ARRRRRGH.  I HAVE A BOOK DUE IN THREE MONTHS.   I DON’T NEED TO BE DRIVEN ROUND THE TWIST BY TECHNOLOGY.*  I have wasted an EXTRAORDINARY amount of time today . . . trying to get Feynman’s SIX EASY PIECES to download onto Pooka.  I have already referred to the possibility of a small unassuming fringe of supporting background maths** in SHADOWS, except that maybe I mean physics***, and if it’s the latter, the obvious person to start with is Richard Feynman.†

            Every time†† I have tried to download something from frelling www.audible.co.uk except that by now I’m fairly sure it’s not audible’s fault, everything blocks up like a kitchen sink drain full of tea leaves.  This time . . . when I’m downloading something I really need to be listening to NOW . . . I’m completely stymied.  Every time I jump through these downloading hoops there’s at least one more hoop than there was last time, but I’ve eventually toiled through to the last.  Not this time.  The audible ap on Pooka just sits there saying ‘connect to WiFi or iTunes’.  YOU ARE CONNECTED TO WIFI AND ITUNES, YOU MORON.  YOU’RE SITTING THERE WITH A CABLE COMING OUT OF YOUR BUTT AND STUCK INTO THE LAPTOP’S SIDE.   The wretched book is on the laptop—it’ll play on the laptop—but it won’t travel down the wire into Pooka, who is clearly manifesting her Apocalypse side.  I even swapped cables, thinking it might be a cable problem. . . .

            I emailed Archcomputerangel Raphael at about 10 o’clock tonight and . . . because Raphael is both angelic and mad, he answered.  He’s on holiday.  He’s on holiday and he’s still checking—and answering!—business emails at ten p.m.†††  He’s going to rouse poor Gabriel tomorrow morning, who is busy holding down the fort by himself, and try to get him here to scrape me off the ceiling (again) and (possibly) do something about the situation.  It’s not like it’s just the downloading problem—it’s my ongoing broadband nightmare.  I’m not crashing off the internet as often, I just frequently go to a page and find the ‘page not found’ squatting there like a toad.  Refreshing 1,265,928 times will usually bring whatever it is back again . . . eventually . . . although meanwhile I’ve read two more chapters in a book I’m not enjoying nearly as much as I should be due to reading it under adverse conditions.  The blog is particularly prone to these Cheshire cat fits when only a fiendish grin is visible.  And having got so far, it’s all very well copying from Word and then hitting ‘save draft’ before I hit ‘publish’, in case of accidents, but the ‘save draft’ takes another minute or two and I have no reason to think it’s any more stable that just hitting ‘publish’ in the first place. 

            And the TIME WASTED.  Gazum frelling argleblargle FRELL.  At a moment—or rather at a three months—when I absolutely cannot afford to be wasting time—I am WASTING TIME.  STRESS.  STRESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

            Now let me tell you one more story of straightforwardness and efficiency, although taking place in a different dimension, out here in the reality of bruises and . . . rain.  You will remember that the auction/sale did rather better than Blogmom or I were expecting.‡  I hastily ordered some backlist books which have been infuriatingly slow to arrive, not least because once they did arrive on these shores, the frelling carrier (a) kept putting cards through my door saying SORRY TO HAVE MISSED YOU, we’ll be BACK some day in the next MONTH, some TIME between 5 a.m. and 9 p.m., but we’re not going to tell you WHEN and (b) ignoring my emails saying WILL YOU PLEASE JUST LEAVE IT?

            I wrote them again over the weekend saying, I have no particular reason to believe you’ll pay attention to this email when you’ve ignored the last three, but this is my LAST try before I attempt to fight my way through your possessed-by-automated-demons phone labyrinth again this coming week.   Of course they didn’t answer.  But today hellhounds and I went back to the cottage on an extra hurtle because I wanted to fetch Pooka’s other cable, in case the downloading problem was the cable.  It’s been tipping down rain most of the day, and I hadn’t been planning to go as far as the cottage again because the rain’s got heavier as the day’s gone on.  But I wanted that cable.  So we plunged through the door, streaming, and found . . . another card on the floor from the carrier.  They’d delivered the box.  They’d left it as requested.  YAAAAAAAAY.

            Um.  Modified yaaay.  When I tell anyone to leave a parcel, I am very specific about where.  Beside the dustbins there’s a little roof, provided by the fair and clever hands of Atlas.  Also, it’s a roof, you know?  You can see it’s a roof.  Roofs are good for keeping rain off, right?  So . . . whoever this driver is had left it between the dustbins—opposite the roof, not under it—so not only was it sitting in the torrential rain, it was receiving additional drenching from the run off from the dustbin lids. 

            But because I had come home for the frelling cable, the box had not yet soaked through.  I guess I have to count this as a win. . . .‡‡ 

* * *

*Which is further yanking me around at this moment.  I’m listening to Ruddigore on Radio Three via their ‘listen again’ programme—or let’s say I’m trying to listen to it—and it’s just dropped off the frelling airwaves again.  ‘Low bandwidth’ the pop-up box says, primly.  The story of my frelling life, lately.  Low.  Bandwidth.^  Arrrrrrrgh.  When the frelling government does all these useless frelling studies of where they can shoehorn in more people—and the whole ‘build more houses!’ thing makes me nuts anyway, when we’ve got a colossal empty house problem already, at least in Hampshire—when they are passing over the whole infrastructure question because it doesn’t suit them to recognise that there is more to be considered than merely plot size for houses, do they even have internet access and broadband feasibility as an item on their list to be passed over?  Or is that a dumb question?  Don’t answer that.  

^ It’s presently not saying anything.  It’s not playing either. 

** And have therefore terrified most of you into silence, apparently.  I did tell you that you have nothing to fear:  you’ll only notice it as a lack of polar bears in the desert.  Or as I said in the afterword to OUTLAWS:  I wanted to make the story historically unembarrassing— I’m aiming to make SHADOWS scientifically unembarrassing—at least up to the point where I jump off the deep end clutching my solemn textbooks and laughing maniacally.  At the moment the magic, and the gruuaa, are winning.  Which is fine.  As long as it’s a fair fight. 

*** My ignorance knows very few bounds. 

† http://www.amazon.com/Six-Easy-Pieces-Essentials-Explained/dp/0465025277/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319583651&sr=1-1

 †† Except not every time.  That very first book—DON’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT [American] HISTORY—the first two of its four parts downloaded fine.  Nothing like setting the frelling hook before you start fishing in earnest. 

††† Angelic.  Mad. 

