Where was I?

He phoned just before 4pm.
"I've crashed, " he said.

Being married to a man who loves his sports cars (not to mention the motorbikes) means that I've been expecting this call for nearly seventeen years. When it finally came, I was grateful he'd phoned me himself, having hung up on the emergency services lest they get to me first.
"Are you all right?" I asked.
"I'm fine," he replied, "but I think I've hurt my foot."
I had a little panic then: this is a man who could slice off his finger and mention only a small cut.
"What sort of hurt-your-foot," I asked.
"It hurts when I move it, and I'm stuck."
Poor lamb. He was stuck in the wreckage for over an hour while they searched for him (he didn't know exactly where he was, and his satnav had been flung out by the force of the impact). Eventually, he was spotted by a kindly farmer, bumbling along on his tractor, who noticed something unusual sticking out of the hedge...

Altogether, he broke three bones; one of them in four places, and the 'hurt foot' required a major reconstruction of his lower left leg. Three months, and three operations later (so far), it remains encased in a steel frame (with all kinds of exciting bits to twiddle). He doesn't get much pain now, he says, and has stopped swearing at his leg, but I can tell you he swears a lot at his crutches instead.

Now he's past the seriously-injured stage (sleeps well, can stay awake all day, isn't popping pills every hour), he's reached the frustration stage. He thinks he's better (which is laughable), and being a man, he's trying to get on with Normal Life. Only he can't. Not even nearly. Hence the swearing. This is at least as hard to live with as having a fragile, bed-bound, smashed-up invalid in the house.

He's getting better. Not day-to-day, or even week-to-week, but if we look back a month, he's much better than he was. Eighteen months, the consultant said, and we've done two of them already.

--------------------------------------------
These people have made it all possible: the Brighton Orthopaedic Trauma Team, who are talented and lovely with it; Queenie, who thinks she's neglected me, but has just been wonderful; Jane and Angie who have picked up so many pieces I've lost count; my dad, who paid for a cleaning fairy; and my kids, who stepped up to the mark when I needed them to.

Have You Forgotten Something?

Do you ever get that feeling that you've left a half-finished cup of tea lying about somewhere? Or at a party, when you've put your glass down, moved away from it, and taken another glass? You never quite lose that feeling that there's something, somewhere, waiting for you.

I do it with shorties too. I think them up in my head during the school run (or whenever else I have no means of committing them to paper/silicon), and put them down somewhere while I wait for the chance to write them. I forget, of course, everything - the characters, the plot, the dialogue. The whole lot vanishes somewhere between thinking how brilliant it all is, and realising I can't remember a word. Just to make it worse, I never quite lose that feeling that I have forgotten something important. It is very erksome, and somewhat distressing.

Well, yesterday, I did it with chocolate. I put two squares of Dairy Milk down somewhere, and forgot where I left them. All afternoon and evening (school run, shopping trip, cooking, kids' bedtime, cinema) I could hear them calling (but not loudly enough for a positive location).

Well, having finally given up on them, I went to the fridge for some more, and you know what? There they were.

Some (admittedly, very small) part of my brain was actually working: I'd put the chocolate where the kids can't reach it, where it was sure not to melt, and where I'd be certain to find it again later.

If only I could be that clever with my missing shorties...

Rob the Balloon Guy

I didn't go blogging until quite late last night, and I was really tired (I have a horrible nasty cold and a cough that has kept me awake for the last two nights). This morning I found that most of my comments have not appeared. I conclude one (or more) of the following:
1. I left them on the wrong posts
2. I left them on the wrong blogs
3. I left them on the right posts/blogs, but rambled so much that the blog owners have deleted them.
4. I didn't leave them at all.

Oh, dear. Sorry folks.

The kids are now trashing the house (loudly), and I'm gazing wistfully at an unopened box of Christmas chocolates that I found under the sofa...

Meanwhile: this has gone some way to cheering me up.

Block, Baby & Banana

Still struggling with my reluctant shorty.

Womagwriter suggested a bit of alcoholic lubrication so, having finally run out of chocolate, I poured myself a beer late (very late) last night. I must admit that it had some effect - although whether good or bad I have yet to tell. In pursuit of consistent results, I thought it best to repeat the experiment this evening... and perhaps tomorrow.

Unfortunately, I am being distracted by ideas for the next story. I know I should dump the one I'm working on and get on with the one that shouts the loudest, but I'm trying to be disciplined about this, which is difficult; the alcochol is interfering somewhat.

I try to write whenever I can, but I have a policy of not working while the kids are around. This means that I really only get the evenings, or when the small boy is at school and the little people are napping.

Having taken advantage of one such opportunity this afternoon (resulting in 300 words), my laptop was sitting, screen still open, on the dining room table at tea time. I had just popped a spoonful into the baby's mouth when she sneezed, covering my keyboard with mashed banana and/or snot.

