Grand-doggy #1 came on Thursday evening for a visit. The plan, therefore, was to take him out every day for a walk. So far, he’s been out twice. The garden’s big enough for him to run around in like a mad thing and he won’t walk beyond the end of our short bit of road without digging in his heels. But when the storms came too, the plan went out of the window. He doesn’t like the rain much. I don’t mind it, but I had other things to do anyway.
Friday morning, after my dirty cuppa, I fed and watered the birds and emptied the dishwasher before putting outside clothes on and getting the dog into his harness. I took him for a walk, and he did dig his heels in within about 50 yards. He’s much easier to drag in a harness than he is in a collar, and I did get him walking again in the end. But he’s a bit heavy to be wrestling with of a morning.
First job at my desk was the week’s finance update. There was only one income entry but no expenses entries, so that was a quick job.
The dog wanted attention for most of the day. It always takes him about a day to settle, and in that settling time everything usually has to be about him. So I played outside with him a couple of times and I played inside with him. I kept him supplied with water, food and occasional (healthy) snacks.
A hangover from the day before was those book covers in Calibre. I went in and changed a few dozen of them from black and white to colour and then I went through removing any duplicates…Yes, you’ve guessed it, most of those books whose covers I changed were duplicates and the other version had the colour cover. Ah well. At least I know it’s done now and can carry on from here.
I had another play with Affinity and found out how to blur backgrounds. Blurred backgrounds are so much better than slightly transparent backgrounds. And I made a new currently reading graphic.
I can’t remember what else I did on Friday because I didn’t get around to writing it up either. I think every time I settled down to do something, the dog got a bit needy. And it’s possible I gave up in the end because I removed all of that day’s jobs and moved everything along a week again, so that the current workload still ends in the last full week of October.
On Saturday we were all late getting up, even the dog. We dealt with all of the ‘pets’ and we went out to do the shopping, feeling very guilty about leaving the dog behind. We went to the butcher, the home bargains shop, the supermarket, and 2 banks. The first bank was out of cash and I’m trying to use cash where I can in my own little bid to keep cash in circulation. When we got home, the dog was standing in the exact same spot we’d left him in looking out of the side door, which is glazed.
We had something to eat, put the shopping away, and took the dog to a local reservoir for a walk. He loves water but he couldn’t go in because they have blue-green algae, which is harmful to animals and people. So we kept him on a long lead all the way around. The end of our walk was almost within touching distance when the heavens opened and the deluge began. This reminded me that we had a storm due on Monday and we might want to get some apples and pears in before they all get damaged.
On Sunday, we were all up a bit earlier, but it was very squally. So we didn’t take the dog for a walk. Instead, we went and collected all the already windfall fruit and put it in the garden waste bin. Then we picked what looked like the best of the apples an pears. We left a load on the trees and kept our fingers crossed that the storm wouldn’t be too windy.
The poet made 3 French bread baguettes and I made a pear and almond crumble. We took the dog to see the poet’s mum, and we took her a big bag of apples and a big bag of pears too. When we got back he made a start on both our Sunday dinner and 4 mini broccoli crustless quiches. He finished those when the broccoli for tea was partially cooked. Our house smelled delicious on Sunday.
Monday morning, he was literally up with the larks and heading off on a 5-hour drive down south for a 2-day business meeting.
I should have spent the day getting the bookazine ready to publish. Instead, I frittered it all away faffing with images for book covers. I must have looked at more than a dozen stock image libraries. One of my jobs was the cover of the bookazine, and this work kind of came under that. But it really is the only thing I did all day on Monday, besides feed and water the pets. I did put a washload through, but I didn’t empty the dishwasher.
Oh, and first thing, over my dirty cuppa, I had to sort out yesterday’s blog post not auto-posting again. This is becoming a bit of a habit. So I’m monitoring it now, keeping the emails, and I’ll report it to JetPack.
Today I need to get The Four Aces published. This collection is due out in a fortnight and I also have the blog post to write and the graphics to make. I have some admin work to do, and I have the bookazine to get ready for publication, as that will follow The Four Aces.
I love that you have so many edible apples and pears from your trees. Your photos of the baking were wonderful.
Hope the weather clears up and you get a lot done.
They’re so much sweeter straight from the tree too. We have the blackberries as well. Thousands of blackberries.
We used to have blackberries on the property on Cape. They were amazing!