Dammit to Heck (Again)

I am having real problems with slugs in the dining room, where the laundry lives. The problem is that it's a damp cellar room, with issues with the floor, an air brick, a gas meter, an outside door nearby and a garden notoriously infested with slugs. 

I'm going to have to severely water the garden with nematodes next spring. It worked really well a few years ago when I was on top of the garden. 

Until then, I've put indoor slug traps down, and I need to clear everything out. I was planning something of a push today, but I got caught up with a few things. I deactivated my Draft2Digital account and took the meter readings (which I loathe doing as it's fiddly), and then I thought I'll just check on a parcel that's due. I looked at the online tracking and the parcel was nearly here. Great, I thought, I'm the next delivery, I'll take that in and then I can get started. I was that next delivery for the next four hours and the dot on the tracking map kept circling around the side roads near me. Every now and again, for variety, it would say 'your driver will be there soon after a few drops' then the dot on the map I was daft enough to keep watching would circle around a few more times and I'd be the next delivery again. And I kept putting off doing anything because that dratted parcel was nearly here and I may as well be ready to take it in. So I played patience and fiddled around and got nothing worthwhile done! I'm so frustrated by myself and had abandoned hope of getting anything done at all by the time it came.

This is a spade. But it reminded me of those bundles of paper wrapped in bin bags and tied to resemble dead bodies and left out as Halloween decorations. 

Blogger is still playing up which is making me concerned about writing blog stuff, and I can see me sticking almost totally to Substack if it carries on, at least for the writing bits. Tech isn't playing nicely for me, but before my PC gave up again, I managed to book my Christmas delivery slot at Morrisons.

Yes, Christmas delivery slot! I took a very deep breath indeed when I saw that they were suggesting that those with passes book their Christmas delivery on the first day of October! I am using a lot of italics in this post, but it feels like an italics type of day. 

Speaking of supermarkets, Tesco have a 'spend £60 instore and get 8p off per litre of petrol' deal going until 18th October. I guess they think that there's more chance of profitable impulse buys if someone shops instore. I am not entirely sure that's true, especially not for me, but it means that if I want the deal, I've got to somehow make my way around the store, find £60 of stuff that I want in one go, which is currently unlikely, then fill up the car. DH is picking up the new car on Saturday. It's an SUV, and I'm willing to bet is thirstier than a little Citroen C3. I'm also fairly sure that it won't turn up with a full tank, that almost certainly holds more than Red. 8p per litre sounds worth it. I have no idea what I can get for £60. There may be alcohol involved and I daresay I can get a whole trolley full of the cheap beer for the slug traps. 

I hope tomorrow goes a little smoother. 

Writing stuff - I started the 'story every day in October' today. I'm hoping that I can get my PC working again soon as I haven't got all the days sorted. I heard about one relatively successful romance author writing their novels on their phone. I'm not sure how my elderly Motorola would handle it, but it's beginning to look like a fallback option. I'm not linking here every day, but I did make this graphic, and I thought that it looked pretty. 

It looked bigger on Facebook.

Hugs and good health to all. 

Grumble in Parts

The bad thing today was finding that the slugs had got into a pile of clean washing that I'd been meaning to sort out for... well, forever. It's a great heap of stuff and it makes my skin crawl to even think about slugs on the fabric, so it's all got to be washed. And then dried. And then I really need to put it away or the slugs will get it again. 

On the other hand, I treated myself to this, which has made me unreasonably happy.

It's just a cheap ornament, but it's a shiny, irridescent, blue dragonfly and it works for me. I've also done loads of writing stuff and I've cleared some bits that I've been meaning to get to, so it all could be worse. 

Writing stuff - the last instalment of The Guest is here (Blogger) and here (Wordpress). I think that today is the last time I will post a link to Wordpress, which feels a little odd. I'll be getting The Guest ready for Amazon over the next few weeks. 

That was Monday. Today I put up a post about upcoming plans, again, here (Blogger) and here (Wordpress), which includes a reminder that I'm taking down my Draft2Digital account 1st October 2026, or at least, trying to start the process thereof. 