I subsequently made a bargain with the computer: I promised to keep it away from sticky fingers, banana, and the contents of the baby's nose, in exchange for it refusing to open emails or websites that have nothing to do with research.

This evening, I managed a grand total of 75 words before discovering that only one of us is keeping to this bargain.

I guess I'll have to stick to the beer.

Chocolate and the Inland Revenue

They say, file your tax return online. It's much quicker than sending it by post.

Nothing to do with it saving the Inland Revenue a fortune: paper (I estimate 16p for the return itself, plus about £15.60 for the guidence notes), envelopes (~4p), postage (~1.30p), ink, staples, gum on the envelopes (God knows), one half-wit clerk to do the filing (~£25,000pa).

But filling it in online? I don't know. You can't be asking me to do anything too complicated just now; my brain's not up to it. Unless, of course, chocolate is involved.

With that in mind, I considered making them an offer: how about a large bar of Dairy Milk Turkish Delight, (approximate value £1.20), in exchange for the IR paper mountain? But then I remembered that the revenue man missed out on both the generosity and humour genes at conception; I thought I'd better just do it on paper after all.

It was the baby who caused my downfall (she, and my tendancy to leave everything until the last minute). Actually, it wasn't the baby, but all the blood that she vomited after swallowing the thing that she swallowed.

'What did she swallow?' the doctors asked. 'Well, if I'd seen it, I wouldn't have let her put it in her mouth...would I?' So, the last two days have been spent trying to find out what it was. We've been in two ambulances (one with flashing lights), two hospitals, seen seven nurses, three x-ray technicians, four paramedics (one of them rather dishy - Hi, Steve), two doctors, three consultants, and a registrar. We also had one dreadful, dreadful, night on the paediartic ward of UNNAMED hospital. And the baby's mystery object was...

...I'm still watching the nappies.

Once we got home on Friday I sat contemplating the experience. The NHS might be on its knees, I thought, but the people were fantastic and I could not fault the care she received. The paperwork and bureaucracy, on the other hand, rivalled that of the Revenue.

Oh, no!

Some quick calculations confirmed that I had no hope of getting my return in on time (okay, so who's idea was it to have the deadline on a Sunday? I just bet they'll get in on Monday morning, pick up everything that arrived during the weekend (on time), and then divert Monday's post into the 'TO BE FINED' tray).

Okay, okay.
Realising how much more Dairy Milk I could buy with my £100-fine money, I decided to do it online.

So, I logged on. Agreed to the Terms and Conditions (having read them carefully, of course). Registered. And received an email that said:

Thank you for enrolling for the Self Assessment Online service through the Government Gateway. Within 7 days we will send you an Activation PIN through the post.

This was some hours ago, but I remain truly speechless...

Is this where it starts, then?

Well, not quite.

It actually started about eighteen months ago when my friend, let's call her "Jane", suddenly admitted that she was writing a novel. It was then that I remembered that I too was writing a novel, although I hadn't looked at it for a long time. (So long, in fact, that I had to retype it all - the BBC Micro no longer being my computer of choice.)

So, unless I'm prepared to go right back to the very start (which I'm not, because my memory absconded when my first child was born), it started in March 2006 with 20K words of a novel that I hadn't looked at for over ten years.

Jane, in fact, turned out to be writing a trilogy, of which she had completed only the first 250,000 words (a fantasy trilogy, you understand). She instantly put my meagre jottings to shame, and I determined to prove that I was worthy to sit at her kitchen table, drinking tea, and talking about Writing.

Nine months later (I don't seem to be able to gestate anything in less than nine months), the first draft was ready for editing. I spent a further three months loving it, hating it, and ignoring it in turns, before finally submitting it. It was dreadful, of course, and my wall is now papered with rejection letters, but it got me off the sofa, and into the study.

And so, as the novel disappeared into the clutches of the Royal Mail, I settled down to wait for my Marvellous Manuscript to be considered by the Great and the Good. I kept myself busy by producing another child, and seeing if I could keep its siblings from feeding it too many raisins. Jane, seeing that I had nothing better to do, suggested that I write some short stories in my copious spare time.

It was a terrible idea, and one for which I will never forgive her. Having just spent nearly a year in front of the computer, I was looking forward to spending some time refocussing my eyes. I also felt the need to ask the man who lives in my house what his name is (I knew it once). But, sadly, I still haven't had the chance.

Six months on, my Marvellous Manuscript is now scrap for Jane's kids to scribble on, the first three chapters of the second novel lie lonely somewhere deep in the harddrive, and my husband has started to cook his own meals.

I now sit, awaiting the acceptance or rejection of my first batch of shorties. I sent a dozen out to various women's magazines at the end of August, and now jump every time the phone rings. Usually, it's just Jane to ask if I've got any spare chocolate (she should know better); but I do, at least, now have a certain sense of anticipation with which to greet each day. The arrival last week of an acknowledgement card from The People's Friend caused much excitement. 'They've opened the envelope!'

It remains to be seen what they did with the contents.