Loadsa luvverly books

It's Cumbria's turn to be flooded this time around, with more promised. Take a look here at the BBC News site.

I've had a very busy week and by the end of today I will have achieved each and every one of my personal objectives. That's a great feeling. It's been a busy fortnight, really. So this weekend, I'm taking some time off. I'm not going to give myself any chores to do or targets to meet. I'm just going to relax, maybe read, maybe cook, maybe watch telly or a film, maybe write, maybe go for a walk, maybe listen to music, maybe go to a gig. Therefore anything I do will be a bonus, and I usually find that any writing work I do settle down to under these circumstances is quite nice writing work and most enjoyable.

It's Children in Need day in the UK - it comes around so quickly. My choice tonight is watch the telethon or go and see a band. I'll see how I feel at 7pm.

Three of my books arrived this week.

A Fairly Dangerous Thing, Reginald Hill.

This one is out of print so I had to get it used. It's not a Dalziel & Pascoe one, which all do seem to be in print or reprint.










One Last Breath, Stephen Booth.

I ordered this one used too, because I'm still on an economy drive and it only cost me a penny. I'll pass it to the library when I'm done so the author at least gets plr from me.









Bite of the Mango, Mariatu Kamara and Susan McClelland.

This is probably the first one I'll read ...

... I'll probably be blubbing the whole way through it.

Y'all have a good weekend, yeah?

Burning the candle

Ee, it's been a long time since I burned the candle at both ends, but I'm doing it this week. With one deadline today and being in production on the magazine, I'm working all day at work then taking more home to work on in the evening. Last night I finished at 11pm, but as it's stuff I'm enjoying, it's hardly a chore at all.

Because I'm so busy it means I don't have a lot else to talk about just now. So today I'm going to direct you to Devon for a mini tour of Washington DC. She's been there this week and there are pictures and highlights. (I think she's on her way home to NY now, though.) I particularly like the war memorials, and I think my dad might like to see those pictures too. So pop along for a bit of a travelogue.

Today I am the wild woman of the west again. I forgot to dry my hair before going to bed. Again.

Putting it into perspective

I was listening to BBC Radio 4 on my drive to work this morning. Libby Purves had 4 guests on her Midweek programme - a football referee, a merchant sailor, a famous animator, and a Sierra Leone survivor.

The programme was quite jolly and funny, even when the interview began with Mariatu Kamara. Then it started to gradually dawn that this 23 year old woman not only experienced the terrors of Sierra Leone first hand, she also watched people she knew get executed in front of her, she was beaten and raped, and she had both of her hands cut off with a machete. She was 12.

An award winning journalist helps Kamara tell her harrowing story, which is fully available in the memoir The Bite of the Mango by Mariatu Kamara and Susan McClelland. I may get this book along with the Enid Blyton biography. But doesn't stuff like this put everything else into perspective? Kamara is such a cheerful girl, and pretty too - I Googled her when I got in.

It has been raining here for several hours, although it looks as though it may have finally stopped. There is surface water on most of the roads, up to several inches in many places. We have more gales and rain forecast, starting in the north west (top left), working its way south east (middle right), until eventually arriving in the south west (bottom left). And it's here until Saturday. The Environment Agency has put much of the country on flood warning.

Last night I worked until 1am on both the magazine and the confidential job. I have more to do on both today.

Two 4-day weeks

I'm in production now on the Winter magazine. We have a tight turnaround on this one as it has to be on everyone's desks in good time for the Christmas break. I took one of my Thursdays in off, so I could work on something else, and I'm doing that one this week instead, so that means 2 x 4-day weeks on the trot.

I've already got a few articles that don't seem to be turning in, but that's ok for now as I had too many pages anyway, if you remember. I'll drop back down to a 28-page with the option to still run to 32 pages if a 4-pager comes in after all, but as it's already late, and as we have a tight turnaround ...

