I haven’t blogged for at least a month. A whole twenty-eight days! But I’ve got good reason – seven in fact…
1. The mini is officially dead. The garage people uhmed and ahed about giving us a quote for a new shell for several weeks and then came up with the extortionate quote of £13,000. The insurance people said it would be too expensive to repair, strangely enough. Just look at the state of it. Poor, mini!
2.Panicking: “How long did I think it would take to finish my book?” asked Mr. F one day. “Will it be finished by Christmas? If not then, when?” It sent me into a spin: Oh God, when will I finish, if I count up the number of words I’ve done already will I be able to work it out? Why am I taking this long? In a blaze of fury, (at my slow progress) I screwed up chapters sixteen to twenty. For a couple of days, I couldn’t look at anything I’d written.
3. Mr. F’s job finally ended. He spent a few days at home, (poor dear) fretting about what to do next and whether he was going to be paid or not. I wasn’t ever so patient, I’m sorry to say. (Is it a writerly trait to fly off the handle when someone invades your space? Or am I just anti-social?)
4. I tried to turn into someone else. Did I really harp on about turning into someone else last time? Suddenly, I was desperate to change places with someone. I mysteriously morphed into Matt Bellamy for a week or so on Facebook. If I was him, I wouldn’t be blue for long. I’d just plug into the amp and reel off a riff. Bingo – sorted!
5. OFSTED inspection number two. It included a lovely forty minute interview – just me and two inspectors.
6. Mr. F had another accident. When I arrived home from there he was standing in the garden, wrist in a sling, several stitches in his knee, gassing to our Indian next door neighbour without a care in the world. Or so he wanted us to think. He winced anytime he was touched and was only just about managing to hobble round the house.
7. I nearly broke the scales when I stepped onto them this morning. Cue again the “Can’t I be someone else?” theme. (Well s’pose if that’s the only side effect from the past couple of months, then I’m not doing too badly.)