Irritation

I did so well yesterday and today - I worked, not full on, but I did HH work, and some voluntary stuff I need to do, and I also managed to write 500 odd words of Conscience today.  I attribute this to the enjoyable effect of having the house to myself.  I can work when Husb is here, but it is so much freer when he is not.

I was going to go out to a writers' party this evening, but I looked carefully at the invitation again and it said it would be an opportunity for networking and performance - and I realised that that meant listening to other people's work, poetry in particular, and I didn't feel like it - and I didn't think there would be any agents to network with there, and it also said "for writers and people interested in writing" and I listened to my inner voice and it said "don't".  So I didn't, I sat here thinking I would write some more, or finish my CV.   Then Husb asked to join me, and he sat down to write his diary, which I find very irritating because (a) he asks me endless questions like "what did we have for supper last night?" and "where did you say you were going to go tonight?" which makes me wish I had gone - and then (b) he reads out anything he thinks particularly fine.... I know when we are dead this will be a marvellous evocation of our life together that will be much valued by our descendants, but having him sitting here snorting quietly to himself at his own jokes is beyond endurance.

Of course that is complete hyperbole, it is not beyond endurance, it is mildly irritating, which is making me hyperbolical... and it is the kind of thing that makes me want to start playing a nice game of "Fantasy Husbands" again.   But it is such a waste of time and emotion.

Today I was having a few "Fantasy Husband" thoughts and I thought, "this would go into TFY - I shall interpolate it somewhere."  I was then forced to skim through TFY - which was relatively painless, and then decided that the place I'd thought I could put it in was inappropriate, or that it would destroy the existing paragraph, and I thought, I could put the same observation in Conscience instead.  After all, it requires insights too - of one kind or another, there's no reason for every interesting thing I consider to be stuffed into TFY.   Which is already full of brilliant appercus already (what no sedilla!).

Anyway, the point I was coming too is that if I need to write something that needs thought I find it hard to do it with Husb in the room because he brings his own thought-fog in with him, and I am somehow distracted. 

I really haven't done anything like 2,000 words a week - but since I had my great idea (about 2 weeks ago?) I have done 1500 - so it could be worse.   And I am reading bits of Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth which is helping me to get into the mindset.  So - along with everything else there is movement.

Today we had some good news on the schmoozing and schlepping front: one person interested in talking to us - and a couple of possibles, one of which, the 250th anniversary of the Sandwich, I am extremely keen to get involved in.  It's a local job but will require national exposure.... lots of good stuff. And events!  However, I am not totally excited by the idea, since in the last few months every forward step or two has been matched by backward steps.... resulting in minimal progress.    I suppose if I didn't have another source of income (Husb, erratic though it is) I might be putting my back into this business a bit more....contacting dozens of people a day - instead of sluggishly sending out things over a couple of weeks.

Other news: a date for the visit to the Tunnels has been fixed.  I am in a group working on getting the tunnels opened up and turned into a tourist attraction to rival - oh, I don't know - The Chislehurst Caves perhaps?
I have to do something about the funding bid.   But next week is looking nice and quiet, can do some steady stuff.   So far, retrograde Mercury doesn't seem to be biting unduly.