‡ And in case you’re wondering why I’ve never given you a final absolute total, that’s because I don’t know what the final absolute total is.  It’s not so much the postage and envelopes and pads of A6 paper and things, I’ve got books that were donated by the publishers and books that I paid for—at author’s rate, mind, but still, paid for, and since there are more than two or three of these I need to reimburse myself, which I hadn’t originally expected to be an issue—and I’m going to have to take the whole show to the Tax Man and find out how to present it, and what goes in column A and what goes in column B, because I’m going to have to pay tax on it and then wait till the lovely IRS grudgingly disburses at least some of it back again.  This has been a steep learning curve and no mistake.  I have every intention of doing a little tiny charity auction again some day, because it’s a perfectly good idea and when you’re not thinking ‘eeep’ it’s also fun, but there’s an emphasis on little tiny.  And Blogmom hasn’t forgotten the doodle window, it’s just that all the stuff she didn’t do while she was running the unexpectedly-successful Days in the Life sale/auction, has kind of fallen on her and she’s still catching up. 

            However, it is safe to say that I will be, thanks to your enthusiasm, writing a Very Attractive Cheque for the bell fund.

‡‡ The continuing saga:  when I went to copy and paste into the blog admin window . . . it took six and a half minutes for the thing to open, an additional minute while it thought about accepting the copy and paste I had just (as I thought) inserted . . . and when the words finally appeared on the blank white screen all the formatting had disappeared.  No punctuation.  No paragraphs.  Isn’t life with modern technology fun?

Frell and damnation, it’s already the middle of the night and I still have a blog post to yank out of aetherwhere.   I’ve shipped off a lot of photos to Blogmom so that she can start creating the masterwork that will be this auction.  I was just saying to her that I take some comfort in the thought that my bells will not need serious restoration work again for another century or two.

            Meanwhile I’m very pleased that people on the forum are expressing interest and enthusiasm.  I feel my neck is sticking out pretty far.  I will be glad if this auction is a relative success not only for my bells’ sake but for mine, so I don’t look like an utter drooling prat.   So thank you all once already, and please keep those bid-button-pressing fingers limber.

Gonetotervs:  Another suggestion to raise money — if you still own the e-rights to any of your earliest short stories, put them individually on Amazon for $2.99 and see how many of us will buy them…..

Merrilee and I have a Cunning Plan—although probably not in time for the auction.  Watch this space.

Texturedknitter:  Lots of attractive things in your auction list. I’ve never cared about collecting autographs, but regret now that I didn’t get one at Balticon, lo those many *mumble* years ago.

Nothing to regret!  I’m still writing my name on things!  (I’ve still got the Balticon 1898 mug somewhere, holding pencils or paperclips or dragon baby teeth or rose petals or something.  The date on it is a little startling, I agree.) 

Also, maybe offer a little bat doodle thank you, alternate to the bells doodle thank you? I’m kind of unreasonably fond of the bats (distance helps with this, I expect).

I’m fond of the little frellers myself.  I like hearing them enjoying themselves in the accommodations provided . . . just not so much at 5 a.m.  I’m not quite sure how we’re going to arrange this, but doodle-buyers will be allowed some say in what the doodle will be.  Certainly anything that appeared in last night’s extravaganza is fair game.  Although doodles evolve, as anyone who doodles knows.  Last night’s Hermione or spider or running hellhound may not be next week’s Hermione or spider or running hellhound.  The map of Damar will probably stay fairly constant however.  

librarykat:  once things get going, I’ll see what I can bid on, or simply donate (depends on how crazy bidding gets)

Donations are good*—but you can at least buy a doodle!  (Or three!)  I’m hoping to offer both $5 and $10 doodles (there is also going to have to be some add-on for postage, but I haven’t faced this yet), but I’m dependent on what Blogmom tells me about the tactical technology of all this.  I’m also hoping that there is some clever way I can say/offer that if any biddable item is particularly hot, if it’s something I’ve still got spare copies of, I’ll make available extra copies at top bid price. 

Diane in MN:  Which we are going to be expected to sell tickets to. We’ve already had one pep talk, not to say exhortation, from Vicky about this.
Oh gods. I spent four years in high school having to sell things as part of fund drives, and made a solemn vow that I would NEVER SELL ANYTHING AGAIN. Which has meant, on more than one occasion, buying a lot of raffle tickets that I wasn’t about to try to unload on my friends and acquaintances. You have my very sincere sympathy for this. Do you suppose Vicky would let you off if your auction brings in a pile of cash?

THIS IS EXACTLY THE PLAN.  THIS.  IS.  THE.  PLAN.   I am totally hoping to lay a startling cheque in Vicky’s lap and add ‘and I’m not selling any frelling tickets.’  So, listen, everyone, not only are you contributing to the bell fund, you’re contributing to GETTING ME A REPRIEVE FROM TICKET SELLING.   Going around confronting people with stuff you want them to buy is the worst.  You know all those studies that say that public speaking is the majority number one fear?  I can do public speaking.  But selling things?  The mere idea makes me feel slightly ill.   Brrrrrrr.  So, bid in the auction.  Buy doodles.  Please.  I’ll stay up late drawing portraits of your Aunt Fanny and setting Chesterton’s Lepanto to music.   Anything.  Just don’t make me sell tickets.    

CathyR:  Can’t wait for the auction! *so excited* !!

This is the right attitude.  We support and encourage this attitude. 

AJLR:    *sits poised on edge of computer chair, with finger flexed over the PayPal button*

Yes!  Yes! 

B_twin:  I’m eyeing off that copy of ROWAN and SUNSHINE…

AJLR:  OK, BIDDING WAR in prospect!  And if R and I have to live on bread and dripping for a week in aid of Robin’s bells, well, I’m sure he won’t mind…

Someone married to a bellringer has to understand.  (Please quote me.)

Glinda:  I’d go for a bell doodle. Or a bat doodle. Or how about both together, for a bit more money?

This is the idea behind the $5 and $10 options.  Or two doodles. 

Black Bear:  Hey all, eyes off that copy of Rowan!!!

AJLR:  Gonna make me, huh, huh?
*squares up to Black Bear* 

Umm . . . ROWAN is one of the ones I have extra copies of . . . ::whistles nonchalantly:: 

Amyrose:  What about just selling autographed copies of various books? I would gladly pay $10-$20 in addition to the price of the book, especially since it’s for such a good cause.

 I’d consider this.  Anyone else out there interested? 

Of course, then who would ship them out? And who would order the necessary books? I suppose that would be a logistics nightmare.