I'm thinking hard about what is important to me with writing and what isn't, and I'll share what happens next as I find out!

Thank you for all the kind words about my writing, especially compliments about my books. It feels like the most amazing hug ever! And if I haven't said it, I'm also desperately grateful for the kind reviews, thank you!

Hugs and good health to all. 

Pumpkin Spice Sky

I looked out of the window, and everything looked orange. I wondered if I was having a bit of a do, but DH agreed, everywhere looked orange. To reassure myself, I went out and took pics. There was the most amazing orange sunset, which my elderly phone camera didn't capture properly, but I got a couple of pics of the glow in the street, including one which shows a rainbow.

There are no filters on these pics, just the effect of a vivid orange, pumpkin spice, sunset.

I was looking through my next Tesco order. I'm finally near the end of the massive order of washing sheets I got a great deal on a year or so back, and they are on offer, so I'll top up. It's not a brilliant deal, and it's not included in the '4 for the price of 3' deal on cleaning and laundry products currently going on. I remember when those sales were worth noticing, and they included the Tesco own brand products which I bought by the bucket load. Now I'm just picking up some laundry sheets. 

One thing I will not be picking up is Laundry Shampoo. It's on offer at Tesco, and I don't care. I don't care if it's 1p per pint, I am not buying any detergent for clothes called Laundry Shampoo. I just can't. 

Here's the screen print

This is available at Tesco, and I'm not buying it

I mean, what sort of laundry detergent is called Icing on the Cake fragrance? I don't want my clothes to smell like cake. I'm traditional, and if they're going to smell of anything, I'd like something fresh like citrus, or lavender, dammit! They even have what they call Cleansing Perfume which is like Febreeze but three times the price! 

Blogs that I'm following still aren't showing, but I'm trying to find ways around that. I apologise for anyone that I'm missing. As far as I can tell, comments are working, both leaving them and receiving them, but it's a concern.

As you know, I've just made the executive decision to leave Wordpress and go all in on Blogger. Ha! After driving myself daft, I'm now eyeing Blogger with some suspicion. I don't think that it's a moneymaker for Google, and I don't think that it's being kept up to date. I'm fine keeping my witterings on here, but I'm not sure that I want to risk my writing stuff. Because I'm obviously still fully stocked with idiot juice, I'm now looking to transfer to another sort of platform. I could go all in on Substack, but I don't think it's the right form. I think it's more for a newsletter, and possible audio (I'm considering recording myself reading Cats in the Bible to see if there's any interest at some point, but nothing promised at the moment).

I'm not keen on carrying on with Wordpress. To be brutally honest, I want a free platform, that's easy for an old dear like me to use, and that allows me to share a certain amount of free content with readers. Blogger would be fine if it works. I'm just not sure what to do if it doesn't. 

Feeling Sad

It looks like we are going to have to give up on our car. There's something interesting gone wrong with the clutch and In n Out can't easily fix it. They could replace it, but it gets complicated with the AA guarantee where we just pay them £35 under the policy and they cover repairs. They are likely to insist on repairs, which means that the poor car would have to be towed to a specialist garage, and it may be written off anyway. When DH was talking with a dealership about a new car, we were offered £150 part exchange. This may have been generous. Anyway, I can't see a repair costing less than double that. 

It's ridiculous. I just wanted to cry after talking to the garage. But it's the first and only car that I've driven on my own, and I'm going to miss her so much. 

I'm currently in full mope mode, and I'll allow myself to wallow tonight. Then I can look forward to learning how to drive a different car.

Here's the first pic of red that was ever posted on my blog, back in April 2019. 

So much has happened since then, and that car is stuffed with memories. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Missing Bear

I miss bear so much. It's not really a conscious thought. It's just that I find myself tiptoeing past his door when he's hundreds of miles away, or planning a food shop around him, or turning around to talk to him and he's miles away. I can text, but I don't want to be too clingy. I texted him when I left the grill on and nearly set the kitchen on fire, and the problems about the car, but it's not the same.

