The poet went back to work on Wednesday 1 July, his furlough over for now. Within 7 days of him mixing with people again, we both had signs of a cold. I’m about 2 days behind him.
I work from home anyway and have done for a long time. This means that I’m not mixing with many people, catching their germs, or building immunity to various seasonal bugs for most of the time. He’s susceptible to infections anyway, but this is why if ever one of us catches something, then we both usually end up with it. We do share things.
The upshot of this is I’m not feeling great. But I have lost more than half a stone in weight – well, 7½lb – and not because I’ve not been eating. On the contrary, the “diet” went out of the window over the weekend because I just couldn’t face fruit again.
And on Saturday morning, after eating a “sharing” packet of Munchies each on Friday night, and having our first takeaway in weeks, I managed to put on 1½lb of what I’d lost so far – just in time for official weigh-in day. (Sigh!)
But I was back on the wagon on Monday, and on Tuesday morning, I’d lost it again, and some. What’re the odds of it going back on again before Saturday? I’d really love to share my first silver 7 this time, if I can …
Anyway, I was late to my desk again yesterday, but it was more of the same old, same old.
I had an admin session, catching up on emails, updating the job board, decluttering the webmail, and arranging for Richard Cadbury’s great-granddaughter to receive a copy of the pdf proofs so she can show it to the family and write her foreword for the upcoming biography.
Then it was tea made, timers on, social media off, fingers stretched, and more writing.
I got a bit stuck and distracted again checking things like the history of IVF, football fixtures in November 1974, and whether or not a doctor was still allowed to tell whoever he liked about a patient’s private condition – or his relatives at least. But I worked through it.
There was some faffing, too, of course. I have my characters’ individual scenes all listed nicely down the left-hand side of my Scrivener in what they call the binder. I went down and colour-coded each of them for at-a-glance referencing:
- blue flags for scenes set in 1974
- purple flags for scenes set in 1998 (there are only two characters there so far)
- and white flags for notes, the white being neutral
Ooh, I dunnarf faff!
And while my Scrivener counter said I’d written 2,029 words, my spreadsheet said it was actually 2,022 words, so Scrivener is more accurate now. And the NaNo timer said my speed was now 23 words per minute. So that’s getting better too.
Oh yes, and I crashed through that 20,000-word barrier.
I had a late dinner, caught up with all the social gubbins, and then it was back to the page for the Greek client.