I've almost finished confidential job #1. I wanted to watch a few episodes of a programme before finalising the fiction parts of the project and I could only see 2 online. So yesterday and today I got up early to watch episodes on the telly and I think I have a few more ideas for the fiction.

This morning I have to go through all the articles already in for the magazine. I have people sorting out additional pictures, and one of the authors wants to pop over to see me. By lunchtime I hope to be able to spend a short time on the confidential job and I may stay over after work to do a bit more. My self-imposed deadline is today, but my actual deadline is Thursday ... silly people ... :o)

Last night I watched a programme about Enid Blyton on the BBC, starring Helena Bonham Carter. I don't know how accurate the storyline was, but it made me think: what an evil, vindictive woman. Either that or, as Bonham Carter is reported as saying, she was completely bonkers. I think I prefer to believe the latter, particularly as she was known to suffer from dementia in her later years. I'd like to find out more so may see if there are any biographies. I know there's a new memoir due out by Blyton's first husband's third wife (I understand he was married when he met Blyton), but that may be slightly biased.

The nasty weather seems to have subsided. It's sunny and still today, compared to high winds further north.

Nasty weather

I had such plans for the weekend, there were over a hundred gigs to choose from and I was going on a short walk as part of my shoe-breaking programme. But when I woke up on Saturday, the weather was really nasty and I seemed to have a bit of a throat. I got a text from the walking buddy, who'd braved the weather rather than tackle the ironing, and he'd got drenched. I don't mind getting wet at all, but when I have a bit of a throat it's best to keep it at bay. The weather was much nicer yesterday, but very cold.

And so I worked, and read, and cooked. I made 6 individual chicken and vegetable pies and managed to pinch my hand between the knife and something else while tackling a particularly stubborn swede, but I didn't realise until afterwards that there was a deep cut at the base of my index finger. (How?) And instead of try and choose who to go and see, I worked Saturday evening too. And watched a bit of telly.

I finished one library book and started another, I did the weekly supermarket shop, and I did lots of theory work for confidential job #1. I tried to find some videos to help me with this online, but there were only two, so this morning I got up early to watch an episode on telly. I went back to bed to let it stew for an hour or so, and today I write.

The weather is nasty again today - I can't believe Holly went out in it. I expect she'll be in again soon enough.

Mucky pup

And so yesterday, just as I was leaving the house to go to the library, the postman brought me a(nother) nice cheque. This meant a detour to the bank. I've sold my dSLR camera and as soon as the cheque clears I'm to post it off to the new owner complete with insurance. Therefore I had to get it banked ASAP so it clears ASAP.

Because I was in town that meant I nipped into WH Smiths, but I was very good and only bought a Daily Mirror and a Daily Telegraph. Two extremes, yes, but there was a method to my madness. More on this shortly.

On the way back I decided to give my car its first treat in over a year - I stopped off at a hand wash place and paid for their "gold" service, which included inside doors and shiny tyres. It took 4 of them forever to get my car clean. Honestly, there was algae growing on the inside of the boot where the boot lid meets the body and the grime on the roof was so thick I wondered if the seals would still work. They did such a good job I dropped a tip in their box, and because I tipped them, they squirted some air freshener at my mat well on the passenger side. I can still smell that today.

By the time I got to the library it was closed for lunch - that's how long it took them to get my car clean. What a mucky pup. I nipped home and made myself a bacon sarnie, then went back, took my books back, donated 15 books, and came back with another 5. I'm going to be doing a lot of reading.

When I got back I studied the 2 newspapers. This is a fourfold thing:

1. I can read about the news;

2. I clip out stories to use in Devon's 5 in 10 course;

3. I have to choose 2 national stories from a daily to reproduce for a local for my Writers' Bureau course;

4. Writing Feature Articles also asks us to as a first exercise.

So I spent a good hour studying the newspapers. I won't be doing the exercises that Writing Feature Articles asks me to as they don't lead anywhere other than exercising that writing muscle, and that's a waste of time for me - I'm exercising it daily. But it is useful to see what the author is getting at and helps me to focus.

