Friday 29 January 2010

My Day

6.35am: Alarm goes off. Me and Siamese cat blink at it blearily from the warm bed. We both give each other a look as if to say ‘nahh’ and snuggle back down, me under the duvet, him cosy above.
7am: Really have to get up. Light goes on. Movement commences.
7.20am: Dressed and showered, spooning out tuna for pampered puss.
7.30am: Porridge with chocolate buttons in front of BBC One. Cannot remember a thing of what they were talking about.
7.40am: Fly about house looking for coat, scarf, pen, mobile. Cat lies in wait at top of stairs. I avoid his trap and tickle his head instead.
7.50am: At train station, buying pricey monthly travel-card. Train draws in just as I finish – hoorah!
8.53am: Pop up in another part of London.
9am: Start work. Make coffee.
10am: Start eyeing up little box of blueberries on desk
10.05am: Mindlessly scoffing blueberries
10.10am: Decide to stop scoffing as have to eek out fruit until lardy pizza lunch at 2pm. Will only have next blueberry after eleven.
10.26am: Ponder tea instead.
10.33am: These blueberries just aren’t going to make it.
10.40am: There are only seven left now, and two are squidgy.
10.50am: The only sounds in the office are the air-conditioning and spoons scraping cereal bowls.
10.52am: Glug water instead.
11.16am: Ooo made it! Blueberries now devoured. Time to eye up my banana… Nope. Won’t.
11.47am: Worrying thought in middle of work stuff. Do I know what genre my book is? Is it just contemporary fiction? Okay let’s see. It’s contemporary (in that some of it is in the recent here and now). It’s historical (as some of it dates back to 1939 and other early decades). It’s a bit fantastical (as it involves an angel and gives Death a a bit of a bashing). And if I put contemporary, historical, fantastical fiction on my query letter I will be laughed into the dustbin. Oh dear…
12.10pm: Thoughts drift to my banana. Must leave it alone until 1pm, not worry it. I must not be a banana botherer.
12.10 and 30 seconds: Office colleagues wonder why that quiet girl in the corner has just laughed uproariously to herself.
12.27pm. Will die if don’t eat that banana. Resist, resist!
12.30pm: Startling thought in middle of work stuff. Is chapter fourteen actually crap?
12.50pm: The banana is down. Repeat, the banana is down…
1.36pm: Emerge from work-stuff to glug water. Disappear again.
2.00pm: Yeay – lunch! Scurry out with lovely colleague H.
3.02pm: Back at desk. Think I have a lemonade rush. Or a cheese/bread/pizza rush. Feel surprisingly light-headed!
3.20pm: Ooo handed an urgent work mission!
4.11pm: Busy, busy…
4.20pm: Waiting for others now. Time for a coffee! Notice all the exclamation marks since lunch. Am hyper on cheese.
4.37pm: Damn. Mission sadly thwarted until Monday.
4.57pm: Feel a bit sick from pizza overload.
5.08pm: Eight minutes past home-time…
5.13pm: Waiting for tube
5.18pm: On tube, redrafting chapters 7 – 9 from the print outs I remembered to take with me this morning.
6.08pm: On train, still redrafting.
6.25pm: Home! Elderly Siamese cat makes precarious way downstairs to greet/yowl at me. We play belly rub for a while. Heating goes on.
6.40pm: Pampered puss is fed evening meal of ham and biscuits. He eats better than I do.
7.00pm: Am lured into The One Show by Ricky Gervais, and the promise of a model village. Am somewhat fascinated by model villages. And Ricky Gervais always just tells things how they are – comedy gold for topical shows.
7.30pm: Have a small glass of vodka and diet coke to celebrate end of week.
7.45pm: Cat on lap, home computer on. Will do a round robin email check, and then crack open chapter fourteen. I am going to post this now, but will continue to add to it as the evening goes on.
7.56pm: Still formatting this post! And I have decided that I really must listen to the Spencer Davis Group Gimme Some Loving before anything else happens. I liked it well before it was used in that advert with Martine McCutcheon preaching about tummy yoghurt.
8.20pm: Open Word document. Look at novel. Novel looks back at me. Right, I say to it, cracking my knuckles.
8.30pm: Must stop obsessively checking for comments on blog post. Must stop replaying ‘Gimme Some Loving’
8.33pm: Darn clicked again. Stop!
8.37pm: Just looked up that model village. It has a lovely website: http://www.bekonscot.co.uk/
8.40pm: One more youtube song and then I’m done.
8.50pm: With chapter 14 now (and another small glass of vodka and diet coke, after all it is Friday). Put The Queen's Coronation on youtube to give me some relevant background noise. How amazing is it we can use the Internet like this for research? Bloody fantastic. Hic.
9.00pm: I think I used to do things on Friday nights. Like go out and socialise and stuff. Am I old, or am I hermit, as The Killers might sing.
9.10pm: Texted good friend S.
9.12pm: If a left ear burns does it mean someone is talking bad about you? Oh hold on, the right is a bit warm as well. Okay – both ears are burning. So that cancels everything out presumably and no one is even vaguely thinking of me. Okay… nice…
9.20pm: Back to it. And I wonder why I don’t get things done.
9.27pm: Yeay! MusicObsessive, of the fab music blog, has left a comment. I am definitely flapper (see comments below).
9.52pm: Decide to have late supper of ryvita, mayo and ham, along with cup of tea. Mmm.
10.00pm: Loving the fact I have 27 followers. What if they all decided to comment at once? I would be swamped with bloggy goodness.
10.01pm: Found a dark chocolate Mars bar in the cupboard. Pounced and devoured it at once. Feel infinitely happier.
10.30pm: Getting tired now. Cat is back snoozing on my lap.
10.44pm: Do I write better when tired I wonder? As chapter 14 is going quite well.
11.00pm: Managed 785 words of redrafting. At least that is something. And if I go to bed now I can get up early and start again, although hopefully not in a scary Groundhog Day scenario. Goodnight!

8 comments:

music obsessive said...

Great post! Actually I know the model village at Bekonscot intimately. My children love it and we have to go regularly. So if you see two children rushing round at break-neck speed ignoring everything whilst their Dad ambles along about 200 yards behind trying desperatley to look at stuff - that's us.

It really is good. It's set in the 1920s and all the place/shop/station names are mickey-takes of famous brands - hilarious for adults but completely mystifying to kids:)

So, get over there and spend time soaking up the 20s atmosphere - are you human or are you flapper?

Jayne said...

Flapper! Am definitely flapper. It does look a fantastic place to visit. One day for sure! And I'll know how to spot you - although I suspect lots of families may look similar... :)

Karen Jones Gowen said...

I can't wait to read this novel of yours! And I think you should eat all the fruit you want, especially bananas, and blueberries.

Fran Hill said...

Sounds very like many of my days ... doing your job in between thinking about munching, munching, and thinking about what you've munched!

Rose said...

Ah I am like that in the morning- and what is it about desk jobs that make you think about nothing but food all the day through?

Jayne said...

Hi KarenG. Thank you for the encouragment with the novel, I do appreciate it! And yes, must remember to buy more fruit to get me through long mornings - one banana and a small tub of blueberries just didn't cut it!

Jayne said...

Hi Fran - and yes, that's exactly it!

Jayne said...

Hi Rose. I have no idea, but as soon as I sit at my desk I am thinking food. I don't get the same thoughts when at home - maybe because the fridge is in easy reach but here I only have what's in my bag to last me to lunch (2 small satsumas today!).