The car is still at the garage. The lovely man from the AA believed that it was a clutch cable problem. However the clutch is still able to go into reverse. It's sort of engaging with the engine but it's not engaging properly. The guys at the garage aren't sure what's going on. We've made a tentative approach to a garage for a new car that was on their website. It's huge. I mean, it's massive. I'm not sure that I'll be able to drive it. And our little Citroen C3 has been such a star, and I don't want to see her go.

DH got me a little notebook to cheer me up. 

It's a real hug as I love my notebooks. 

Writing stuff - I feel like I'm swimming against the tide, trying to tidy up a load of loose ends. I hope that I'll have most of it sorted by the end of the year. It's been fiddly writing stuff all day. I've posted about plans here (Blogger) and here (Wordpress) if you're interested. There's quite a lot going on over the next couple of months and there should be some more books coming out soon.

Thank you for all those who have supported me by buying the ghost books and for any reviews. I can't tell you how much that means to me. Annoyingly, if I search Amazon for An Apprenticeship of Ghosts, I don't get a result. I only get a result from An Apprenticeship of Ghosts Medana. I hope that it doesn't mean that you can't find the book on a casual search. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

It's Not My Birthday (Again)

My writing name has a birthday today. Facebook asked for it when I set up the page so I made up a date and it's sort of spread since then. I'm hiding from Facebook because there's usually loads of notifications, and last year I got locked out of Facebook for thanking too many people for birthday wishes. It feels even odder, because I think I've met two or maybe three people on my friend list for the writing name and I have over three thousand friends! Or perhaps 'friends'. Some are people that I talk with regularly, some are accidental friends or people chasing business or just awesome people that I don't know very well. I feel guilty because lots of lovely people are sending me good wishes and I don't deserve them. 

I've also not caught up with the blogs. Blogger has finally started playing nice to give me my usual links, and I've decided that I'm going to set a time, settle down with a nice cup of tea and enjoy myself. 

I've not done much today, and I've done less worth taking a pic, but here is a view of my latest impulse buy - an orange shaped candle.

It's from Morrisons and it smells ORANGE!!!! and I'm sure that I'll find a use for the container at the end. 

The car is still in the garage. They're getting to it, but they're busy, and I guess that ours isn't an urgent repair. We don't do a school run and DH works from home, and I get so much delivered that we can manage. I still feel out of sorts about it. I guess we're going to have to go car shopping sooner than we had planned.

It doesn't help that I'm missing bear. I thought I'd get used to it, but he's been great company over the summer, and now he's not here. I'll be counting down to the Christmas holidays.

Writing stuff - first THANK YOU to everyone who has bought my book. I cannot tell you how much of a hug it feels, and I hope that you can enjoy them. 

The last but one instalment of The Guest is here (on Blogger) and here (on Wordpress). For those who missed it, I've an article here about some changes I'm making when I publish, and I'm feeling quite a few changes in the air - hopefully less than the chaos I unleashed by switching over blogs. I'll keep everyone updated.

Hugs and good health to all. 

Could be Worse

The clutch just gave out. Of course, it all started going wrong at a busy junction close to Leeds City Centre and in the middle of a load of industrial estates at rush hour. According to the nice AA man, who arrived two and one half hours later, it's the clutch cable.

But it happened just as DH picked up the hire car to take bear back to university tomorrow, so no-one was stranded after the AA towed Red to the garage (and the man was absolutely lovely!). And it didn't happen on the moors above Ilkley after the satnav sent us on an unexpected tour of the less paved roads. 

However, with other things, I feel absolutely flattened. I'll catch up properly later, but here's an out of date pic of the garden with a block of mulch on - it's that compressed coir stuff that needs water adding and then it poofs out. Nothing has apparently died yet. I need to add another block.

And the link to an article about a change in how my books will be published that isn't strictly my choice is here (blogger) and here (wordpress). I'm getting a little tired of all the changes, most of which are my fault, but it's still tiring. 

Hugs and good health to all.