Wednesday 5 March 2008

A day in the life of Westerwitch





I am up bright and early every morning come summer and winter, rain, or shine at 5.00am oiling and sharpening my trusty chainsaw. Only kidding. . . . about the 5.00am bit that is . . .

I am one of the lucky ones – I work from home, am totally self employed and can make my hours up to suit myself. I am not an early bird . . . so 8.30 – 9.00 will see me greeting the day along with a cup of tea from HS. I agonised over telling you how late I get up and I feel so guilty . . but pah . . .I have a chainsaw and I don't care.

Once up I have a very light Muller type rice snack and coffee – to avoid too much wheat. I feed the goldfish and tropical fish and get Cyd's food out of the freezer – then I feed the dogs. Once fed a mad scrabbling ensues at the French windows – by the dogs I hasten to add, not me and we all pile out into the day to pee and poo . . . THE DOGS . . . sigh . . . . . and then we go and say hello to the sheep and give them their hay and feed. We used to feed and let the chickens out at this point – but no more thanks to Mr Fox. If the weather is bad I take the sheep's food up to the newly build lean to and slightly over shelter – if not I feed them down by the gate.

The dogs and I then set off for our morning walk – sometime accompanied by HS. For the last 18 months I have suffered with this annoying aching all over - as though I have flu – but a walk in the morning usually helps a lot. It certainly lifts my mood and the aches definitely seem to recede into the background. I love walking around where we live it is soooooo beautiful and looks different ever day. I often take my camera and easily loose an hour snapping away.

Back from the walk – more Muller Rice and coffee and then onto the computer.

First job is to check and answer enquires for Cesspit Cottages and to follow through with any bookings. Then I deal with the advertising, pay any bills blah blah blah – although most of the latter is done on a Monday along with going to the mobile bank – taking the Cottage laundry to . .well . . the laundry – getting rid of the bottles at the bottle bank and so on. Saturday is usually turn over and cleaning day. Friday I might much out our house.

And (look Milla I am starting a paragraph with And . . .revs chainsaw) at last on to my favourite bit of the day . . . Purplecoo. I check through the posts and comment on the ones that I haven't commented on from the night before. Every single comment from the Common Room is emailed to me by the site and I do read EVERY single one . . .so beware . . .At this point I also answer emails from Purplecooers that have come in overnight. I then move onto the Forum and have a trawl through. If I am taking part in a discussion then I am alerted to replies – as you all can be. As for the rest I just go through and read everything. I can, I think, have every comment in the Forum emailed to me as well – but my email in-box might get a bit swamped – so I just wander through the forums. I also answer my PM's at this point. Once up to date I then move onto the Blog Announcements and see who has blogged. I then read and comment on those blogs – time allowing. I am also still trying to catch up everyone's Day in the Life Of.

The above I then do all over again periodically throughout the day – such is the beauty of working for yourself.

A lot of my time used to be taken up by studying and I was indeed planning to do my training for the Person Centred Counselling this coming September. I have however turned down my place – partly because of the aching – I simply could not cope with a course right now and partly because I have decided to return to my writing. I have a children's book written ready for editing. It was, a long time ago, given the thumbs up by my agent – once I had done the re-writing of course. I have spent several years running away from it all (mainly because of the previous let down over the TV series and publication of a previous book . . . after which I decided I was poooo). So now I am back to writing and all that entails during a working day. I am currently re-reading my book and making notes and planning how to move forward. The book has a good story, but needs a lot of work and is full of holes – but nothing I can't fix . . .I did actually have my fingers crossed as I said that – gawd what if I really am poooo. Will also need to find another Agent . . . mine fled the country . . .eeeek. . . .see pooooooo.

I usually work up until six with frequent breaks throughout the whole day to check on PC and answer emails, read comments etc and today I have done a lot of playing in the Forum and we now have a Private Forum taaaaa daaaa . . .there you see how easy it is to avoid writing. And next I am going to do water changes in all three tanks for my fish . . .eeeek is that the time – tomorrow, I'll do it tomorrow.

HS and I usually get together and cook and eat about seven and then 'blob' for the evening although my trusty computer is never far away and I frequently check on PC. It is at this point that HS might complain a bit as although we live and work in the same house we do have our own office each and don't see much of each other through the day and to have me ignoring him and tappety tapping on the computer all evening does get a bit much sometimes.

We tend to watch TV together at around nine – usually a drama, or film – although I confess I do have the soaps on earlier in the evening . . . as moving wallpaper. Not that I would dream of watching them, or listening to them . . .goodness me no . . . .

I am a late bird and bedtime is often not until after midnight – HS as well. Then I take painkillers and read until the painkillers dampen down the aching and then I go to sleep. Ready to start the day at the crack of 5.00am . . . . with my trusty chainsaw.

So that's me . . . and barely a mention of a chainsaw . . .which is bright yellow by the way.

6 comments:

Inthemud said...

Hi WW,
Great to read about your day, sounds like a perfect life, except for the pain you suffer, now that's not good. What is causing it? From all you do busy all hours I guess it can't be Chronic fatigue, but sounds similar with flu like pains all time.
You do make me laugh though, you and your chain saw.
Milla must be cringing at the though of a sentence starting with "And"!!

Thanks so much for sharing your day .

Now don't get upset but you didn't win the bottle of Champers as it was very boring 40 Mile hour sign, but I loved your comment of a sign " Witches with Chain saws", so you can collect a bottle button from my blog, for share inventiveness and I'm scared of cahin saws so won't to keep you on side!!

Elizabethd said...

Oh that chain saw!! I wonder if counselling would help to wean one away??

Westerwitch/Headmistress said...

No it berludy well won't . . . .rrrrrzzzrrzrrrrrrrrRRRRRRR

Westerwitch/Headmistress said...

YOu know what Inthemud - it IS a pretty good life. And yes I would rather be without the aching, but at least I live a life where I can work with the aching. I can do my job around it and not have to struggle out to work, or worry about a taking sick leave . .so feel I am very lucky indeed.

annakarenin said...

struggling with
ike's laptop here so excuse any oddities. KEEP AT THAT BOOK THOUGH WILL BE REALLY INTERESTED IN SEEING THE FINISHED ARTICLE IT IS BOUND TO SUIT ONE OF MY CREW AGE WISE. IT IS A SHAME ABOUT THE ACHES BUT GLAD IT IS NOT HINDERING YOU TO MUCH. DEFINATELY WITH YOU ON THE WALKS ITHINK THEY SHOULD BE ON PRESCRIPTION FOR PEOPLE SUFFERING FROM DEPRESSION MYSELF.

HAVING COMPUTER PROBS STILL SO APOLIGIES FOR NOT BEING AROUND HOPEFULLY WILL BE BACK SOMETIME NOT TO FAR INTO THE FUTER BUT GLAD I CHANCED ON THIS AND REGRET I CAN'T DO MY USUAL BACK READING BUT TIME IS SHORT AT MO.

CAMILLA said...

I so enjoyed reading about your day Westerwitch, and like you, I too enjoy walking with my dog, Daisy Boo. I believe walking to be very theraputic.

I think your book will fly off the shelves, keep at it, you have nothing to lose. I began writing a short children's story when my children were small, the half unfinished script still sits in the bottom drawer.

How lovely to be working from home, wonderful too that you can be with HS and your dogs Sassy and Arnie whilst doing so.

I hope you have better days to come free from those aches and pains Westerwitch.

Thank you for sharing your day in a life with us,

Camilla.xxx