• How does he do that?
    How does he do that?
    I’ve always wondered how puffins sort the fish they catch so that they stick out of the sides of their beaks in that nice, orderly way.

    I just heard a bit of kerfuffling on the roof of my studio. This is usually either cats, squirrels or blackbirds looking for grubs in the leaf litter. A minute later I was distracted by a movement outside my window. A squirrel clung to the trunk of the willow tree, that is about twenty five feet away. It was flicking it’s tail as if to get my attention. Then I saw it was carrying two apples in its mouth, arranged beautifully, like a puffin arranges its fish.

    I scrabbled around, looking for my camera, telling it to stay still for just one more moment. The camera does not zoom that far, but by cropping and enlarging in photoshop, you can see what he was up to. Once I’d got the shot, he shook his tail and disappeared.

    The birds have been acting strangely this morning too. Flitting around the pond in an agitated state – mostly tits and dunnocks that have been invisible all summer. It must be the equinox – a message has been triggered in their brains. “Get ready for winter!”

  • I seem to have so much to distract me from getting on with things – or am I really looking for things to do rather than get on with the job?

    I’ve mentioned before that I’m starting out on a new eight book series. This involves a lot more writing than I’m used to, so its a bit daunting. I dived in and wrote the first two stories, but knew they weren’t right, even before my editor said so. But that was good. It was a start and showed what was wrong and pointed me back to the original intention – the series was bought two years ago – I’m only now writing it, so its taking a while to rekindle the original inspiration.

    Thinking time is the hardest thing to justify when you work from home. Staring out of the window or going for a long walk does not look like fruitful labour. But it is necessary. Having spent most of yesterday fiddling about with my son’s car and other seeming useless endeavours, this morning I find my mind has been working on the problem all along and half an hour with my sketchbook has moved things along enough that I feel ready to have a go at a new first draft.

    The pressure is starting to build for cover designs. I need to plot out the stories and know the characters fairly well to be able to get on with the covers, which may well be designed and promoted before I finish writing all the texts. The plots are building and I feel confident it will all get done, but there is nothing like having a draft for the first book that everyone likes, so that is what I’m about to get started on… in a minute… when I’ve made a cup of coffee…

    The stories involve a bit of boys own stuff which I feel I should research properly, to the point where I might video what I do for the blog. It’s not easy finding something to write about every day, y’know?

  • Sometimes it has to be cheaper to get it done right in the first place. My son’s Ford Fiesta came without a radio CD so I got one at a very good price from eBay. A Sony, no less. The Garage offered to put it in for us.

    That was all well and good, but it wouldn’t remember the radio station presets. So I looked on the net and eventually found the installation instructions and downloaded them and looked on sites for others with the same problem. It seemed easy – reconnect a wire, or something.

    This morning I opened the gubbins and had a look. OH dear! The Ford cabling has weird colour codes. I spent quite a while looking for info on this but had no luck. In the end there seemed to be three things I could do. One of them seemed to work. Switching two wires so the switched power didn’t go to the main permanent power. It made sense really. But then it wouldn’t remember the volume settings and each time I changed channels it nearly blasted a hole in the roof as the volume was reset to full!

    I was about to give up, when I thought I’d try one more time in the configuration I felt should have been correct. This time it behaved itself and seems to have kept its settings okay. Phew!

    Was it worth a whole morning? It certainly would have cost to have it put right at the garage. Tomorrow my wife and son go visiting Universities and will take the car on its first long trip. They need the radio and CD! I guess I’ll get brownie points. Now all I need do is some work to pay for it all.

    Why am I wasting my time writing this blog!?