Well, me.  That’s who’s doing all the grunt work anyway.**  But I wouldn’t expect the demand to be all that overwhelming.  Famous last words, I suppose.

But – *wistfully* – it would be nice to get a copy of Spindle’s End with a signature. And maybe a doodle of a spider… or a fox..

I could do that.  Oh, fox!  I could do a fox.

PamAdams:  I would certainly buy a doodle or maybe two. (Plus I’m hoping for some Peter books–any chance for King and Joker or Skeleton-in-Waiting?)

Another thing about an auction list is you probably can’t let it get too long and overwhelming or people will take one look and go back to reruns of THE WEST WING.  Unless you’re Sotheby’s, which I am not.  And I think KING and SKELETON don’t appear because we haven’t got spare copies.  Peter had this appalling habit of giving ALL his copies away and neglecting to order more.  And then the book goes OP and that’s that.  

AnguaLupin:  …Now I really have to find money in the budget to bid on the Serious Doodle. 

Oh good.  Yes please. 

Mrs Redboots:  Is there anything the Hellgoddess can’t do????

Write books that sell millions of copies.  Knit like you can.  Ring a touch of Stedman Triples.  Ring even a plain frelling course of Cambridge minor in hand.  Stop my roses from getting blackspot.  Convince my hellhounds to eat every day.  Sing like Beverly Sills/Marilyn Horne/Janet Baker/Joyce DiDonato/Bryn Terfel.  Fly like a pegasus.  End world hunger. . . .

I love the doodles!

Oh good.  Thank you!  Thank all of you! 

Meanwhile . . . you won’t remember this, but a couple of months ago I made reference to a Secret Gardening Project.  Look. 

First fruits. Er, vegetables.

My very first edible crop . . . of anything but apples off my predecessor’s tree, and my little patio peach and nectarine trees (this year’s harvest are ripening nicely, thank you).   Peter used to grow our vegetables but his back has not been cooperating this year with the basic gardening concept of lots of bending over.  I saw a tray of six-inch broad-bean seedlings out in front of the florist’s and thought oh . . .  feh . . . nothing ventured.  And they take up a huge amount of room, demand to be watered all the time, and totally refuse to be staked in any way I understand staking*** . . . and then you get this weeny handful of pods after all that, which are mostly pod.† 

Mostly pod. Sigh.

            But then you bite into a broad bean that was still on the plant an hour ago and you say ‘oh.  Wow.  Yes.  This is why.’  So I probably will do it again next year.    Maybe I’ll try a few more plants.   Maybe . . . 

* * *

* I’m also thinking that after all of this I will have to figure out how to get a recording of us ringing our newly cleaned, pressed and mended bells.  I’m the one going CLANK. 

** And Fiona, of course. 

*** Note to self:  broad beans are not dahlias. 

† I should get about this much again, I think, unless the next lot of pods decide they’re not having a good time and decamp to the Bahamas.

I AM SPECTACULARLY OFF LINE.  SPECTACULARLY.  I CRASHED AND BURNED WITH DAZZLING, NAY, EPIC GRANDEUR LAST NIGHT, AT BOTH THE MEWS AND THE COTTAGE, WHEN I TRIED TO POST WHAT FOLLOWS HERE NOW, AND I CAN’T GET BACK ON.  THIS COMES TO YOU BY WAY OF A FRIEND’S MOBILE TOGGLE, AND WHEN I’VE POSTED THIS I WILL DISAPPEAR FOREV . . . I MEAN, UNTIL COMPUTER MEN CAN COME AND SORT ME OUT WHICH, SINCE THIS IS A FRIDAY, BECAUSE ALL DISASTERS HAPPEN ON FRIDAYS, MAY NOT BE TILL NEXT WEEK.~  HAVE A NICE SOMETHING OR OTHER.  GAAAAAAH.

OH FRELL’S BELLS.  You’re going to have to wait at least till tomorrow for some photos, I’m afraid.  Cathy R took lots, as per my request, and she’s even loaned me her camera’s memory card and . . . it won’t fit in my computer.  I thought I had an extra super-sized slot*, but . . . no.  And Mrs Redboots, while eight of us were sitting around at the café afterward waiting for our food,** emailed me the ones she took, but Outlook has managed to lose them.***
So.  There was a signing.  I think it went pretty well.  The nice man at the shop was smiling when we left, but that could of course be because we were leaving.
There were no bats last night either, and I’m pretty sure there really weren’t, because I was sleeping badly enough that I’d’ve noticed if there were.†  Got out of bed finally in a weary, resigned sort of way and stared owlishly at the heap of pink leotard, lacy blouse, black leather mini, sparkly silver tights and sequinned leopard print All Stars.
It was sheeting rain.  Okay, that’s fine, it means I don’t have to worry about watering my pots, and it may mean I get to sleep tonight due to the signing being over plus a continued absence of bats.††
Hurtled hellhounds.
Put on the pink leotard, lacy blouse, black leather mini, sparkly silver tights††† and sequinned leopard print All Stars.
It stopped raining.  Perhaps this was a good omen.
I went to train station.
Got on train.‡
Knitted, somewhat frantically, all the way to Waterloo.  Golly, the blood-pressure headaches and tension stomachaches I might have avoided, all those early years when I did do a certain amount of business travelling, if I had discovered knitting.  It’s not like it makes all the anxiety go away, but it is like managing to run just fast enough to stay ahead of the ravening monster chasing you.  Or like sometimes, when you’ve taken a painkiller, and it’s worked, but you can still feel the thing with teeth trying to get in and bite you:  the drugs can hold it off but can’t make it go away.   Knitting on the way to a public author thing is a bit like that.‡‡  And in this case frelling PEG II has been messing with my head again, and so I was thinking irritably about the amount of ratbaggery I’m putting up with over this thing-I-said-I’d-never-do, a more-than-one-book story, as I was on my way to sign copies of its elder sibling. . . .

