Wednesday 26 April 2023: Up with the lark… sort of

Image by Susanne Jutzeler, Schweiz ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ญ ๐Ÿ’•Thanks for Likes from Pixabay

We woke up yesterday to the sad news that a musican friend of our had passed away. We don’t know the circumstances, but we do know he’d been poorly and even in hospital recently. Even so, it was still a bit of a shock. He was a lovely bloke, one of the good ones, and he will be sadly missed.

Other considerably better news received shortly after we did wake up was a personal text message from our new doctor letting me know that Saturday’s chest x-ray was fine. I didn’t even know that doctors did that these days, although she had sent me a leaflet last week, also via text. We’re very impressed with our new doctor. Very impressed.

We were up early because the poet had an appointment with the physiotherapist. He did try to get an appointment with the doctor first but they apparently send physio complaints straight to the physiotherapist because that’s where the GP would only send them.

We were a little bit late arriving because when asked for directions to the physiotherapist’s the poet was told ‘they’re just across the road from our other branch’. So we went to their other branch to take it from there only to see that they’re on a traffic island that has five roads off it…

We parked at the surgery and the poet went in to ask for directions and they pointed to a massive health centre on the other side of the dual carriageway. So he left the car at the surgery and walked over. I sat and read while I waited. The physio had a good look at him and gave him some exercises.

The vet appointment was next and the dog was given a month’s-worth of medication. The vet doesn’t want to see him again for three months.

Came home to find a bottle and a note left on our doorstep from a neighbour, thanking us for an apparent recent kindness, which was a kindness in itself. Hung out two washloads, as it was a sunny day. And received a delivery that was two days early.

By the time I hit my desk, the poet was in the midst of a video conference so I had to get on with some quiet work or type very, very quietly. I did a bit of both by starting this blog and then catching up on on-screen work using the mouse where possible. This consisted of catching up with social media. I also read through the previous day’s blog post and corrected all of the typos… Then I had to go into Buffer to stop the updated post reposting everywhere.

I surfed the job boards but didn’t see anything I fancied, I entered about half a dozen quick competitions, I carried on completing surveys until they stopped screening me out and I managed to finish one, and I collected another book to read and review from NetGalley.

There were fifteen calls for submission via Duotrope for May plus three others, so I went to have a look at those to see if any sparked any interest. I willowed it down to only four, and even then I wasn’t totally sure about those. So I had a look at the June submission period, as those are likely to be written in May, and I found a load more. It took a long time to go through them all and weed out any that don’t pay or that pay very low. In the end I was left with four per month.

By the end of the working day my eyes were tired. But I had a few story starters to leave percolating. I have a lot more day ahead of me today so I’m hopeful I get a lot more done too.


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