He’s had a week off work, and it’s a miracle I’ve got any writing done at all.  He’s trying not to interrupt me, bless him, but just having someone else in the house creeping about trying not to be a nuisance is driving me up the wall.

Part of it is my fault.  I’m very conscious that he works hard and he’s having some time off and deserves to be able to relax, but I’m sitting here at my desk worrying that he’s feeling bored/under-appreciated/neglected in some way, instead of what I should be doing.

When he goes out to the gym, it’s fine.  I can’t hear him, and don’t need to worry about him.  But when he’s here…

If he’s watching TV, I can hear it up here in the office.  Even if he turns it down, it’s audible above the volume of my music, which lately I’ve taken to listening to at incredibly low levels so it drowns out the silence without distracting me too much.

If he goes for a soak in the bath, I can hear *his* music over mine.  If he’s using his computer in the study along the hall, I can hear him watching music videos, typing, or God help me, farting.

Of course, I could shut my office door, but then the cats can’t get in and will sit outside crying and pulling at the carpet, making me feel a heel for ignoring them.  I’ll feel twice the heel for only communicating with my husband when he brings me a fresh cup of tea.

The other alternative is to take a break from writing, and go curl up on the sofa with him.  But if I do that, I start worrying about deadlines, and whether I’m neglecting my book, and I’m unable to relax.  I can’t win.

Noise-cancelling headphones.  It’s the only solution.  That, or divorce.

What you may not know is that as if MS wasn’t enough fun by itself, I’ve also been diagnosed with gallstones. Honking great gallstones, measuring 1.5cm across. The surgeon I saw at the hospital last Tuesday was quite impressed. I assured him that I do not do things by halves. Neither, it seems, does he.

He wants me to have an MRI scan to check that there’s no small stones (the technical term is gravel, seriously) in my bile duct, before he whips my gall bladder out. Ultrasound, like the one I had a couple of months ago that revealed the pesky stones in the first place, isn’t very good for looking at this because the bile duct lurks behind the bowel, and there’s air in the gut which doesn’t transmit the ultrasound very well. MRI, of course, is like one of Her Majesty’s VAT inspectors: it goes everywhere and sees everything.

Lovely chap, the surgeon. Warm hands, which is always a good sign, and a dry sense of humour. I am not in the least freaked-out by the prospect of any of the upcoming procedures–even if they can’t do a keyhole cholecystectomy and have to do a traditional large-incision, in-up-to-the-elbows job. My heart is plodding along at its regular resting rate of 59bpm and if I was any more laid back I’d be horizontal. So why am I finding it so hard to empty my head of all this health-related stuff and get back to the business of writing?

I’m staring down the barrel of a deadline. I’ve had the first instalment of my advance, so I’m on the company dime, as it were. I want to finish this book so I can make a start on the next one, because I want to find out what happens next. Powerful motivators all. So why can’t I write the last five chapters?

After a bit of a sticky patch I’d been going great guns again, and then WHAM! Straight into a brick wall. I was washing my hair in the shower, like you do, brain idling, and suddenly realised that the last chapter and a half had gone in completely the wrong direction and I didn’t know how to fix it.

Four days later, I still don’t. It’s not writer’s block, because I don’t believe in it, and we all know that stuff we don’t believe in doesn’t exist, like the monster under the bed. It’s an inability to focus.

I’ve turned off my music. I’ve taken myself out into the garden with the laptop, where the wireless doesn’t work reliably enough to allow me to get distracted by email or Facebook or reading other people’s blogs. I’ve even tried going back to pencil and paper to slow my thoughts down, let ideas take root. Nothing doing. Every time I sit down to sort this out my mind is flittering around like a butterfly in a meadow, never settling for more than a few seconds before it’s off to the next flower.

Argh.

The fact that I’m even blogging about it, instead of solving the problem, is just another example of my distraction. Why find answers when you can futz around talking about the question instead?

Double argh.

This is not a familiar place in which to find myself. I don’t like it. It smells strange and the people talk funny. Get me out of here!

Knowing it’s the right thing to do helps a bit, but not nearly enough.  Gutted doesn’t even come close to how I feel.

I know, I know, it’s only a cat, but damn it, she was my friend.

Cleo, 15 Nov 1992 - 22 Dec 2009

The enemy has taken control of the shed, and advance scouts have been making daring daylight raids across the patio for several days.   They wear no uniform, operating in plain-clothes, the better to blend in with the civilian population.   Modern defensive strategy is useless against this new insurgency.