* * *

There are dramas unfolding even now, after I’m home again.  First I found out I wasn’t going to be able to get at Cathy R’s photos, and then I discovered that Mrs Redboots’ took a left turn when they should have taken a right and are now in Heilongjiang Province.  I emailed Vikki K, who has a slight parallel tendency not to go to bed early, and she promised to email her photos.  This was going swimmingly . . . always a bad sign . . . when the last few photos refused to open.  Oh, frell, I said, and was about to email Vikki again and ask if she could resend, when I had a sudden attack of paranoia . . . at which point I discovered that the earlier ones, which had been opening, weren’t opening any more.
None of the photos that Vikki had just saved my day/night/blog post/credibility with by sending tonight was now available.
And then I crashed off line.
And I have spent the last hour trying to get back on line again, and screaming.‡‡‡   My computer is performing acts of aggravated iniquity I have never seen before.
And I’m now writing this wondering if I’m going to manage to post anything tonight.  There will be a nice irony in the night of my signing being the one I bomb off the air, right?  You’ll all think we all went out and got spectacularly drunk and danced on tables and were chased through the streets by the Met’s finest and then reeled home so late I barely made it to my piano lesson.§  Unfortunately . . .
So I’m now going back to the cottage, and I’m going to try to sign on there, and . . . And then I’m going to bed.  Some day I will finish telling you about the signing.  Some day there will even be photos. . . .

* * *

~ It might amuse you to know that my first thought, as I reeled from the overwhelming implications of being off line, was, well, I have lots to read.  Oh, and knit.

* In fact I remember it.  It’s directly under the smaller one.  Clearly on some other computer.  Possibly in some other life.

** And waiting . . . and waiting . . . and

*** I can hear that crackling static that passes for its laughter.^

^ And that was before everything else went wrong.  Predictive crackly laughter.  Arrrgh.

† I dreamt, among other things, about the Muddlehamptons’ concert^.  I dreamed that they were actually putting on CARMEN, and that I was singing Carmen. I have a really mean subconscious.  Really mean.

^ Which, it now being after midnight, is TOMORROW.

†† Tomorrow night, of course, I’ll be awake from worrying about the frelling concert.  If I wake up Saturday morning humming the Habanera I may run away.

††† I had forgotten how ITCHY the flaming things are.  It is one of the great failures of modern science, that they appear not to have yet developed a non-itchy sparkly fibre.

‡ With ticket helpful Penguin minder had preordered and sent to me.  How’s that for efficient minding.  And the train was on time.  Penguin apparently also has pull with the travel gods.

‡‡ One thing that can be said in favour of doing public things a little oftener than I do is that then they’re less eeep-making.  A bit like ringing quarter peals.  A quarter peal feels like a harrowing major event.  Then if you do a few in a row it’s like, oh, a quarter peal.  I can do that.

‡‡‡ What a good thing I’m not singing Carmen tomorrow.

§ At 3 pm.

Computers are evil.  Computers are death.  Computers are bane and abomination.  I HATE COMPUTERS.  HATE.  HATE.  HATE.

            You may possibly remember that last Friday I had semi-promised you the first part of the lullaby from PEGASUS this Friday—?

            The day began badly.  I was just strapping hellhounds in to the rocket launcher when the phone rang, and it was Peter saying, in a commendably calm tone, that if I get any emails from UPS, not to open them.  Peter actually uses UPS, so it was plausible. . . .

            Yes.  Plausible but hostile.  By the time hellhounds and I returned from pounding a little more Hampshire countryside back into place again*** the Trojan horse had burst like a piñata . . . all over the innards of Peter’s computer, which is, for the moment anyway, an ex-computer.  One of Asmodeus’ minions is going to fetch it away on Monday and see if any of his incantations† can recall it from the land of the dead.  Peter, poor man, has spent most of the day on the phone . . . first trying, under instruction, to limit the damage, which I gather was a bit like trying to claw the tide back from ebbing with a fork, and then trying to convince his laptop that it wasn’t just a typewriter with a screen, it could do computery things, like check email and ask Google questions.  But it kept wringing its little memory modules and saying no, no, no!  Beat me, spurn me, feed me to hellhounds††, but don’t make me go on line!

            Meanwhile I had a piano lesson this afternoon.  I’ve actually written the, or anyway some, music for the second and (so far as I know) final part of the lullaby this week, but I trust my own judgement even less than usual with the ME roaring in my ears, so I wanted to take both the corrected first part††† and the new second part to Oisin.  He did print it out for me, and I should have just made the final adjustments with a pen, but you know, you have this fabulous, inbloodysanely complicated software for which your husband paid rather a bomb, you want to use it. . . and there was no going back after I’d written a phone number, a succinct shopping list, and the first bar and a half of a new piece across the top of Oisin’s print out.‡

            My printer at the mews is one of the reasons I need an Asmodeus minion to pay a visit, and Peter’s ancient but reliable printer is so old that the pages it produces are really not good enough for scanning.  So I brought the mews laptop—which is the one with Finale‡‡, my composing software, on it—back to the cottage tonight.  And plugged it into the cottage printer, which is the good printer, except when it’s in a bad mood, fired up Finale, and prepared to print out.

            Found new hardware, said my computer.

            There was an error in gijjeebling with the new hardware, said my computer.  New hardware may not work properly.

            Then the Install New Hardware Wizard popped up.  Go away, I said and closed it.

            So I went into ‘printers’ and made sure that the correct printer was ticked.  It was.  Listen, I’d had Computer Men install the freller on all sixteen‡‡‡ of my computers;  I knew it was there.  It was there!  It was theeeeere!

            Went back to Finale.  Opened lullaby, hit ‘print’.

            Document failed to print, said my computer.

            ARRRRGH, I said.   I deleted the print queue.

            It was now seven-fifteen, and I have to go bell ringing in fifteen minutes.  I rebooted.

            Found new hardware, said my computer.  We don’t like this new hardware.  We don’t like its shoes.  We don’t like its haircut.  The Install New Hardware Wizard popped up again.  And cleared its throat meaningfully.

            I closed it down again.

            I tried to print the lullaby again.

            Document failed to print, my computer said again.  Gleefully.

            The Install New Hardware Wizard leaped out of the shadows, waving exuberantly.  Let me solve all your problems!  I can go on line and download everything you could ever need!   

           I’m not in a very good mood about downloading stuff from the internet right now, I said.  Let’s try something else.

            Then give me the Mystic Install Printer Disk! said the wizard joyfully.

            Yes.  I found the Mystic Install Printer Disk.  Now this is where you think that it’s all going to be all right after all, don’t you?  You’d be wrong.

            I put the Mystic Disk in the little drawer.  It spun.  It loaded . . . almost.

            It was within a fingernail paring’s breadth of finishing when a Large Red Error Box with Lots of Red Xs in it exploded over the install box, saying, Some Crucial Windows XP Files Have Been Overwritten And You Are in Deep Dog Crap.  Give Us Your First Born Child, No, Wait, You’re Too Old For That One, Give Us Your Windows XP Professional Install Disk And We May Save Your Ass.  Or, Then Again, We May Not.

