I'll let you know how I get on / stay awake.

5am: not a great start as have been awake all night with child psychological tag warfare - ie one child awake and shouting, which wakes the other one up. the original one eventually falls asleep only to be woken by the second one shouting and so the circle repeats. Hear birds singing their dawn chorus and the first flights coming in to Heathrow as I get out of bed.

6am: a very productive first hour. lots of excel work completed. this time of day is good for me. no kids awake yet, so can continue wireless working from living room table for now.

7am: still no sound from upstairs. another productive hour with plenty of Excel fun. I need to read some Oftel documents now - sleep inducing at the best of times. Don't actually feel too tired.

8am: turning in to just an ordinary day, so probably won't bother doing any more updates !

3pm: went on holiday but still felt guilty about leaving whilst others were working.

Conclusion: experiment was success. may repeat the exercise next time i work from home.