Su came home from a business trip, we went out in the garden to admire the waterproofness of the shed, and the cats came with!
Shed!
I promised to share pictures of my completed shed, which I finished with Su’s help last Sunday (she did all the wood treatment varnish painting!), but even though I took the pictures on my iphone, that bastard icloud didn’t update them to my photostream. Ugh. So I brute-forced it old school style and just sent them by email. Here for your delectation:
Finally built the new shed!!
After blogging about it plenty of times, starting at 9am and finishing around 5:30pm, today I built my new shed! Man, that is a long time – and it is not even finished! First up was emptying the old shed, tearing it down, moving it out of the way, cleaning up the old brushwood I’d stuffed behind it two summers ago, cleaning up all the rocks I exhumed three years back, sweeping the concrete plate, then beginning the build. I got all that done maybe by 10am, within an hour. Until 12 I put on the new base, figured out …
Fantastic oral hygiene
2 days back I went to the dentist for the first time in maybe 4 years, since leaving Tokyo, and she was very pleased with my excellent level of oral hygiene. How nice. She was also rather taken with my gold fillings – we don’t do gold here in the UK anymore, but it’s the main filling material in Japan. In other news I’ve finally ordered our new shed, I damaged my shoulder yesterday doing bench-presses, Facebook Ad efficacy is down (zero sales yesterday), and I’m enjoying The ABC Murders on the BBC. Back to work tomorrow!
Taking care of business…
The last few days were meant to be dedicated to editing the Mr. Ruin books, but instead I have used them for taking care of fairly dull New Year business: Renewing my driving license (still not finished, machines at the Post Office were busted) Researching remortgage rates – coming up in a few months Researching a car to buy! This is quite exciting. We are mostly sold on a Dacia Duster. 15k all in, SUV, high driving position, looks pretty cool. Setting up The Saint’s Rise Bookbub price of 99c around the world on all vendors (except in the US) …
Christmas travel adventures 2018
This Christmas we had a busy schedule of family visits like never before – such that we rented a car (Nissan Qashqai) and traveled up to Bolton and back to see everyone. Dec 22 – Christmas party at mom’s house in London with Dad, Ailz, Joe, Vicky, Aria Dec 24 – Christmas Eve party at Alice’s house in Leicester with Mom, Karen, Alice, Jay, Ivy, Clover Dec 25 – Christmas Day party at Alice’s house with above plus Tony, John and Bev (Jay’s folks) Dec 26 – Boxing Day drive up north Dec 27 – Post-Christmas visit at Joe’s house …
Me on the Fantasy Fiends podcast/video
Last night at 1:30am I woke up from a brief slumber to take part in the Fantasy Fiends podcast, with hosts Andy Peloquin and Stevie Collier. My first time to do something like this! It was a blast – I guess I never talk to other fantasy authors, so what a pleasure it was to dig in with them. We talked about: how our real-world adventures and travels (Japan, Canada, ruins) have inspired us in our character and world creation. our writing processes and productivity schedules (1 book ever 2 momnths for Stevie, 1 a month for Andy!). our various …
Red Dead Redemption is getting uncomfortable…
A few weeks back I raved about the cowboy game Red Dead Redemption 2. You’re a cowboy criminal, you can go anywhere, do anything, and it all feels so real. Well, last night I finished chapter 2 and entered 3 of the game (I’ve been parsing it out gradually), and was made to feel pretty queasy at my role in all the criminal escapades. Spoiler alert – chapter 2 ended with a big shootout in the town of Valentine, after Leviticus Cornwall, a rail magnate whose train we’d recently robbed, turned up with some Pinkertons to arrest the leader of …
Maybe meat reduction?
I read an article by David Mitchell yesterday about veganism, and it really got me thinking. He made the argument, in a very wishy-washy but not unclear way, that vegans are obviously in the right. Well, obviously. Vegetarians are in the right too. Meat-eaters obviously in the wrong. But, we do like to eat meat. We like sausages. We’re used to it. It’s what we grew up with. So, well, what then? Then the obvious step is to try and be better. For a while Su went vegetarian and her health suffered. I tried soy milk for breakfast but it …
Foul beans…
Saw this in the shop today. You have to walk a very fine line between superior and foul.