Thursday 13 November 2025: Editing

I forgot to complete my food allergies diary on Tuesday, so that was the first job I did Wednesday morning, while it was still fresh in my mind. The second job I did was yesterday’s blog post. Fortunately I’d already started this and only had to tidy up the end, source an image, and post it. And I received a reply from the author who sent a message to the website email address, which I only saw yesterday and responded to myself.

Before all of that, though, I’d also done my usual chores. Let the dogs out, feed the dogs, empty the dishwasher, put a washload through, folded and put away 2 washloads, and I had my morning 30-minute playtime with the dogs in the garden. I didn’t feed the birds first thing as there was still plenty left over from the day before. A bit soggy, from the rain, but plenty left over.

Speaking of rain, I think we caught the tail-end of a storm on Tuesday too. When I was having my second play time of the day with the dogs there was a right hooley blowing and we’ve had thrashing rain for a few days. It had blown itself out by yesterday morning, but everywhere was still a bit soft and damp.

At the beginning of the week, the kettle broke. The limescale filter fell out and I couldn’t get it to wedge back in. Not really a problem as we have plenty of pots and pans and a hob that works, so I made my tea with water boiled in one of the saucepans. Somehow, though, it’s not the same. I wonder if it’s the limescale…the poet dropped into a supermarket on his way home from work on Monday and bought us a shiny new kettle that glows blue when it’s on. 

I mention this now because I was, at the time of writing, enjoying a rather nice cup of tea, and it occurred to me that the water was different. The tea tasted nicer, fresher, cleaner…

By now it was time for my midday breakfast, and I started today’s blog post.

The latest newsletter went out on Tuesday and I lost one subscriber. I’m now wondering if I can set up a brief questionnaire when someone unsubscribes, just so I know what, if anything, I did wrong this time. 

I investigated an auto-response and a forwarding system for the website email address, so I don’t ignore people for up to a month again. I was able to set up an auto-response, although it hasn’t worked with my test messages yet. I found out I could set up a forwarding system there too, but I had to create a forwarding only email address, so I forgot about that for now.

On Yahoo, I can collect emails from other mail providers. They’ve changed things recently so you have to have the app to do things like that, and I don’t have the app. I got one for Mac, but it wouldn’t let me collect emails from the website. Not sure that’s my end, the website end, or the Yahoo end. 

So nothing is working yet anyway. Then again, I’m not sure now’s the right time to be messing with tech, though, for some reason…

I turned off the internet and opened up the Word file for the editing job only to see that Word’s been playing silly beggars again and one thing I’d changed on Monday, one big thing, was still there not done. I did it again, and this time I think it’s stuck. 

After I’d eaten, at 3pm, I took the dogs into the garden for another play. I’m wondering if this counts as exercise for me as well!

I updated my food allergies diary and got back to the editing job. But just before I did that, an email came in from me to me telling me that the website email in-box isn’t manned daily. Ta-da! It worked! I turned the internet off again and tried again, and ended up working until 6:30pm.