            Meanwhile, the almost-loaded mystic printer disk is making small flailing motions and trying to boost itself up to peer over the edge of the Large Red Error box.  Wait a minute! it says.  I was here first!  Let me finish!

            We Are Windows.  We Rule.  Get Out of the Way Before We Step on You Like An Outdated Motherboard.  Crunch.

            I take the mystic printer disk out of the little drawer and put the Windows XP disk in.

            Hey, says the New Hardware Wizard.  That was bloody rude.  Cancel these Windows yobos, whoever the hell they think they are.  Put the mystic printer disk back in the drawer.  Now.

            Don’t Touch Anything, said the Large Red Error Box, or The World Will End in Fire and Peripherals.

            Blow me, said the wizard.  Let my mystic disk finish loading, or I’m going to crumdang the josselwidgers, and then you’ll be sorry.

            You wouldn’t, said the Box.

            I would, said the wizard.

            At this point I have about eleventy hundred little ‘open’ boxes in hydra-headed heaps on the what-you’re-up-to bar at the bottom of the screen.  None of them will close.  And nothing else works either.  I hit ctrl-alt-delete and the Programme Tyrant box stomps into view, cracking its whip. 

            Make them behave, I say. 

            The Programme Tyrant strives mightily for a minute or two but the wizard and the Box are locked in mortal combat.  Ow!  Dranglefab!  WHAP!  BLANG!  THUMP!

            So I turn the whole thing off.  CRASH.  I can frelling hear the components clanking together like badly rung bells.

            And then I run/totter off to tower practise.

            So the story thus far:  I need Blogmom to load the sheet music to the lullaby on the blog.  This means I have to print it out, scan it back in again, and tack it on as an attachment to an email, and send it to her.  I have, thus far, done none of these things.

            Tune in tomorrow for the next exciting episode. 

* * *

* You may replace this with ‘matriarch’ if you prefer 

** Yes, I do read too much Wondermark.^   http://wondermark.com/   Wait, is it possible to read too much Wondermark?

http://wondermark.com/601/  Ahem, says she who eats everything with chopsticks.   

^ Does he do matriarchs?  I don’t remember matriarchs 

*** Landscape gets uppity if you don’t tramp on it regularly.  See, you’re helping save the planet when you go for walks.  It’s not just a question of your waistline. 

† Asmodeus is expecting Peter to provide his own dragon’s blood, eyelash of salamander and powdered mandrake root.  At the prices they charge, I feel these should be included.  

††  Ha ha ha ha ha.  Although you don’t know, they might have a taste for computer components. 

††† And a good thing I did, since I’d managed to make one of the corrections backwards 

‡ Like we aren’t frelling drowning in second sheets, from all those blank-backed galley proofs.  We have scratch paper for the next million years.  

‡‡ Having now had it, used it, and been slapped around by it for a year and a half or so, I like the name no more than I did in the beginning.  It said, You’ve had it!  You’re finished!, a year and a half ago, and it still says, You’ve had it!  You’re finished! to me now.

 ‡‡‡ Well.  Four.  And one of ’em’s retired.

So here’s the new system.  When WordPress pitches a hissy fit, you get a teaser, like the following, and a pdf.  I would rather have it all here on the blog, which is what we’ll continue to do when possible.  But when it isn’t possible, a pdf means you can still have the guest post.  And I can still have the night off.  And everybody leaves with the marbles they came in with.

                    Back to PEGASUS.  Tick tock.  Thank the gods for that five hours’ difference between me and Manhattan.

* * *

* Or possibly pegasus, in which case there are also wings that need pinning

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT.

My guest blog folder has DISAPPEARED. 

           I have no idea, except that I assume it’s all a part of the recent ruckus with Outlook.  Outlook has been stealthily eating my address book since our rebarbative association began;  apparently the mere disappearance of a few contacts—which furthermore I probably have hardcopy of*–has become insufficiently infuriating.  My blood pressure doesn’t go up more than a point or two when I discover someone else has vanished.    Since—see below—I am likely to be visited by Computer Men some day very soon I will ask if my guest blogs can be retrieved from whatever ether-eal hell they have been inadvertently consigned to.  But, because I am a well-tutored pessimist about all things computery, would every/anyone who has sent me a guest post which hasn’t appeared yet please send it to me again.*  And this time, believe me, I will keep a back up copy on a memory stick.

Frelling frell frelling.  FRELLING.  FRELL.

And if that wasn’t quite enough . . . I’m off line again.  I assume I’m going to be able to plug in either to Peter’s desktop connection or back at the cottage to post tonight but here on the mews laptop where I write probably five out of seven blog entries—which occupation requires constant application to Google and other there-are-certain-kinds-of-embarrassment-I-would-like-to-avoid fact-checking sites** not to mention the possibility of the insertion of fascinating links*** —I am dead in the virtual water.  Arrrrrgh. 

            We also rang this morning like a bunch of one-armed dipsomaniacs the morning after tying a particularly rich one on.  There were six of us, all of us theoretically method ringers, but we couldn’t get through anything without clanks, crashes, and frantic shouts of rounds!  STAND! from the beleaguered conductor.  Some Sunday mornings are like that.  Are bells technology?  Well, smelting metal usually counts as one of those basic technological-enabling skills so for the purposes of hellishness, bells are today honorary technology.†

            When I snuck out of the tower—days like today you don’t want anyone to see you climbing down the ladder from the bell chamber—there was no Peter waiting for me.  There is supposed to be a Peter waiting for me Sunday mornings after ringing unless the weather is completely filthy.  Which it is not. ††  I hung around long enough to start feeling faintly worried ††† and then started back down the hill . . . at last to see Peter toiling up toward me. 

            He had been having his own collision with technology.  He’d had his shower and was getting dressed in his bedroom when both his smoke alarms went off.  I’m sure that in the middle of the night when it’s saving your life a smoke alarm is a wonderful thing, but the problem is that smoke alarms are frellingly proof against any kind of tampering, in case it’s an electrical fire, so if they go wrong they go wrong with great stamina and determination. 

            Peter guessed that the steam from his shower must have set them off‡, so he opened all the doors and windows and got a terrific through draught . . . and the alarms kept on.  He crawled into the crawl spaces and stuck his head in the attic in case it was an electrical fire, but there was nothing . . . except the alarms going on and on.  He went next door to reassure his neighbours, and they came round and made helpful suggestions, none of which worked.  I’ve had problems with those ‘reset buttons’ myself:  you lean on one and the technology goes DON’T YOU TAMPER WITH ME! WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP!  By this time the next neighbour in the row had turned up and made more useless helpful suggestions.  The reset buttons had of course been pressed and prodded any number of times and each infernal machine would shut up briefly and then start yelling again.