I clipped out a number of stories from the broadsheet (Telegraph) to use for parts 2 and 3 above, but the tabloid went in the bin intact.

Once I did that and put it on ice to cool and percolate in the background, I got on with the confidential job and got 12 of my 72 pages sorted. Only 60 to go ...

Today is deadline day at work and I have articles in. There are still some not here yet, but they have until the end of the day. One person has until Tuesday morning, as that's when I'm back in, and another has a couple of weeks due to topical stuff.

I have a busy weekend ahead as I have to finish confidential job #1. I thought my deadline was Tuesday, and it is, for me, but my purchase order gives me until Thursday, which is a help. I'm spoiled for choice as far as gigs are concerned. There are more than 50 in my area on Saturday alone. And I also have 2 new books to read.

Library

Today should have been a day in the office, but as we're not in production yet and as my deadline for the confidential job is Tuesday morning, I moved today to next week. I'll have 2 x 4-day weeks on the trot.

On Monday I spent most of the day finishing the gig list for November. Today I'll take some library books back and then crack on with this big job.

I have about 15 books to donate to the library but being a natural hoarder I'm dithering about those I haven't read yet - decluttering the bookshelf so I can put my writing, reference and text books in there. The ones I've not read are historicals and I want to read them when I'm writing my own. I keep telling myself they'll still be at the library when I need them, among hundreds of others.

Yesterday I ordered 4 books, 2 used that I can't get from the library, and 2 new for my own reference library. I have my next Stephen Booth and Reginald Hill coming (Hill wrote the Dalziel and Pascoe books but this isn't one of those), plus a book on travel writing and another on psychic development for beginners.

Quite a nice day ahead I think.

Bring them home

*** PERSONAL OPINION ALERT ***

Yesterday six soldiers made their final journey home to the UK from Afghanistan. One was just 18, another was a TA volunteer. As I watched footage of the six funeral cars carrying their coffins, I couldn't find the words to express how I felt.

On Remembrance Sunday one of the guests of honour at the Cenotaph was a young soldier who'd lost both legs and an arm. This should not be happening.

Today, on Armistice Day, at 11am we pause for 2 minutes silence. Today the only words I can find are: Bring the rest of them home before more are killed or maimed.

Bring them home.

(Today's pic came from here.)

Can you see my word meters?

I seem to be having a problem seeing my word meters. Sometimes, at work, this is due to an over-enthusiastic firewall. Usually, at home, I can still see them. At the moment, I can't. At either place. Our firewall may be over-performing today, tomorrow I may be able to see them again. At home, I may need to reinstall a version of Java or Flash or something.

Please let me know if you can see them or not. If nobody can, then it may be Writertopia.

EDIT: Ah, this could be due to NaNoWriMo. I've done some research and, apparently, word meters aren't offered in November any more, and existing ones fall over due to the excess and sudden rush. Fingers crossed it's only temporary. (10:30am)

Big thanks to one of my workmates for pointing me in the direction of our home version of MacAfee. We get a few packages like this in case we work on our home computers and I suppose it's in the company's best interest to ensure we're also virus-free. I've located the file, saved it to memory stick, and will load that next time I fire up the laptop at home. Then I can cancel the one I pay for via my phone/broadband bill which is obviously complete rubbish.

I had a good trip to the dentist yesterday. He let me off a filling this time, but I may need to have one, or two, next time.

Today I'm in the office. I have 3 articles in for the magazine already and I'd like to get those off to the designer so he can start on layout. We have a tight turnaround on our Winter issue as it needs to be on everyone's desks in time for the Christmas break.

I need to write a story that features Tucker's Funfair.

Wharncliffe Woods

Saturday morning I drove "over road" (across the M1) to meet the new walking buddy. We drove into Wharncliffe Woods where we parked up and then spent the next 5 hours tramping along the crags, through the woods and over the ridge. I didn't take my camera with me because the battery needed charging and we were travelling light anyway. So this time I've pinched the picture from here.

