Oh. My. God.

Life has a habit of taking interesting turns when I’m least expecting it. After a week of intermittent good sleep (and one night on a hideously uncomfortable bed) I was hoping that, having returned to the familiar world of my flat, I’d be able to get at least one seriously decent night of sleep. Not so. Instead, I’m back in the horribly familiar world where my entire flat seems to function as a stuffy, over-humid heat trap where it’s almost physically impossible to be comfortable without sticking your head inside the freezer. The fact that in about six months it’ll be so inhumanly cold in here that I’ll be wearing multiple layers even with the heating on max is, to be honest, one of the reasons I won’t be too sad to move on from this place. There’s a certain level of heat that I just don’t function well in, and this will drive me up the wall for the next week, particularly if the temperature stays in the 25-30 degrees area. The idea of emigrating to Alaska is suddenly very tempting.

The real surprise, however, is a turn that happenned last Friday when I was staying with Dad, and whiuch happenned all as a result of George wondering who’s going to feed their fish. A little explanation- Dad has, for the last few years, been converting and rennovating an old Cornish house, and has been gradually doing up the massive garden next to the house. He’s added a one-floor extension, redone the kitchen, added a back porch and decking, and is now in the process of adding a massive front porch. He’s also made a lovely pond, where there is now a thriving collection of fish, and George was wondering who was going to be feeding their fish while they went away to New Zealand for almost a month, when she said “You could stay here and finish the book!”, mainly as a joke.

But, of course, then I started thinking.

The practical upshot of this is that now, instead of a vague arrangement for late June and July where I was going to try and earn plenty while doing as much work on the book as possible, I am now going to exit London on the 22nd of June, and I’m not back until the 20th July. I will, for 28 days, largely be on my own in a large, comfy house that’s out in the middle of nowhere (there’s a relatively busy road next to it, but that’s one of the only concessions to civillisation), and I will be spending most of my time getting the book into shape- filling up all the gaps, and then giving it a really brutal rewrite to actually get it into the right state. It’s a slightly scary idea, and the fact that it will close off certain (but not all) ways of earning money is a little intimidating, but it’s happening at the right time. I can just about afford to do this, and once I get into August, I’ve got Edinburgh, bits of Frightfest, and then the London Film Festival- for about four months, my life is going to HAVE to be solid movies. My hopeful plan is to get the book into a state where I can actually send it to someone before Edinburgh. It’ll take an awful lot of work, but it’s not impossible. The next few days are going to be screening hunting, and next thursday, I’m off to write. This blog may get even stranger before the end…

Week Nine of Who- and it was still great fun, even if it fell prey occasionally to the “Let’s make important speeches” school of writing, the logic was creaky in places, and the steals from ALIEN really did get utterly shameless. Also, the solution for the ending was just a little too convenient, but overall one of the best stories of the new series so far. Next week, we have RTD writing, an “experimental” story, Peter Kay guest starring, and more from Rose’s mum. Colour me unexcited…

Lots to do. Not enough time.

Think cold thoughts. Think cold thoughts…