Wednesday 20 November 2024: We need a plumber

It started to snow at about 6pm on Monday and continued through the night. By morning, it had stopped and was starting to thaw. My watch told me it would be cloudy and dry all day and that there would be no more snow this week. My phone said the same. The weather app thought more snow was to come on Tuesday. Needless to say, I did keep an eye on it.

First thing yesterday morning I went out in my dressing gown to clear snow off the bird feeders and to top them up. There was a blackbird over on the ground feeding station trying to clear snow off that and only managing to shift a dead leaf or two. So I waded out to that and cleared that one off too. I also poured hot water onto the bath and the drinkers to melt the ice and snow, but the poet went out afterwards and brushed snow off the roof of the bird table, the wall and the drinkers. 

Scruffy Magpie was one of the first down, along with the blackbird with a white wing feather and another blackbird. When Scruffy started to bury his head in the snow, I didn’t know if he was burying nuts or digging them up. The day before, he’d flown from a wall right across the garden into the apple tree. This is such a huge achievement for him with his deformed wing, but at least he’s learning and getting stronger.

To work, and I had an email from the editing client with a new book. I sent a reply back, thanking her and saying I’d schedule it in, and she replied too with her own thanks. This book isn’t due out for a whole year, but I can’t get lax with it. I definitely can’t fit it in this month, and I probably can’t really fit it in during December, as I have two whole weeks off where the only work I’m doing is the Great Novella Challenge. I can print it, though, so it’s there and ready for me to dip into. I’ll schedule it in proper during January, though.

Yesterday’s scheduled blog post published, so I went in and shared that to BlueSky and Medium. It’s not just a case of pressing a button, though. BlueSky is easy, I just have to remember the hashtags. For Medium, it has to be formatted, the picture correctly captioned, straplines and kickers to be added, plus all the bumf at the tail end. Then I pin it to the top of my story feed, unpinning the previous one.

Next on the list was The Secret of Whitehorse Farm. So I made a cuppa, set the Pomodoro for 50 minutes, and off I went. I’m on Chapter 6, of 12, so past the halfway point. I’m starting to fill in some of the characters as I go. I knew who the killer was but I didn’t have a name. Now I have a name. I elevated 2 characters to suspect-hood, and I elevated 1 character to authority figure. I now have 5 suspects, including the killer, and I have a new walk-on.

We had a delivery to the door, even in the snow, which dragged me away from my desk. The new slow cooker had arrived. It’s much bigger than the one it’s replacing. And while he was getting it out of the box, the poet managed to drop something on his foot that potentially broke one or more of his toes. It could have been worse, it was a glass worktop-saver and it could have severed his toes! (Thankful for small mercies and all that…)

By my Pomodoro break, I had more than 700 words for Chapter 6 and a lot more notes. For my second 50-minute Pomodoro, I wanted to finish the chapter if I could. In the end I finished with more than 1,600 words, but I forgot to drop my second body, so I’ll have to go back to that.

Next up was brainstorming for the 300-word story for 12 STORIES IN 12 MONTHS due on 4 December. It coincides with a competition for a 350-word Christmas story due on 1 December. I read the rules and guidelines for the competition and mugged up on some previous winners. I jotted down all the requirements, and I had a play, coming up with 3 potential story ideas.

I went around the house closing it up for the night, drawing curtains, turning lights on, etc, and I noticed a roof leak in the kitchen accompanied by a hissing noise. The first thing we checked was snow outside as the gutters were piled high with snow and I’ve reported the fascia boards over and over again for not being weathertight. But when the poet turned the stopcock off, the hissing noise and the gushing stopped. So that’s a burst water pipe in the loft.

I reported the repair and she called back to say she couldn’t get anyone out that night, but she could get someone first thing in the morning. We had to leave the water turned off and only turn it on when we needed it for the evening at least. It also meant the central heating might go off. We have an electric fire in the living room and an electric radiator in the office that can be moved anywhere. Fortunately, the water already in the radiators stayed warm, at least for a while.

Back to work and it was date work. I printed off my perpetual monthly calendar for May and my perpetual weekly calendars. I added the permanent evergreens first, then the date specific evergreens. But I only got as far as the first week with the topical anniversary related stuff before that Pomodoro was up.

The plumber is coming this morning. Fingers crossed it’s an easy fix.