Wednesday 26 November 2025: Posh ice cream

And just like that, this is the last-but-one blog post for November. The day after tomorrow is the wrap-up and then we’ll be into the last month of the year – and SNOW on the website! I have 3 weeks off for the Christmas break too, which doesn’t give me a lot of working year left. Ah well, perhaps I’ll feel as though I’ve got a lot more done at the end of next year.

I didn’t make a pudding on Monday for the next 3 days. We had some steamed puddings in the cupboard and some custard to use up, so we decided to have that instead. But when I started to get them ready at tea time, the date on one pair of puddings was Saturday just gone, and the other date was Sunday. And these weren’t ‘best before’ dates. They were ‘use by’ dates. There’s a difference.

So those all went in the bin and we had a rummage in the cupboard for something else and ended up with tinned pears (in juice, not syrup) and posh ‘ice cream’ from the freezer. The pears were great, but the ice cream was more like a gelato. Still nice, but not what we were expecting. Especially from a premium brand. 

We’re seriously contemplating getting our own ice cream maker…the poet has had a go at an ice cream replacement a couple of times, and it is very delicious. But I think we need something that will keep whipping the ice cream while it freezes. Failing that, our local farm shop, where we get our milk deliveries from, make their own ice cream. We may sample that one of the days.

We were all up nice and early because the poet was off on another 2-day business trip and it didn’t seem worth going back to bed after the dogs had been out and fed. So I made my dirty cuppa and sat with them while they had their play time together. That segued into my quiet hour, and I was generally slightly ahead of schedule for the rest of the day.

I fed the birds, emptied the dishwasher, and had some play time in the garden with the dogs. Then we all came in, they went back to sleep, and I started work. When he wasn’t sleeping, the puppy was a bit mischievous. But hey, he’s a puppy…

I didn’t have to write and publish yesterday’s blog post because I’d already done it the day before. (Smug, much?) So I was able to go straight into the day’s actual work. And first job of the day yesterday was to brainstorm the next story for 12 stories in 12 months. It only has to be 300 words, hence it might fit the Christmas micro fiction market if they open it again next year. 

But I also looked ahead to this rather nifty submissions schedule I made for next year and identified a further market for this one, plus a series of very short stories I might be able to add it to throughout the year. I like to do a mash like this because it maximises value. All I have to do is make sure I write what these people want. 

When I was happy with all of that, I moved on to the next job on the list: the new client edit. And that was me set for the rest of the day. I started today’s blog post so I could step away from the desk/office and sit in the living room doing the first hard-copy edit. I’d already printed it on Monday, so I didn’t have to wait for that…

…or that was the plan. I was just about to go into the other room when the door went and I had a visitor…

Ah well, there’s always today.

The puppy did a forward roll off the office chair and landed in his basket on his back. Then he just lay there grinning up at me. I fear for his safety at times, I really do.