Day 1: Elite operatives spotted setting up observation posts at high points around the garden.  Utilising local cover, the enemy scaled the feeder pole and dropped onto the seed tray.  After approximately 28 minutes, he base-jumped into the choisya bush and made good his escape.  Enemy tentatively identified as apodemus sylvaticus.

Enemy operative secures the forward observation post and reconnoitres the LZ

Day 2: The shed was taken, under cover of darkness.  Shed door frame shows signs of forcible entry.  No casualties except a 12.5kg sack of premium wild bird food.  Moved all provisions out of reach to force the insurgents to break cover in search of supplies.  Observed two low-level raiders at close quarters.  Stalemate.

Day 3: Aha!  They’re getting a bit cocky.  They’d established their barracks in a disused nestbox, and the guard let himself be seen.  I grabbed the box and removed it, but not quite quickly enough.  One of the enemy escaped via a daring leap onto the shelving unit, where he hid behind the hosepipe and watched as his two comrades were escorted out of the combat zone.  I have designated this particularly audacious combatant “Steve McQueen”.

Day 4: Requested reinforcements.  HQ sent in a highly-trained Counter-terrorist Assault Technician (CAT) which performed a thorough sweep of the combat zone, but the enemy was lying low.  No sightings reported.  CAT redeployed to other duties.

Day 5: All quiet on the western front.  No sightings, but picked up some high-frequency communications chatter.  Cryptographers are having no luck decoding it.

Day 6 (am): I opened the shed door this morning and noted that all traces of bird food on the floor had vanished, indicating that Agent McQueen is still at large.  Reconnaissance of the upper shelves found the little bugger sitting atop my gardening gloves watching me.  The enemy’s audacity is breathtaking.  Lightly armed and agile, they are superb edificeers, shinning up the wall ribs like lumberjacks up a Douglas fir.

Day 6 (pm): It is time to take the battle to the enemy.  I have formulated a Cunning Plan, a masterpiece of Baldrickian subtlety, which hinges on the enemy’s affinity for holes.  I have reinstated the nestbox, and this time I will place my hand over the hole when I remove it.  Take that, Steve McQueen!

The battle continues…

Today’s my last day at work.  After just shy of 21 years, a twinge of sadness is to be expected – you can’t work with people for that length of time and not develop some kind of friendship – but what’s really blown me sideways is the number of customers who’ve rung up, emailed, or sent embarrassingly large bouquets of flowers.

They’re either going to miss me an awful lot, or they’re really, really pleased to see the back of me.

A few months ago, I was trying on some new clothes in the bedroom, and there was a discarded pair of jeans on the floor that I kept tripping over.  My own stupid fault; my balance isn’t great so I should really have picked them up, but I didn’t.  After one trip too many, I lost my temper and lashed out with my right foot, intending to kick them across the floor.

Except I didn’t hit the jeans.  I managed to kick the back of my own left heel, full belt.  Ow.

I’ll skip over the howling and swearing and sobbing like a girl, but suffice to say I think I probably broke my big toe.  It went purple overnight, then black from below the nail to right around the ball of my foot.  A couple of days later I had an appointment with my physio and I explained why I was limping.

“You’d have to be going some to break your toe like that,” she said, looking doubtful.  I whipped off my sock.  “Oh.”

It took a couple of weeks before it stopped hurting to walk on it, then another couple before it stopped hurting when I bent it.  After shading through a whole kaleidoscope of pretty colours, it went back to its normal shade, but I still can’t bend it the same as my left foot and it’s a bit puffy.

Fast forward to tonight, making home-made pizza dough.  I knocked a wooden rolling pin off the worktop.  Onto my bare foot.  My right foot.  Guess where it hit, end on?

You’re waaaaay ahead of me, aren’t you?

Cue howling, swearing, sobbing like a girl etc.  Sigh.

I got to meet Douglas for lunch in Mayfair and was thoroughly charmed by the man.  We corresponded for some time afterwards, and he was unstinting in his encouragement of me as a writer.  We lost touch, as school and exams got in the way and I shelved my wilder writerly ambitions for a time.

Recently mum and dad had a clear-out of their bookshelves and I reacquired a sizeable collection of Douglas’ books, including his Alexander Kent “Bolitho” series on which I had gorged myself as a teenager and which inspired me to write my prize-winning story.  Curious, I Googled and found Douglas’ website, which had an email address.

I wasn’t expecting him to remember me but I sent him a short note yesterday to say hello and congratulate him on what is now 50 years as a published author (that’s quite something, in anybody’s reckoning, and boo! hiss! to his publishers for not marking it).