            Finally, as much by accident as anything, Peter pressed the reset button on the one upstairs while one of the neighbours was pressing the reset button on the one downstairs‡‡ . . . and silence fell.  At last.   And so, Peter says, the conclusion seems to be that you have to press both reset buttons simultaneously . . . which is difficult for a person living alone.

            There are going to be a whole assortment of urgent phone calls going out at 9 am sharp tomorrow morning to professional technology-bashers from the McKinley-Dickinson ménage.

 * * *

 * When I can find them.  And of course every time I update the RaspBerry whatever Outlook has been up to gets transferred too, so back up becomes de-back up, or front down, or something. 

* Whimper.  And please the gods you’ve kept copies.  

** Including on-line dictionaries and a thesaurus or two, since my Oxford reference shelf, never the most stable of delicate artistic souls, has lately taken to responding ‘iFinger did not find anything matching blah’ when blah is a perfectly good word like assythment or gorcrow or archfiend^ or piepowder.  This is very undermining to the middle-aged brain, which is getting pretty gappy anyway.  iFinger is also an absolutist:  you either get an answer or you get ‘did not find’.  The on-liners tend to offer alternatives from which you may be able to grope your way toward what you were looking for. 

^ Just to be sure I wasn’t being unfair, I looked up ‘fiend’.  It said, among other things,+ ‘see table at devil’.  So I looked up the table at devil+ and found listed Arch-fiend.  Okay, I said, and typed in ‘Arch-fiend’.  iFinger did not find anything matching . . . 

+ Synonyms included hellhound 

++ Good book title:  The Table at Devil.  It’ll be scary.  I don’t want to read it.  

*** For example there’s an article today in the Observer Magazine called Sleepless?  Stressed?  Anxious?  Exhausted? by William Leith, which is about the fact that this is increasingly the norm in the first world.  Some of us go on to develop ME/CFS or some similar label-able but un-pin-down-able disturbance, and some of us are just tired.  One of the key ingredients in the modern developed-world overload is its 24-hour-a-day-ness:  and first in that list is the 24/7 internet.  And before several dozen passionate web bunnies write in berating me for demonising^ the web, I’m not.  I’m a web bunny too, in my cranky, middle-aged, Facebook- and Twitter-less, uncool way.  But I’m also someone with no ‘off’ switch—which is why I’ve got ME.  The web is like the biggest toy box you ever dreamed of when you were four—it’s not just the shopping, it’s the everything—but Mum doesn’t make you put your toys away and go to bed at 7 pm any more. 

            But the small personal irony here is severalfold:  in the first place, I probably wouldn’t have read the article if I weren’t banned from on line.  I spent last night—my Saturday night off—doing autumn plant orders, and I was hoping to finish^^ this afternoon.  On line, of course.  In the second place, I thought, blog.  And wanted to go on line and find a link to the article for you.  And in the third place, William Leith has written a book:  ‘It’s about what it’s like to be middle-aged and exhausted.  It’s called Bits of Me Are Falling Apart.’  I thought:  okay, I’m there.  And wanted to go on line and look it up, see if it’s out yet, and if there are any reviews.

            Sigh.

             . . . Okay, that was implausibly easy:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/jul/12/chronic-fatigue-stress-modern-life

             Oh dear:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/aug/09/philosophy.society

             But take your pick:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jun/14/william-leith-falling-apart

http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/902746/part_2/really-not-happy-at-all.thtml

 ^ or archfiending 

^^ Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.  I do try to do the majority of my plant ordering in two huge, terrifying wodges, summer and winter, for autumn and spring, so that aside from the lists that I fanatically keep+ I have some sort of sense of what and how much I’ve already ordered.++ 

+ keeping does not necessarily mean being able to lay hands on when desired 

++ Too much!  Too frelling much! 

† Although strictly speaking it wasn’t the bells.  Hey!  It wasn’t me boss!  Not this time! 

†† Or only in random outbursts.  We’ve been having random-outburst weather the last couple of days. 

††† Peter is 81 and a half, and I worry easily 

‡ The fire brigade—who was applied to at some point this morning—concurs that humidity can set the frellers off.  But they had no magic for deaf and hostile reset buttons. 

‡‡ The tall neighbour.  The second smoke alarm requires a ladder to get at for ordinary humans, which is bizarre, not least because the previous tenant was seriously short.  Maybe he had excellent aim with a broomstick.

              The first thing that happened is that I thought oh, cool, sure . . . and forgot to answer. 

               The second thing that happened, about a week later, is that I belatedly wrote back that I’d be happy to chat except it was probably too late–?, thinking, you moron, here’s a British magazine trying to pay some attention to SUNSHINE . . . and I’m being a cretin.***

               Only it wasn’t too late.  And we had an excellent chat, based on the simple fact that she really liked SUNSHINE, although I don’t envy her trying to take notes, since when I’m nervous–and interviews always make me nervous†–I tend to talk at a million miles an hour.††   I admit that some of the resulting ‘quotations’ make me giggle because I doubt that’s exactly what I said††† but she was nice enough to let me see the article before it went to the printer and while I’d begged for this favour I’d also promised I wouldn’t ask for changes unless she made me say something like ‘I think all women should be just like June Cleaver’ and she didn’t.‡ 

               She’d said that they were going to do a ‘feature’ on SUNSHINE but I was still pretty startled when she sent me the layout, which is what you see here. ‡‡  Golly.  They meant it, about the feature. 

ARRRRRRRGH.  NO, THAT IS NOT WHAT YOU SEE HERE, BECAUSE IT HAS DISAPPEARED.  I WILL ASK BLOGMOM TO REINSTATE AT AT HER EARLIEST CONVENIENCE.  ARRRRRRRRGH.
[Blogmom: alrighty then]

               And while I can’t find any mention of it on the SFX site‡‡‡, the Special Vampire Issue is supposed to have hit the stands today.  So please go buy it and revel in a terrific plug for SUNSHINE.§               

She also said the editor said I could ‘quote a few paragraphs’, so: 

 What comes before Twilight? Sunshine, of course.

           . . . The book did well in the States but struggled in the UK (not for want of good reviews, however; SFX gave it five stars). While Meyer’s vampire saga ran off with the book sales . . .  Sunshine has stayed on the sidelines.  And yet everybody who does read it seems to adore it. §§ . . . McKinley is . . . inundated with requests for a sequel . . . the author is waiting for the ‘Story Council’ to send her the inspiration for the next part (“It’s so frustrating,” she says, of the people who beg her to write it, “I got another email just yesterday saying, ‘Won’t you please reconsider?’ Reconsidering has nothing to do with it! I would love to write a sequel!”).

