade packages, more involvement with the PQS and then with the internal paperwork.

So all in all a little bit more that ‘brick counting'! (They know who they are!)