E-petition mania, bees abandoning their hives and ... final digital challenge presentations - February was a strange month.

It started and ended well with a sunny rather than snowy weekend in Prague and a sunny rather than rainy half term in St Ives. But the weeks in between were a bit of an emotional roller coaster ride.

The relief felt after handing in our final Digital Challenge bid was soon replaced by nagging uncertainty. What should we do with our final 30-minute presentation to Government?

We started off with lofty ideals - no PowerPoint (too boring), Flash animation (because they will expect it from Bristol), video conferencing to bring in voices from around the city and not to bother repeating the bid (because they will all have read it). A week before the presentation we received the judges' written questions, which swiftly changed our minds.

Kevin, Jane and colleagues did a fantastic job assembling 7,500 words in response to 18 Government questions. It is fair to say that we all know a great deal more about business continuity planning and waterfall application development than we did at the start of the month. However, our real ‘wow factor' was Makala Cheung.

Makala is a young woman who works at Knowle West Media Centre. She has a delightful Bristol accent and talks a great deal of sense about life in Knowle West and the work of the centre. Initially I asked Makala if she would make a short video story that we could include in our presentation to government. But after spending more time talking with Makala about her work as a mother, singer, colleague and mentor, I realised that this was something the judges needed to hear for themselves - firsthand.

Makala joined Dick Penny, Barbara Janke and I on the trip to the Barbican, where we gave a really excellent presentation (no one would have believed that this was the first time we had made the presentation - there was no opportunity to get everyone together for a run through). However, the judges' questions threw us a little. Whilst we were geared up to talking about social and digital inclusion (which is the focus of the Digital Challenge), the majority of questions concerned business transformation. We answered strongly but remain unsure if our answers were strong enough. It is simply impossible to tell. I am sure Makala wouldn't mind me repeating that she said ‘coming along to the presentation was the most important thing she had ever been asked to do' - that will stay with me whatever the result.

And now it is all over bar the waiting and shouting and doing... until 13th March when Angela Smith MP will make the announcement. There will be a live webcast here so you can watch us all squirm.

Of course, I do have things to do - I am supposed to be preparing my presentation for next week's NOMAD Cutting the Wires conference; swotting-up on transformational government; commenting on the council's ICT strategy and deciding what to do on my birthday which is next week... but it really is hard to focus with the final decision looming.

Remind me never to enter a competition again.