Thursday 6 August 2026: We have grass!

Quite late on Tuesday evening, the building company owner sent a text warning me that the truck was coming at 8am the next morning to cart away all the debris from the front lawn. He and his co-worker would be at ours at 7:50am in order to meet the driver. He knew I’m not a fan of early mornings and I really appreciated the message. Fortunately the poet would be here too and he said he’d let everyone in and move the cars, etc.

The lads duly arrived and tidied everything up ready for the grabber to move everything from lawn to the back of the truck. But there was no sign of the truck. For an hour and a half they waited. Nothing. The turf arrived on the dot at 9:30am and was supposed to cart away any rubbish the grabber couldn’t take. I think the builder told him to come back later…

Eventually they got through to the missing driver and discovered he’d be here at around 10:30am. He arrived at 11:15am. I felt so sorry for the lads who were looking forward to getting it all done by lunch time and having an early finish.

This driver delivered the top soil we needed to lay the turf that was already in rolls in the back garden. While one of the lads helped him clear the rubbish, the other one set to and started to lay the turf. It then took him about an hour to get everything off the front lawn and onto his truck, but he left a right mess for the builders to clear up later in the day.

I had another look for some open calls for submissions whereby the writers would be paid, sometimes quite well, and always retain their copyright. I found five and shared four of them. The fifth one capped submissions at 300, which isn’t very many but their prerogative, so I didn’t share that one.

Then I had a bit of a mini-rant on FB about sharing a dozen opportunities for writers over the past week and a half and how I didn’t want to hear another single complaint about there not being enough markets these days.

The markets I’m sharing often pay a decent rate, less often pay the same rate some of the magazines here have been paying recently, and they don’t grab all your rights.

Or sneak off and republish them elsewhere behind your back without paying you any recompense and, in the process, completely voiding any agreement you may have with the likes of Kindle Unlimited – at the risk of having your account terminated on the spot. No, they don’t do that.

I finalised yesterday’s blog post, chose the graphic, and shared it everywhere. And I started today’s. I also kept an eye on the builders, an eye on the dog, and an eye on our gradually growing back lawn. (Three eyes? Wow.)

By the time they’d finished laying the turf and running backwards and forwards to the tip, it was getting on for 3pm. They left the garden as best they could, but it was a bit dirty…not dirty as in dirty, but lots of dirt blown around. Before they went they activated the new sprinkler the poet had bought at the weekend. By the time the poet got home from work, it was drenched. And yes, we finally had a downpour too…

BUT…we have grass! And Phase 1 of the garden project is complete. I’ll be sharing images once I’ve revived the Our Garden This Week blog.

I found out that one of the markets I’d shared earlier in the day hadn’t paid promised and contracted royalties to a writing friend for nine of his stories, and that emails to their official email address had been ignored. As I’m not in the business of recommending markets to writers who rip them (the writers) off, I found another link to replace it with, one that I know from personal experience pays on time and when they say they will, and they respond to emails.

For the rest of the day I was proofreading the client editing job. I wanted to get it done by Tuesday and it was still lingering on Wednesday, so after a quick break for something to eat in the evening, I carried on until I finished. at about 9pm. I sent it off to the client, then settled down in front of the telly for the rest of the day.

Today I’ll start a new proofreading job, and I’ll cross that market off my list of markets to submit to. It’s a shame, but I’d sooner find out before I’ve written a single word than a year later when expected royalties don’t hit my bank account. We all know how much I hate it when people mess with my money.

This post appears on Words Worth Writing, Medium and Patreon.