Here comes the science bit. I pinned on my pedometer and it recorded 17,886 steps, 536 calories burned, 10.73km walked - which converts to 6.6 miles. I'm quite proud of that.

We saw around a dozen different kinds of bird, 1 mammal (grey squirrel), at least 4 different kinds of fungi (toadstool pic from here), and we had a bit of competitive fun identifying the trees from either the bark or the leaves on the ground.

There was some gorse about, but nothing else was really in flower any more.

The highlight for me was watching a kestrel from afar as it hovered for several minutes, was bombarded by meadow pipits, before dropping to the ground and then coming to roost where we could watch it through the binoculars - and even with the naked eye - as it sulked at missing its prey. I nicked this picture from here.

Next time I'll take my own camera with me, so apologies and thanks to all the photographers I've plagiarised here. Please take time to visit the links so I feel a bit better about that.

Sunday was chores day. I baked a farmhouse fruitcake, a banana tea bread and a plum crumble and I caught up on all the washing. The trouble with emptying the washing basket, though, is that the ironing basket becomes a mountain. I'll have to work my way through that.

Today I have the dentist this afternoon, so I'm not looking forward to that. I also have the first draft of a short story to write, and I want to spend a couple of hours on the confidential job. I've already carried out maintenance on the laptop. Having everything re-installed makes it feel a bit like a brand new machine, but the security I've been paying for via my phone bill just isn't working. So I've got the free AVG virus protection for the timebeing while I either sort that out or replace it with something reliable.

In a state of shock

I've been struggling with finances for such a long time and this year I decided to take the bull by the horns and banish all credit from my environment. I transferred into a financial management plan (FMP) and suspended all previous bank accounts, credit agreements, overdrafts, etc. I've been living without credit since June, and it's been very, very hard.

Just as I thought I'd control it, we lost our quarterly bonus at work and then quite a few unexpected bills came in that had to be paid and had to come out of my wages.

I vowed to replace the bonus and set about finding additional freelance work, then confidential job #1 arrived, for which I received my purchase order yesterday so I think that means I got the gig. (Yayyyy.) This one replaced the bonus all by itself, but I must NOT get complacent. Then we got offered a goodwill bonus from work. (Better than a kick in the teeth.) Then Father Christmas arrived early. (Thank yooooooooo.) And then - THEN - we received notification that we'd get a full bonus after all. (DOUBLE WHAMMY!)

In less than 3 weeks' time I'll be back in the black for the first time in ... forever. And big time. I still can't quite believe it's going to happen and keep asking people: "Did that email really say that this morning?"

I'm going to enjoy the feeling for a while, then I may get my car serviced and valeted, and then I'll up my FMP in the new year. At some point I'll also probably replace the laptop with a nice, shiny new one. (Thank you, Santa Claus.)

Other good stuff
On Wednesday the lovely virtual office buddy took a look at my laptop and agreed it was probably D. E. Double D. Dedd. He did take it away "for a few days" but warned that I "may have to get a new one".

Ten minutes later he was back. My laptop was fixed. It was something he could solve after all.

When I got home, Santa had been.

On Thursday I took my car in to have the rear end looked at but the chap that ran into me decided it was too much for him to pay cash so we are going through the insurance. The car needs a new bumper, a new bumper lining, it needed 2 new lightbulbs, plus the labour. My insurance company solicitors took over the handling of it and I'm to fax them the quote I got from my garage, plus my driving licence (all parts), plus 2 forms of identification for when they hire a car for me.

Later yesterday afternoon the purchase order arrived for confidential job #1.

This morning I dropped by on my way to work to get the lights fixed. I can manage with a dented bumper but I could get tugged for 2 rear lights out.

Not long after I got in, the email arrived from work about our bonus.

Day job
It's deadline day next Friday and already I have 3 articles in and a selection of photographs.

The weekend
Tonight I intend to work on confidential job #1.

Tomorrow I go for a walk up Wharncliffe Crags with the bloke I met last Sunday, then I’ll do more work on confidential job #1. I’ll also try and get some more gigs uploaded to the gig list.

