A Glass A Day

Image: The Daily Mail

Not a bad weekend all things considered. Despite the culmination of what I think may have been the flu – or something like it, on Friday – by Saturday I was feeling a lot better. I think the day off on Friday helped, although in the end I slept for about 30 hours between Friday lunchtime and Saturday evening. I only felt like I’d been in bed a few hours and when I got up I still felt tired.

New Niece
My new niece is apparently doing very well and I have more details. She’s getting a lot of attention as you might imagine and her big sister, Charlotte, looked totally bemused in the photograph I saw of both sisters and their mummy in hospital. She was born weighing 7lbs 8oz and her full name is Bethany Fiona Owen. I can’t wait to see her.

A Glass a Day
After a shower I sat down to dinner with Gail and her pal who had come to visit. We had a roast chicken with roast vegetables and tatties. It was delicious, and although I couldn’t eat my usual portion size, I’m sure some decent scran further aided my recovery. The glass of red wine I sipped on during the meal probably had the same effect, and I was once told a story that a glass a day…

Dinner last night was even better and designed specifically with my health in mind. Lamb Madras comes with an abundance of healthy and healing herbs in it so we all enjoyed a nice Sunday Curry for dinner. It was awesome and I can safely say my guts are now back on par.

One Story, Many Voices Workshop
I received feedback from my workshop submission for assignment 4 and it was better than I expected. I suspected my feverish undertones had negatively impacted my work, but with a few small revisions it seems to actually be quite good. I worked on the changes over the weekend and will post today.

Assignment 5 is all about comedy. I’ve tried to sit down and write comedy before (a sitcom for a competition) and struggled badly, but I have discovered that when I am writing a piece and something happens that’s naturally funny, it works on a broader level. So how do I achieve that deliberately? I doff my hat to comedy writers everywhere.

Cheap Poetry
I’ve been running an offer over the weekend to save money on all my poetry books. Buy FRINGE FANTASTIC, POOLSIDE POETRY and SILLY POEMS FOR WEE PEOPLE VOL.2 and get 20% off by using code TREASUREUK305 at checkout. Offer ends tonight at midnight tonight, I’m afraid, and is available to UK purchasers only.

Coffee Shop Drought
I had intended on undertaking my first early morning weekend jaunts of 2011 over the weekend but it never happened. This was a combination of my sickness and the fact it was bucketing down and blowing gales most of the time. I’ve not sat in a coffee shop with a paper to relax for ages and I’m starting to crave it. I’m toying with the idea of starting work late tomorrow and going up town early.

Website Work
The largest portion of my work pie this weekend went to website development and getting Gail’s photography site ready to launch. I got a tonne of work done and we’re now down to the very fine detail. It’s going to take a good few hours to launch due to the presence of some back-end functionality and integration with Google and other facilities. This is one of my most in-depth websites to date; not just a site for displaying text and images, this is interactive with shopping carts, email programmes, new galleries and the ability to flick through example wedding albums as if they were right in front of you.

Monday
To today and I have a few odds and ends to take care of. My top priorities are to complete, or at least be at the polishing stage, of assignment 5 of the workshop, and I think Gail may have a few more amendments and additions to the website. I can’t do much else on it now until she supplies me with some files. Then there’s pushing ahead with the GDRs.

‘Til the morra, people.

JANUARY OFFERS

Get 20% off all my poetry books! Buy FRINGE FANTASTIC, POOLSIDE POETRY and SILLY POEMS FOR WEE PEOPLE VOL.2 and get 20% off by using code TREASUREUK305 at checkout. Offer ends on 17th January 2011 at 11:59 PM. UK only.

Get 25% off STELLA, my spy novella with a twist, when you order the e-book from the publisher’s website at www.eternalperss.biz. Simply quote 612JMZN67VZX at checkout.