            . . .  Excuse us if we don’t mince words here – Sunshine deserves to be bigger than Twilight. With a cast of well-rounded characters . . .  a fully realised universe and its strong sense of the otherworldly . . . this book is so intricate and beautifully shaped it’s almost criminal that it’s not The Next Big Thing. . . .

            . . . Buy Sunshine. It’s The Next Big Thing That Should Be.  

* * *

 * http://jaynenelson.wordpress.com/2008/01/27/nelsons-column-er-blog

 ** http://www.sfx.co.uk/ 

*** Expletives deleted.  I worked for that restrained, courteous ’cretin’.  

† Like ringing handbells for weddings 

†† I’ve told the story several times that the first speech I ever wrote, which I think was after BEAUTY came out, but it might not have been till after SWORD, lasted me years, because I read it off so fast no one could hear me and therefore wouldn’t recognize it if they heard it again. 

††† And then again it might be.  Nerves have an effect on brain function too. 

‡ http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_P-0bkMcgIVE/SEX6ILPwbcI/AAAAAAAAAuw/ADH9YTnYfM8/s400/june_cleaver.jpg 

I was hoping to find a photo that had not only the pearls but the cocktail dress and the high heels under the apron while she makes cookies.  Pearls alone are not conclusive–I wear pearls while I make cookies.  I like pearls.  (I like cookies.)^  But this will have to do.

               And anyone culturally deprived enough not to know about Leave It to Beaver . . . lucky you.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_It_to_Beaver   It was one of the many plagues and blights on my young proto-feminist life. 

^ I even occasionally wear an apron.  Possibly the one that says, I want it all.  And I want it covered in chocolate. 

‡ It is now obvious that she wouldn’t.  But I didn’t know that to begin with.  And I’ve had some very peculiar dealings with other journalists.  Very peculiar other journalists. 

‡‡ The quote with my name after it that they’ve decided to pull out and headline–which I think you can’t quite read^–says:  “I’m not terribly interested in graphic sex or endless foreplay”.  Siiiiiiiigh.   Context is all. 

^ Jayne originally sent me the layout pdf as my copy of the text too.  And I couldn’t read the freller:  the type kept breaking up.  So she sent it to me as a Word document as well.  But this afternoon when I was trying to stick the layout into tonight’s blog entry as a photo, it suddenly got all huge and clear.  Arrrrrgh.  Jayne had said that SFX didn’t mind if I quoted from the article . . . but I doubt they’d be pleased if I inadvertently published the whole thing.  So Blogmom shrank it for me. 

‡‡‡ More siiiiiiighing.  

§ Any BUFFYites out there, Jayne says there’s an interview with James Marsters in it too. 

§§ Mmm. . . . she should see some of my mail. . . .

Niall will be picking me up for the handbell wedding in less than twelve hours.*

 I feel sick.

 I’m so demoralised I actually cut a rose and brought it indoors.  I’ve told you I can’t bear to cut anything, haven’t I?  Well, in a garden this small I can always just stand in the door and look at it, whatever it is.  But you don’t get the smell while you’re working, that way.  And the smell of a rose makes you work faster.  No, really.  You should try it. 

 This is Mme Isaac Pereire.  And she smells divine.  She’s one of the roses–Souvenir de la Malmaison is another one–a single one of whose flowers will positively fill the room with scent.  Granted this is a small kitchen.  Even so.

            Oh yes, and that is George V and Queen Mary on the vase.  Well–unless you’re a royal fetishist you may not have ID’d precisely which monarchs you behold, but you’ll have noticed it’s some royals.  Yes.  Back in the States I had a very, very minor collection of tacky British-royal china–tacky and expensive, just by the way:  what price your favoured kitsch–and then I moved over here and discovered that the British take their royal family seriously.  Okay, leaving now.  But Peter thought it was so funny that I collected the stuff that periodically he breaks out and gives me a piece.  This vase is one of his.  Okay, I admit it, I like it.

And this is Mme Isaac outdoors.  Listen, you’re just going to have to resign yourself to The Standard Photo of a few of my favourite roses rolling round every year.  Like this shot of this year’s Mme Isaac.  And her raspberry smell is as strong as her raspberry pink.  (If she’s not coming over as a really dark raspberry pink, move your screen around till she does.)

And Queenie (Konigen von Danemark).  Another favourite, and my standard answer to, What’s your favourite rose?  She’s also got a fabulous smell but it’s lighter and sweeter than Mme Isaac or Souvenir.

There was a precedent for bringing a Mme Isaac indoors:  I’d cut two of the rain-damaged Souvenirs when I took her raincoat off, and put them in the kitchen, and coming downstairs in the morning was like walking into a sea of rose-smell. 

I lost half a dozen Souvenirs to the rain, but the rest of ‘em are blooming like anything.  Pale flowers are almost impossible to photo en masse because they white out against the foliage, but you get the idea.  The white rose along the right-hand wall is Souvenir.  Up at the top spreading along the left wall is Sombreuil.  And that’s next door’s climbing Cecile Brunner coming over the wall.  I don’t mind this at all.  Climbing Cecile is a monster–I have her at Third House, although she hasn’t really got going yet–the bush one is a modest little creature:  I have her here, in Mme Isaac’s and Fantin Latour’s shadow.  That’s Fantin climbing over the (daphne) shrub slightly left of centre:  she’s not a climber, but she’s slightly more of a monster than I had entirely allowed for (I knew I was being silly planting a climbing Souvenir in this garden) and so I’m kind of stapling her down where I can.  Unfortunately I can’t get a good photo of the entirety of her.

. . . .IT HAS TAKEN FRELLING WORDPRESS AN HOUR AND TWENTY MINUTES TO LOAD A FEW MISERABLE LITTLE PHOTOGRAPHS.  I HAVE WASHED THE DISHES, SWEPT THE FLOOR [sic], PUT ON A LOAD OF LAUNDRY, CAUGHT UP WITH MY BACK ISSUES OF THE RINGING WORLD AND FINISHED GOING OUT OF MY MIND.

I HOPE YOU GUYS APPRECIATE HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU.

* * * 

* You all think I’m a complete bell junkie, don’t you?  Niall is ringing a (tower) quarter (peal) tomorrow morning and a tower wedding after our handbells.  I knew about the tower wedding, which I danced narrowly out of the clutches of myself^, but I only found out he was also ringing the quarter tonight, when he and Leo (who is in the quarter, but Leo is not ringing any weddings) were discussing it at practise.  You’re ringing the quarter too? I said, appalled.  He blinked at me.  Yes, he said.  But I am a sad, sick person. 