On Sunday one of the blokes I used to rock and drink with 26 years ago in Birmingham is coming all the way from Worcester for a visit, I’ve not seen him for about 15 years. I’ll do a bit more work on confidential job #1, then Sunday night I’m going to see another of my favourite bands, Infinity.

This morning on my drive to work a truck came towards me with the following stamped above the cab:

TUCKER'S
FUNFAIR

I had to read it twice. :-/

Y'all have a good one.

Good news week

Well, after what could have turned into the weekend from hell, the week has certainly got better so far.

I have a new walking buddy, he contacted me this morning. A cheque arrived. I sold my dSLR camera. I pitched confidential job #1 and think the editor must have liked it as he forwarded it to the project owners and started to set up the BACs transfer. This job will replace the bonus we lost (fingers crossed). I'm back in touch with 2 of my best friends that I've not spoke to much for 5 months. We're getting a goodwill gesture regarding our bonuses. On Saturday I go walking. On Sunday a mate I've not seen for 15 years or more is coming to visit - I'm looking forward to seeing him. On Sunday evening I'm seeing one of my favourite bands that I've not seen since May. Another mate's going to take a look at my laptop. I sold some CDs, games and DVDs.

And when I arrived in my office I was greeted by a soldier ... what a treat.

Today I have to call my car mechanic to see when they can look at my rear end. I didn't think there was much damage but last evening realised I'd lost a nearside tail light and a nearside stop light, so I need to get those sorted before I get pulled by a copper ...

... but if it's a nice copper ...

Welcome back

Due to infection by virus and death by laptop the blog (and the gig list) was taken off air for 2 days over the weekend. Apologies to everyone that tried to hop on and found the temporary notice. I have to get my laptop re-formatted - or replaced - so now am restricted to what I can do from work. Much of my work is done in longhand first anyway, and I can borrow a laptop to do any electronic work. I'll just be limited to my internet work, which probably won't be such a bad thing after all and may do wonders for my addiction.

So, to the weekend ...

Friday started out very bad. Very, very bad indeed. I was called in the early hours and asked to change all my plans for that evening so I could give moral support, and when I got there it was chucked back in my face and I was accused of being a trouble maker. I couldn't be arsed to argue, it wasn't worth it. So I said goodbye and walked away. I reverted back to my original plan and went to see my mates, Heavy Load, over in Doncaster. We had an absolutely fantastic night and I got home on a high.

I did pull one of the finest nutters ever, though, before I'd made it the 4 feet from the door to the bar. Everyone in the room thought it was absolutely hilarious, but by then I was just about sick of loonies and nutters and other lost causes and I wasn't in the mood to entertain him. Fortunately the lovely sound engineer made a human shield of himself because he could tell I wasn't a happy bunny, bless him.

Saturday I had my viral problems and really didn't have time to sit and sulk or analyse or try and work out what I did wrong, and anyway, I didn't do anything wrong. I switched everything off via the mobile phone and had some me time. I also announced the attempted retirement of the nutter magnet ... I won't hold my breath.

Sunday, with no computer, I couldn't start NaNo even if I was going to, and I couldn't start confidential job #1 either. I could have stayed in and sulked that day instead, but I picked myself up and dragged myself over to my local RSPB reserve ... where I wore (amongst other things) a very sexy rain hat (har, har) and got chatted to by 3 different men. I'm meeting one of them again this weekend ... ;o)

I dashed back, had some tea, did a quick lick n slap-on, then collected the keep fat buddy so we could go and see our other mates, Rock Legacy, over in Ackworth. And what a belter of an evening we had with them.

Today I've snuck into the office to abuse the IT facilities. I want to sort out the stuff for confidential job #1, and then I'm going home again. If this job is confirmed, I'll be able to replace the laptop. Fingers crossed.

Apologies

This blog is temporarily suspended due to technical issues that will be resolved as soon as possible.

Apologies for any inconvenience.