These last few weeks liverpool has been at its best; the sun has shone, people have been out and there has been so much stuff to do and see.

The upside of not having any offices or meeting rooms due to the fire is that I've made a temporary base looking into the garden and I've held all my meetings in the hub or garden or courtyard.

One man comes into the garden in the morning and sets himself up with a coffee and the newspaper and the smokes a pipe while watching the world go by.

What will we do? Well ‘all I want to do is tell you I love you’.

It is early Wednesday morning and I’ve got Wiley on YouTube  – and I’m already looking forward to the weekend.

Yesterday we agreed to open on Friday and sat down to see how to get the news out. 'Bluecoat burns' is front page but 'We're back' is only page 7. It will take many more positive stories to overcome the negative one that has now set the agenda.

Staying closed for as short a period as possible is the first step in this; to stop the idea that we aren’t open being imbedded in people's minds. So, with a great line up of events already planned for this weekend, we set Friday as our target date and the staff and contractors have done everything they can to achieve it. It has been one hell of a week but we should make it.

I got home yesterday just in time to read my 4 year old a book before turning his lights out. As I lay down I realised I stunk of smoke and my eyes were watering.

I’d not seen him in the morning as I’d been called out to the fire at the Bluecoat. When I arrived the fire brigade had been there two hours already and while the fire was not raging it had got in between the floors and was flaring up in different areas. The fire crews were putting on breathing equipment, picking up axes and disappearing into the building to replace the teams coming out whose faces were blackened with smoke.

The Bluecoat was packed for the Orange Prize reader’s day. A whole bunch of women writers – Bel Mooney, Katte Mosse, Lionel Shriver, Philippa Gregory, plus the judges Shami Chakrabarti and Clare Allen – came to the Bluecoat to talk about their work.

The day started with all the writers on a panel and then the audience split up into groups and dispersed to different rooms around the building to work with one of the authors.