Today I got a reply.  He does remember me, still has photos of the day we met at the Navy Club, and is every bit as charming, gentlemanly and encouraging as I remember.

This has made my day.  I am completely, utterly, and quite ridiculously, made up.

The new laser printer is great and working hard for its keep.  It’s also too clever by half.  I wanted to print some address labels but wasn’t sure I had the template filled out the right way round to fit the half-used sheet so I thought I’d print them onto plain paper first.

Uh-uh.  Printer says no, and flashes a little red light at me.  Open cover, close cover.  Green light.  Click “Print”.  Red light flashes.

Out with the manual, section six, troubleshooting.  Third reason for the error light flashing: no media in the manual feed.  Eh?  Are you telling me the printer knows the document I’m sending uses an Avery label template and has therefore assumed I’m going to be feeding said labels through the manual feed slot?

<fx: inserts sheet of labels in manual feed slot>

<whirr>

Apparently so.  Well I’ll be buggered.

It’s sad getting this excited over a humble laser printer, that stalwart of the office environment, scarred by coffee-cups and encrusted with dust.  But it’s mine, all mine.  My first laser printer.

I’ve managed perfectly well with inkjets over the years, but it occurred to me as I was prepping my submissions that maybe it didn’t quite set the right tone.  Didn’t look professional.  I sneaked a few cover letters on the Xerox multifunction thingy at work, on bright white 100gsm paper and was horrified how shabby my synopsis-and-three looked in comparison.  Any agent I had the temerity to send it to would promptly consign it (at arm’s length, by the smallest possible corner, pinky extended) to the nearest recycling box.

So over hubby’s protestations of “But we’ve already got two printers–what do we need another one for?” to which I replied “But you’ve already got a motorbike–what do you need a Fender Telecaster for?” (which left him so speechless I took it as a victory) I ordered a basic mono laser printer.

It’s black.

It comes tomorrow.

It’ll have that cool, sleek, new electronics smell.  There’ll be a New Toner Cartridge dance to do and a manual to read and buttons to press.

Then I’ll print out lovely black letters on crisp white sheets and they’ll be so gorgeous that I cannot possibly fail to make a good impression.  Let’s face it, *anything* that gives one a better chance of being read by these august personages, the Gatekeepers of Publication, has got to be a good thing.

Plus it’ll give the cat a box to play in so she’ll stop pestering me when she’s bored and I won’t have to explain to customers on my working from home days what that whinging noise is in the background.

It’s all our next door neighbour Darren’s fault, really. He takes his bike out of the garage and leaves it to warm up whilst he fetches his lid and gloves. My other half, Rob, hears it purring away outside and starts to scowl.

“He does that deliberately, the scumbag,” Rob mutters. “He knows I haven’t got my bike – he’s torturing me.”

After several days of this, a decision was reached. On Saturday morning, we would drive to Rob’s work, borrow the Big White Van, and fetch the bike from the shed at his mum’s flat. Darren’s Fireblade was going to have some company.

Things we learned on Saturday:

1. When parking a car in front of the shed doors to make a patent anti-bike-theft device, *don’t* leave the handbrake on for two years.  This makes the patent anti-bike-theft device difficult to remove later.

2. Always use the right tools for the job.  When attempting to remove rusty, rounded-off screws from the side panel of an old shed, an electric drill fitted with a screwdriver head will only make things worse.  A big claw hammer is your friend.

3. When building a shed in a sloping yard, try to ensure that the drop from the shed floor to the yard does not exceed the maximum ground clearance of the bike being stored. This can lead to an alarming moment when your makeshift exit ramp collapses and leaves the bike see-sawing on its belly on the shed frame.

4. Eleven year old sportsbikes *are* narrower than the average domestic door frame – by about 3/16ths of an inch.

5. Motorcycles do not steer well on carpet. This is particularly true when the motorcycle’s rear tyre has a slow puncture.

6. Motorcycles are heavy and have lots of inconvenient sticky-out bits, that are capable of doing significant damage to woodwork, wallpaper, and on occasion, humans.

7. Don’t call the motorcycle a contrary old cow and expect her rider to take you pillion afterwards.

8. Don’t threaten the motorcycle’s exhaust system with an angle grinder and expect her to co-operate. In a confined space, she *will* exact her revenge (see 6 above).

9. It *is* possible to get an EXUP through a Tyneside flat from back yard to front door in under five hours – just. It takes considerably longer to redecorate the hallway afterwards (see 6 above).

10. Finally, when a newly re-biked other half announces that he’s “just going to have a wander round the bike shops, dear,” remove his wallet into protective custody *immediately*.