Wednesday is our press day. Sometimes press days go smoothly without a hitch and the whole operation runs like clockwork.

Those days are usually accompanied by a squadron of airborne pigs sweeping across the blue moon while chasing Lord Lucan on Shergar, directed by a helpful traffic warden

Today was not one of those days.

This afternoon we had three photographers working and, just after 1.30pm, there was a nasty crash at Dunkirk Hill near Devizes.

We sent photographer A out to that and meanwhile we were trying to set up a picture to go with a story in Chippenham about the proposed bed closures.

We managed to arrange three GPs to be outside the hospital for 2.45pm but all of them could only stay a short while on account of having patients to cure, which was fair enough I suppose.

So, we attempted to dispatch photograoher B but he was stuck at a job the other side of Urchfont. No problem, photographer C was at hand.

But then it transpires photographer C has no lens in his camera because A has sent theirs off to be repaired and they have borrowed C's.

Okay so A has just finished at the crash, they can go to Chippenham. It takes about 30 minutes and they will just make it. But first we need the crash pictures for the Devizes edition which goes earlier.

No problem A can send their pictures back via their laptop. But no, the laptop is not working.

Right, they can come back to Devizes, give B their lens back and B can set off to Chippenham.

Ah, but B is at the other end of town and stuck in a huge traffic jam caused by the oh so handy roadwork traffic lights in London Road.

So A has to struggle back to Devizes through the traffic, leave their memory card with the pictures and then race back to Chippenham, just in time for one of the doctors to have gone off to lance an ingrowing toenail or something.

Luckily a reporter with a digital camera is onhand, the picture, though not as good quality, is taken and at least it has all the right people in.

Of course none of this was anyone's fault, it was just circumstances. The combination of a broken lens, a useless laptop and terrible traffic all conspired against us.

This is fairly typical of the kind of thing that happens on a press day. It is little wonder I have the nervous system of a baby deer that has wandered into a Txas convention centre during the National Rifle Association's annual conference.