Make Your Mind Up Time

I've had my beak down over the dreaded ebook now since January and stupidly, on the brink of publishing, I've read another 15 websites on the intricate technicalities of how not to do it.  I'm totally confused but I don't care; I'm going to give it a punt this weekend.

What booted me in the rump was a sample writing course I'd signed up for last month at the University.  Alphonse and other chums will tell you I've been banging on about saving up for and doing a Masters in television scriptwriting for far too many years - how it would enhance my chances, make my fortune (ha!) and network me into the upper strata of the writing community.  That's tosh and I know it; I just like being a student and wearing strange clothes and hanging about in bars looking interesting.  I do that anyway, so there's nothing to be gained there.

Back to the course.  Eight gals and one male tutor, who was very tall, like a goalkeeper with massive hands.  Granted, he really knew his stuff and nudged us along with the usual warm up exercises, editing practice and then we talked about writing and slagged off poetry as being 'fluffy'.  These ladies were serious writers and all very keen and it was going very well until he started talking about present participles and grammatical styles, and my brain caved in.  I hadn't done this stuff since the 1970s, when men had hair, smoked and wore mustard nylon polo-neck jumpers with flat fronted trousers.  Academia is not for me.  I love writing to you, and that's why I'm here at 8.00 am with a long day at work ahead of me filing medical records.

Other news from the Nest has all been about plumbing.  Next door's mainly.  They had developed an airlock which was vibrating the walls every time they filled a kettle.  I thought my tinnitus had got much worse so I enquired by banging on their front door.
"What's that **** noise."  This was 11.00 pm, and I wasn't happy.
"It's the pipes!" they said.  It sounded like Leicester's main sewer after a monsoon.  "We can't shut it up ..."
"Oh right."  They demonstrated again and the excruciating whining noises kept fifteen people up all night until the plumber came.

The following day, my new washing machine arrived exactly as a text message had predicted. They took away my old wreck with noisy bearings and replaced it with a shiny German model, except the chap who installed it broke the blue, cold water key saying 'Ooops!'  When we turned it on, the pipes produced arterial spurts of water all over the kitchen and thus a plumber was needed, except he couldn't come round for a week.  Happily, the shower needed replacing too so he could combine both jobs at once.  Except our ancient pipes don't conform to the norm and neither did the shower, so a twenty minute job stretched into oblivion and it took three of us with lots of swearing to bolt the damn thing into place.  Now it's permanently too hot and we've got another two week wait for him to come back and make adjustments.  At least our smalls are clean.

Tip of the Beak:  I haven't mentioned the 'situation' at work because it's grim and I don't know where to start.  People keep disappearing, or retiring, or in one case going home never to return.  It's my three year anniversary today and I'm still there, keeping under the managements' radar with my beak zipped.  It's the only way.

Raven