It was grey and dismal at 6:30 yesterday morning when the dog woke me up to let him out, and also a bit damp so I didn’t hold out much hope for hanging out any washing. The poet was also up shortly afterwards, as he had a long drive ‘ovver th’ill’ (across the Pennines, ‘over the hill’) to Manchester. I had another hour before getting up and going through emails and social media. This was followed by a leisurely breakfast in the device-free conservatory because, well, the sun was coming up and it was nice and warm.
Soon, it was nice enough for me to hang the washing out and in my excitement I put another washload through. By the time I hung that one out, though, it was cloudy again, cool again, and there was a dampness in the air. With some optimism, I put a third washload through anyway. As I worked at my desk throughout the day I kept an eye on the weather, keeping everything crossed that the rain would wait until I’d brought it all in again at the end of the day.
And some folk truly believe that us Brits are obsessed by the weather…
I didn’t have any errands to run yesterday, but I did have one phone call to make to change another appointment our wonderful doctor has arranged for me, which is a bone density scan. She really is giving me a thorough looking over. I think this one is because of the seven-year-old x-ray result she gave me that showed some wear and tear on my spine and pelvis, but also possibly because of my age. I’d been trying to make the call all week but it kept going to answerphone, so I tried again and was ready to leave a message when someone answered, and my appointment was brought forward to next Friday.
I started today’s blog and noticed there was a warning that Buffer hadn’t been able to share the previous day’s post. I don’t know what happened, but all three fell over. So I had to go and fix that first, by sharing yesterday’s post manually, and then I tried to figure out what had gone wrong. I couldn’t see any reason. There wasn’t a plug-in update, and anyway, I don’t think Buffer is a plug-in, I think it’s an external thing. So I will have to keep half an eye on that when I come to schedule today’s post.
The usual quick daily faff followed.
I entered only a handful of competitions and I completed only one paid survey. I wasn’t screened out of any and I always quit when I’m ahead there. I removed a game from the home screen of my phone that I won’t be paid for now to take away the temptation to play it. Yahtzee™ is a favourite game of mine but when the poet saw me spending so much time on it, he bought us a real version and I showed him how to play it. It’s now in the device-free conservatory! Next job was surfing the jobs board, and I pitched for two jobs. Then I took a punt and hung that third washload out…
Just before dinnertime, I transferred all of my upcoming appointments to the writing calendar along with a few deadlines I already know about and would like to aim at. I currently have deadlines for seven short stories in May, and we have just over a week’s holiday in May too as well as three bank holiday weekends, so it’s going to be tight if I want to hit them all. Word-counts range from less than 1,000 words to up to 20,000 words.
Now I want to create some kind of system whereby I can plug each of these short story calls in with links to the relevant websites and manage them… Suggestions below. I can track them on Duotrope, but I don’t think I can manage them from germ of an idea through to submission.
After dinner, I started on the first of this month’s writing ideas, September. Although I should really be thinking about October by now. Dates day is always a long, slow slog, but I enjoyed how relaxed it made me feel not having to rush it through before starting a client job on the bounce. I got a lot done but had to abandon it until next time as the hours had gone by and it was the end of the day.
I brought the washing in – the rain had held off ALL day – put most of it onto a clothes horse to air and just a quilt (duvet) cover and a fitted sheet went in the tumble dryer to take the last of the dampness away.
It was a good, solid day and I felt as though I’d got through a lot even though I didn’t have a lot to show for it.
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