 ^ Which I think may have been more of been a foot-shooting really.  In Vicky’s absence I’m responsible for the band for the wedding on the 20^th, and one of the ways you get people to agree to ring for you is by ringing for them.  One of the reasons Vicky is so effective a tower secretary is that everyone owes her favours.  And with frelling Niall around the plea that you’re already ringing one wedding that day suddenly sounds really feeble.

There were undesirable off stage excitements last night.   I have no excuse for writing my entry late yesterday* except that PEGASUS is in a phase where it likes to torment me by producing words about one every ten minutes, including ‘a’ and ‘the’.  Long term I’m not hugely bothered**;  I can feel the story is there.  Short term . . . I wish I’d grown up to be a fireperson.   Or a sous-chef.  Or a motorcycle messenger.   Or a bookbinder.  No.  Not a bookbinder.  Anyway. . . .  And I have–ahem!–perhaps mentioned once or twice that my ME seems to be here for an extended visit.  So I find myself working later in the evenings . . . which means I get to the blog later . . . and I haven’t time for it to be later because the ME is telling me I need more sleep.*** 

            So last night I wrote the entry on the laptop over (late) dinner at the cottage†,  saved it as a draft on the blog, closed down in the kitchen and moved upstairs to my desktop.††

            And the blog wouldn’t let me in.  Oh, hi, Robin, that’s not your password.  No.  It’s not.  No, that isn’t your password either.  And furthermore that’s not your email address.  Go away, horrible fraudulent person.  –In theory I don’t have to log in:  it’s supposed to remember the computer(s).†††  But about once a week it makes me log in just because it feels like it.  Usually the automatic password gadget works.  Every now and then it doesn’t, because the administrative ghoul chooses to remember the wrong password.  I know this because it’s the wrong length.   Thereupon the blog usually grandly denies me entry . . . freezes . . . then coughs, groans and flickers for about ten seconds, and dumps me inside after all with bad grace. 

            Not last night.  Last night it was iron maiden and thumbscrews all the way.‡  After about ten minutes of inputting, re-inputting, vari-putting, retro-putting, flaming-pain-in-the-backside-putting, thumping, whacking, closing down and starting up again, and screaming–screaming is the basic currency of all computer communication–I wrote a desperate email to ALL my moderators, saying, HEEEEELP, is anyone out there???–and several of them were, fortunately, and after another ten or so minutes of frelling around I got in . . . although I don’t know how or why‡‡ because I don’t think it has anything to do with anything I did or was told to do.  I think the blog spontaneously recovered from its psychotic break and started frelling functioning again, like the hum of the electricity coming back on after the snowstorm/hurricane/Uncle Japheth got drunk again and wrapped his truck around the power pole, no, he’s fine but the power pole is kindling and all the wires fell down.‡‡‡

            Thanks to all my mods.   My heroines.  And Blogmom today told me what to do to try and prevent this all happening again.

            . . . Last night, however, I was left drenched in adrenaline§ and it took me hours to go to sleep . . . and then Atlas knocked on the door at 9 am this morning, which is a perfectly reasonable hour to knock on someone’s door, except when they have ME and are attempting to sleep in after a really rotten night.  So I am only nominally either awake or operative today.  But Blackbear, last night painfully reminded of STAR TREK’s The Paradise Syndrome§§, today sent me this, which I thought I would share with you.  Two pinnacles of filmic glory here twined together for their greater conjoined effulgence.  Yes.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ieOaPWQUEY 

Actually several mods have sent me Extremely Strange Links today.  Hmmmmmm. 

* * *

 *I do have an excuse tonight.  Handbells.  Niall’s secret cadre of handbell ringers from the other side of the county came here, which with Colin and me made five.  Mostly we rang major–eight bells–since royal–ten bells^–felt a little beyond most of us.  There was some vying to be the person who got to sit out. 

 ^ Ugh.  I think ten bells is royal.  My ringing books are all at some other house and I’m failing to find it on line.   I don’t venture into the stratosphere of super-multi-bell ringing all that often.

** Bothered, yes, I’m always bothered.  Being able to write stories-that-strangers-will-pay-me-to-read at all seems like the most extraordinary luck and why me?  I have to hope that the streak continues, however, since after over thirty years of talking to myself and keeping weird hours I assume I’m unemployable.  Not to mention that I like it this way. 

*** And I will eventually simply run out of hours between, oh, midnight and six a.m., say. 

† Or to be more precise, dinner over the laptop.  I had no idea I was such an untidy feeder until there was a computer screen involved.  I used to eat over my typewriter and barring crumbs between the keys it never seemed that hazardous an undertaking.  I think computer screens attract salad dressing and soup the way they attract dust. 

†† To the hellhounds’ delight.  Eat faster! they say.  We want to sleep in our favourite bed in your office!  Poor sad hellhounds however are so brainwashed after two and a half years of being almost constantly under my eye, on account of extreme digestive behaviour, that they won’t go upstairs–or anyway stay upstairs–without me.  They come creeping back downstairs again and flop down in the crate in the kitchen with put-upon looks.  Eat faster! they say.  

††† Computers may of course be the problem, but I feel the internet should be up to it.  It can juggle planets and figure out pi to sixty-three gazillion places, it can remember more than one computer on a blog.  

‡ I wonder if it’s in league with PEGASUS? 

‡‡ And am I worrying about posting tonight?  Especially since it’s already late?  Yes. 

‡‡‡ No, I hadn’t tried going downstairs again and turning on the laptop.  If I hadn’t roused a few mods, that would have been next.  I’d've had to bring it upstairs, of course:  the hellhounds would never have forgiven me if I’d dragged them back downstairs.  And how stupid are you going to feel using a laptop on your knees when there’s a perfectly good and several-times-the-size desktop sitting six inches away? 

§ Which, barring those occasions when you’re sprinting away from the hungry tiger or the furious husband/wife/black knight at the ford, is not desirable anyway, but especially so when you’ve just done the adrenaline spike thing a few days ago when your hellhound started bleeding out of his ass^ and oh by the way you have ME, one of whose definitions is ‘dead adrenals from overuse’.  

^ There has been no return of this devoutly to be eschewed symptom.  He’s even, you know, eating.  Sometimes. 

§§ Perhaps fortunately she’d already helped me break into my own blog before she had the chance to read the entry