I had to get up early yesterday because the roof man was apparently coming. He’d warned it was weather-dependent and as it hasn’t really stopped raining (or snowing for a bit) for several months now, I wasn’t holding my breath. The poet had to get up and off anyway, so I got up with him.
Ten minutes later than scheduled, while I was having my quiet dirty cuppa, he rolled up outside the house. I was surprised he was on his own because, well, roof work, rain, health & safety, etc. But he was, and he just cracked on and got on with the work. While he started work in the front, I played with the dogs in the back so they’d at least be a bit worn out and, hopefully, sleep for much of the day.
For the first half of the day I found it difficult to settle to anything, so I sat in the living room, from where I could see him coming and going, and did bitty, faffy stuff I could do on my tablet. Which wasn’t a lot, actually. But I needed the rest time as the dogs had me up several times in the night and I was really very tired. Spaniel wanted to play a few times. Probably the excitement of having a stranger on his territory.
I got some reading done and finished the current review book. I’ve started to build ‘reading time’ into my working day as well as everything else because I’ve made a bit of a promise, a commitment, to all these publishers sending me books to review, and I have to stop being a hoarder…
Once at my desk I still couldn’t settle into anything concrete, so instead I revived my Medium with all the blog posts so far this year and I amended the blog template. Now the posts are appearing in 3 places, I’m just listing them all at the bottom, instead of doing different lines for different platforms.
Within minutes of me posting one blog post I’d engaged a reader who ‘clapped’ for the the ‘story’. Hopefully they read it to the end so the reading time clocks up. I did check at the end of the day but then remembered that any reads don’t register until the next day. So I stepped away from that and stopped checking it.
I won’t be spending a lot of time on Medium until and if ever it starts to earn its keep. At the moment the Patreon isn’t really earning its keep either, but I’ve decided to give it a year before pulling the plug. I may as well do the same on Medium.
By the time I’d done that and written and shared yesterday’s blog post everywhere, the poet was home and working in the office behind me. He had a Teams meeting first, and then he had a load of admin to do. Once his Teams meeting was over, I booted up the advanced depth workshop.
If I wear headphones, I can focus on the workshop more, but I can’t hear if one of the dogs starts to make wanting out noises or if the doorbell or phone goes. So I don’t wear headphones. The poet usually wears headphones for his meetings as I can work better without the yammer at the other end. But I can’t run the workshop over the speakers if he’s got a meeting because they can still hear it at the other end over the microphone. So if we both want to listen over headphones at the same time, we take it in turns.
It’s better if I’m watching a video in silence because he doesn’t also have the clackety-clack of my industrial-strength wired keyboard if I’m typing. But if there’s a pet emergency, or if the phone or door goes, he can’t drop everything and attend to that instead. If, however, he’s just watching a video or observing a meeting, then he can step up.
And so we take it in turns. When he’s out at work I have to do it all anyway, so it is a bit of a help when he’s working from home as he can take some of the pressure.
Not long after the poet got home, the roof man finished for the day. He’d removed all of the guttering at the front and both sides and installed new brackets, ready for the new guttering today. And he’d made-good the fascias behind. Even if it’s raining today, he said he can come and fit the guttering. But he won’t be able to go up on the roof.
I revised the Week 3 videos and I did intend to do some client editing afterwards. But I was still soooo tired. We’re both really tired and it must be the disturbed nights. Even if we don’t think the poet hears the dogs, it must still disturb his sleep, and when he has to drive anywhere in this awful weather, it can’t be helping.
The puppy is getting a lot better now, though. He’s going longer between toilet breaks. He knows that if he asks, and even sometimes barks, he’ll get our attention and let him out, and then he gets a treat for being so good. His recall is only just starting, however. Especially on a whistle. But if he wants to ignore us, he can be stubborn too and will stay in the garden for hours just sitting on the grass and munching on a stick in the pouring rain if we’d let him. Then again, he knows that if he waits long enough he’ll get a ‘sweeties’ recall and he gets a treat then too. (We call dog treats sweeties in our house.)
I could have gone for a lie down, but I ended up just sitting in the living room doing nothing again.
Fingers crossed for a better night’s sleep tonight.
This post appears on Words Worth Writing, Medium and Patreon.
I hope you get some good rest. Between the roof and the dogs, it’s a lot.