“WHAT are you doing here?” asked the guy who works in my office. It was 7.45 last Monday morning and I was wandering the corridors looking for a key to the office door and/or a place to hide.

“WHAT are you doing here?” asked the guy who works in my office.

It was 7.45 last Monday morning and I was wandering the corridors looking for a key to the office door and/or a place to hide.

“I thought you'd be out there somewhere carrying some rope and looking for a good strong tree,” he added with a wry grin on his face.

When you're two points off the play-offs in League Two I suppose it's easy to become a little smug, but I'll forgive him as we'll not be playing his Peterborough lot next season or for quite a few to come I suspect.

After having to execute Plan C following Sunday's 'no-show' in Suffolk, ie a huge plate of comfort food and an evening toasting in front of an open fire as my central heating had decided not to show up either that day, Monday's reality was always going to be difficult, especially with most of my fellow Canaries far away down the A47.

I felt the need to join in the collective moan of despair but chose to keep my own counsel until others here felt the desperate desire to score some points.

Body armour was needed and now appears on my list for Santa's approval.

Talking of Christmas shopping, with less than a calendar month to go to this year's festivities I decided to analyse my purchasing so far - in an effort to cheer myself up if nothing else.

Stuttering and sporadic was all I could conclude looking at the contents of my 'pressie cupboard' - a bit like that team of ours, don't you think?

There in their wrappings some of those gifts on my shelf look like they're going to be definite pleasers and worthy of their elaborate outer dressings and the extra pennies spent on them; no doubt though, the reality is that, once removed and stripped bare, the contents will disappoint no matter how much thought has gone into them. Remind you of anything?

On paper last weekend we should have been at least a match for that lot over the border. Their passion should have been matched, nay exceeded, by ours and our fighting spirit, pride, determination, call it what you will, should have been there for all to see.

So where was it then? Why didn't it show up at the one venue it has to show up every season we make that 40-mile journey?

They turned the Christmas lights on in the city the Thursday before last and someone else in the office said that the headline in Friday's paper should have read 'Lights On - No One At Home!' as everyone seemed to be out enjoying the big switch on rather than watching 'I'm A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here!'.

That wished-for headline also pretty much summed up our day trip to Suffolk.

Come to think of it, perhaps more than a couple of our players were screaming 'I'm A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here!' as the game started.

And no amount of berating the Portman Road turf can conceal that there were some serious issues unfolding out there; ones that those in charge must chew over and spit out quickly or a third consecutive season in this division will be a nigh-on certainty by the turn of the year.