Interruptions and delays

So enraged by Calliope gratuitously charging around the room and ambushing my feet at 5:30am that I found myself wide eyed and awake. Got up with a roar as I heard her shredding the toilet roll in the bathroom again. After admonishing the cat, I went for a walk along the sleepy seafront at 6:30, all rather beautiful.

Shaila sent me the personal statement written by her son who is trying for Oxford, and wants to be a writer. Comes across as an intelligent and well read boy with a flair for words.

Meanwhile the elephant in the room was agitating its trunk: the covering letter for the Skelton Yawngrave manuscript. Ended up rewriting the letter and synopsis as well as spotting a couple of paragraphs that could be filleted out from the opening two chapters. Posted the lot off to Bloomsbury and now it is a case of waiting and steeling myself for the responses (if any) from them and the agent I wrote to yesterday.

On a skeleton note Lorraine brought me some feedback from Harriet today who is an advanced reader of eight, and so at the youngest end of the age range. Among her comments were that it was brilliant, that she liked the fighting bits, that it was a bit hard to get into (which I hope I have fixed) and that the type could be bigger.

Teethgrindingly the person who is supposed to have uploaded my hours onto the agency's system doesn't appear to have done so, despite sending me email saying she was about to last week. I will probably have to go to the agency to fix it. Heard nothing from my glamorous accountant, and none of the other stones I am dropping into the well are plinking.

Starting to upload new bits of text onto the site I am building for the Anthology of Guernsey project however. This will be good to get up and running. But cant' shake off a feeling that I am rowing hard but not moving forward. Rather tired and drained of optimism by the end of the day.

Diverted momentarily by seeing someone walk into my front bit of garden, I happened to be downstairs and as I opened the door, I discovered it was an oriental woman who was about to relieve herself. I invited her to do this elsewhere. Also drug dealers in the Twitten: all businesslike short walks with a punter and a discreet plastic sealable plastic bag handed across, then they go their separate ways at a smart pace.

Lorraine called around tonight and slugging on the sofa eating a quorn based chili with her was rather cheering.

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