Tuesday 9 April 2024: Getting back in the swing

I finished yesterday’s blog post yesterday and before I did anything else, I went out to feed the birds. We have a blackbird who comes and stands on the fence, shouting at us while we’re filling the feeders, but we also have a very tame robin that comes down to eat the food as we’re putting it out for them.

There was no sign of the blackbird yesterday, but there was a lot of screeching coming from the front garden, where most of the blackbirds seem to be nesting. Perhaps there was a cat out there, or someone walking past the house. The robin was there, though. I said hello to him, he chirped back, and I tossed some seed on the floor for him.

By the time I got back to my desk, the sparrows had arrived, and so had the blackbird. Before long the whole lot were there. Honestly, I swear they sit there watching, waiting, so they’re ready to swoop in just as soon as the coast is clear.

The first job on my to-do list was study work. Before I continued with the writing mastery course, I collected the codes for 4 new pop-up classes and applied those so the courses were there on my dashboard. The exercise book I use for writing workshops was almost full, so I hopped online to order more. It was cheaper for me to buy the books in packs of 3 than they were in packs of 5, so I ordered 5 packs of 3.

That reminded me I had a couple of gift cards to redeem from playing games, worth £15. So that was next. It was too late to pay for my exercise books, but I think I’d rather have an actual book to read for playing the games than something to do with work.

Then it was back to the study work. This week is all brand-new. I revised everything else on this course this far to make sure I’d covered it all in the actual writing of the story. I had, as well as a further 2 steps that were new before we broke up for our holiday.

The second job on my list was writing work: THE SECRET OF WHITEHORSE FARM. All I did, though, was transfer the beats from the writing course to the book and add the rough number of words per beat.

I got a bit distracted from this job, though, as the dog wanted out twice and both times he wanted me to put him in his wheels. The second time he wanted to go in the FRONT garden (no steps, we think), and he has to be supervised in the front garden because we think there’s a blackbird nest quite low down in one of the hedges.

The first thing I had to do was close the gate. Someone had delivered a religious leaflet through the door and not bothered to close the gate after themselves. The leaflet went straight in the bin. While we were out front, the dog decided he didn’t want to come in. Instead, he wanted to stay outside for ever and play ‘fetch’ with a stick. I humoured him for a bit, but I had to drag him back indoors after a while.

I had to go through the ID process AGAIN for the probate people, which took ages. We’ve all already sent our proof of identification through at least twice each, and all 3 of us paid for the privilege. But here we were again having to send it through all over again. And if we didn’t use their online partner programme, then we had to pay again for someone to fill in forms and swear we were who we say we are.

She said she needed my brother’s phone number to send him the link, and my sister received her link via text out of the blue on Friday. But mine came in via email. My phone doesn’t scan those code things, so I also had to do it on my laptop. I don’t have a webcam on the monitor, so I had to manoeuvre the laptop lid in order to take a picture first of my driving licence and then of myself.

Honestly, such a palaver. And, as I say, the THIRD time I’d done it. I’m afraid they already received a really ranting email last Friday when I saw their email quite late in the evening and I asked them if they were using tactics in order to delay paying us our money for as long as possible. I mean, they’d already sent us an interim payment and now the ID we’d sent wasn’t good enough? Yeah, right.

I expect I’ll get into trouble for saying that now, but they have been so difficult to work with throughout the entire process. I should have kept a tally on the hours I’ve spent doing their work for them, over and over again.

I made a feta salad for my dinner. It was meat-free Monday in Wordsworth Towers (that’s a joke – it’s a bungalow!) and we were already having fish for tea, otherwise I might have had a tuna salad or a salmon salad. But I didn’t want fish twice in one day – it’s hard enough having it twice a week – so I had feta.

While I had dinner, I hopped on over to Deadlines for Writers to read some of the other stories submitted to the 12 STORIES IN 12 MONTHS challenge. We’re supposed to submit 1 story and comment on 3. I noticed that one person had submitted 2 stories, so I didn’t read either of those. Then I selected 3 that only had 1 comment each, left a comment, then read a 4th and commented on that one too.

One thing I forgot to mention in Monday’s post was that I got cloned again on Instagram. Two people sent me messages this time, one on Instagram and one on Messenger. But when I reported it to Instagram, they refused to close it down for some reason. My niece had already reported it, and I got the poet to report it again, and I requested a review. When my other friend went to report it later, it had gone.

My poor niece was so affronted on my behalf that someone had done such a thing. I was more affronted that Instagram refused to take it down. It was so obviously a fake account. Unfortunately, 12 friends thought it was really me and started to follow it. Hopefully they saw my message asking them to report and remove it again.

The third job on my list was a writing job too. This time I wanted to edit SHAMPOO, SET AND MATCH down from 2,500 words to 1,900 words. After my first pass, I still had 248 to go. I had a look at the other short story on my to-do list, which is the next one for 12 STORIES IN 12 MONTHS. We only need to write 500 words for this one, so it shouldn’t take too long – once I have an idea.

One job I had to do yesterday too, but that wasn’t on the list this week, was Monkey Dust admin. That work should have been done last Monday, but as I was off work, it didn’t get done and I did it yesterday instead. I’d already created the poster for the next gig because the venue had asked for one, so all I really had to do was create the event, send out the invitations, and add the gig to Diane’s Gig List.

When I got there, however, the venue had already created the FB event, so that was one job less for me to do. I thought they might have added it to the gig list as well, but they hadn’t. So I did that and sent out the invitations.

The probate case handler came back to me and, I must say, she dealt with my issues very well, with both patience and understanding. I would not have remained quite so cool under the circumstances. She did send an interim account, which I’d asked for, but the file was corrupt (something else?), so I tried to mention that as nicely and politely as I could when I asked her for it again…

I did some clean-up work on FB and then started tea – my contribution was to put some potatoes in the oven to bake…

Aside from the Amazon gift cards, I had one for Google Play too, so I had a mooch and I think I’ve found at least one book I’d like to read. It’s a writers’ guide by one of the Harlequin authors that I’m toying with. Also, the next John D MacDonald Travis McGee omnibus. The poet has started to read the first volume, and he really likes the writing. The MacDonald omnibus is available on Google Play, so I might buy that one.

Plan for today

Here’s how today looks:

• Writing Mastery Academy
• THE SECRET OF WHITEHORSE FARM
• story #2 of #3 for weekly market
• 12 STORIES IN 12 MONTHS
• client edit Taliban book
• tomorrow’s blog

What’s your plan for today?