Friday 5 July 2024: Distracted
I was very late to my desk yesterday. Two hours late. Not good enough. I’d had another rough night, but still. Perhaps if I get up at the right time…
Thursday 4 July 2024: General Election
We had a naked prawn linguine for tea on Tuesday, which was delicious, followed by meringue nests with fruit and yoghurt (for me) and ice cream (for him). While he…
Wednesday 3 July 2024: Productive day
After a bit of a rough night, we were up relatively early to take the poet to the dentist. He was full of cold (hence the rough night) and secretly…
Tuesday 2 July 2024: The month ahead
We had a lovely Friday/Saturday with grand-doggy #1. We took him for a stroll on Friday night and returned him to his humans at around 11:30 the following morning. We…
Monday 1 July 2024: June wrap-up
Ohmygosh, I forgot to post my June wrap-up on Friday! That’s what happens when the first and/or last days of the month fall at the weekend! Here’s a quick run-through…
Friday 28 June 2024: Executive decision
I was at my desk fairly early on Thursday morning as I had a dentist appointment in the middle of the day, for which I had to factor in travel…
Thursday 27 June 2024: Success!
The plan was to step away from the newsletter for a day or so and get on with some other work. However, there was one thing I wanted to do:…
Wednesday 26 June 2024: Newsletter imminent
Last few pics from Poland. Again, only for illustrative purposes. I started Tuesday by finishing Monday’s jobs, the first one being yesterday’s blog. Once that was done, I forced myself…
Tuesday 25 June 2024: Back to work!
I’ve included a few more scenes from Poland today, but only for illustrative purposes. It took me a while to get going on Monday. First of all, it was the…
Monday 24 June 2024: Poland
We got up on time on Tuesday morning last week and headed south to East Midland Airport. It’s not the nicest of airports and we didn’t have the best experience…
Thursday 20 June 2024: More writing!
After a late night on Sunday submitting the cosy mystery for the anthology, Monday started later than usual. Over breakfast, though, I dealt with emails, one of which had come…
Wednesday 19 June 2024: Busy weekend #2
Sunday was Father’s Day and I had up to 2 stories to write and a blog post. One of the stories, THE KNIGHT OF WANDS, had to be in by…
Tuesday 18 June 2024: Busy weekend #1
Gosh, Saturday was a busy day. The bank account took a bit of a bashing too. At the top of the day I received a reply from DEADLINES FOR WRITERS,…
Monday 17 June 2024: Seem to be getting there
Friday morning began with the client edit pdf proof landing. This has also gone to the author and to a proofreader. Once we’ve all had a look, I’ll consolidate the…
Friday 14 June 2024: Re-subscribe
Before reading any further, if you’re a subscriber to the blog (not the newsletter) and you’re not receiving your email notifications, I think you need to subscribe again. You can…
Thursday 13 June 2024: Starting a routine
Having identified no fixed routine as a possible problem when doing my work (or not doing it, as the case too often turns out), I started to make a plan….
Wednesday 12 June 2024: Durham
My jolly to Durham wasn’t quite as productive as I hoped it would be. In fact, it wasn’t productive at all. There are a few reasons for this, but the…
Tuesday 11 June 2024: A turtle dove!
As ever, we had a nice weekend, starting with a successful Monkey Dust gig on Friday night. We had a lot of fun and the band itself filled the venue…
Monday 10 June 2024: Playing with covers… (again)
While we were on holiday, I received an email every day from Jetpack telling me that my site was unresponsive. Usually less than an hour later, I had another email…
Friday 7 June 2024: Whoosh!
And there we have it. Another week gone by in a flash. I didn’t do a great deal yesterday other than cogitate all day over cosy mysteries. I had a…
Thursday 6 June 2024: D-Day
It’s the 80th anniversary of D-Day today. The picture above is one I took of the Commonwealth war graves in Finningley. We have a Commonwealth war grave here in our…
Wednesday 5 June 2024: Travels with Peggy
The last week of May was our annual Whitsun or late spring bank holiday. We always tend to take the whole week off, regardless of if we’re doing anything in…
Tuesday 4 June 2024: The month ahead
Yesterday was my first day back at work following a week’s holiday. We had a good rest, and a good break. But I was itching to get on with something,…
Monday 3 June 2024: May wrap-up
We took the last week of May off as a holiday, which means I didn’t do very much work. In fact, I didn’t do any. I’m not beating myself over…
Friday 24 May 2024: Editing all day
It was almost 10pm by the time the poet returned home from his 3-day business trip. He’d left the house first thing Monday morning, and he got back just before…
Thursday 23 May 2024: The bells
I had a much better night on Tuesday. I left all of the inside doors open in the house and kept a window open in the bedroom, so I could…
Wednesday 22 May 2024: Magpies are clever
I’m not used to being in the house on my own yet and during the night on Monday/Tuesday, I woke up at about 3:30am thinking I could hear noises. I…
Tuesday 21 May 2024: Busy weekend
Gosh what a busy weekend we had. Saturday We were up early on Saturday because we had a lot to do, and while the poet was getting something out of…
Monday 20 May 2024: A little friend
I did a lot of faffing on Friday morning and before I knew it, it was time to go and get my hair cut. When I got back, I went…
Friday 17 May 2024: Too many people. Again!
I forgot to add one more thing to my list of things I could do in Durham for the day yesterday. I could have an editing day. I think the…
Thursday 16 May 2024: My first jolly!
We had a really nice time on Tuesday evening in Sheffield. We had our tea at Ask Italian, which is just like Pizza Express, and we hung around for a…
Wednesday 15 May 2024: Customer no-care?
Once upon a time, back in the day when I worked for a living, I was poached to serve on a S.E.C.R.E.T. committee: Satisfy Every Customer’s Requirement Every Time. I…
Tuesday 14 May 2024: The days are getting busy
The weekend was very full and busy, starting with a packed Saturday. We started with a visit to the mother-in-law to pick up something for Son #2 who’d had an…