It’s funny how much just writing down a problem as a blog entry can help. This morning life felt difficult. Now… nothing’s changed, but things feel a little easier. I’m also hammering on with the current rewrite on the book, pushing one of the latter chapters into shape.

Maybe, just maybe, we can get through.

Radio silence on the blog sometimes means that there’s not-tremendously-positive stuff happening and I really don’t want to depress people. Money is a little tight at the moment, plus there’s been a few other problems which have given life a certain negative twist for the past week (the very least of which was our Washing Machine starting to seriously malfunction). Therefore, the very last thing we needed was for Waterstones to write to George and say that, despite having declined to give her a final paycheque, that they’ve actually overpaid her by £610 and they want her to return the money. (This is apparently following on from an initial letter in February which never arrived).

I’m trying to tell myself that things are going to bounce back, but it’s rather difficult at the moment.

Two weeks offline. Oddly enough, the only pangs I felt for those fourteen days were thanks to having sent an absurd amount of work the night before leaving (Well- about four hours before leaving, if you want to be accurate) and not being able to check that it had arrived safely. Thankfully, it all seems to have worked out fine, and the holiday turned out to be very good fun. Yes, being enclosed with members of your family (and particularly when young children are involved) can sometimes make the experience rather an up and down one, but on the whole it was very good fun, an excellent break, and a chance to collect some happy memories of Brittany to wipe away the slightly horrible ones accumulated on a school camp in 1986. We were right in the centre of Brittany, in a tiny hamlet called Lustryn and near to a small town called Rostren, and much entertainment was had. We went go-karting, visited an aquarium, went on plenty of walks and spent vast amounts of time lying around doing nothing, watching movies or playing computer games (I managed to complete the official tie-in game from Peter Jackson’s King Kong, and got re-addicted to Wipeout Fusion). About the only downside was the epic journey- fourteen hours, most of which was spent in the back of a car, and which left me somewhat frazzled and unable to think once I got in last night.

So, in the words of Sam Gamgee, I’m back. More importantly, I feel like the two weeks away have given me a little perspective, as well as giving me the chance to work properly on the book. All I need now is some time, and I think I know how to get the damn thing finished. At the moment, my main priorities are getting unpacked, doing the washing, tidying things up, and working my way through the gargantuan amounts of e-mail I’ve ended up with.

Plenty to do…