Fame! Fame! Me! Me!

Damn, I am the world's most incompetent self-publicist. I kept meaning to say, I've got a gig in London tomorrow (Wednesday 23rd). I myself in my own right will be appearing at the Star Tavern in Belgravia, for this month's BSFA meeting. I think I'll be reading a little from the new book, "Bridge of Dreams", and then Iain Emsley of Aust Gate will be asking me difficult questions in front of an audience smarter than I am. Be there. Please, be there...? Assemble from five pm, gig at seven, and apparently some people go on for dinner after.

Waiting

Ah, waiting. I am known to dislike this aspect of existence; I have probably spoken of it before. Not that I can't be patient (hey, I'm a writer; patience is in the job description, filed under 'endurance vile, beyond all that is reasonable to ask'), I just hate waiting. This. Being in the house and having to be here, until somebody else makes something happen. If you take away my permission to leave, then I'm instantly trapped and futile and helpless, desperate to get out of here and utterly unable to do anything useful.

As, for example, I could be downstairs reading & editing the book, as I need to be. I'm not. I'm up here, grumbling and pacing and peering out of windows, waiting for a big lorry to arrive.

It's supposed to be bringing insulation for my roofspace, and the people to fit it. My dreads are:

a) that it won't come;

b) that it will come, but they won't be able to do the work, because of [insert reason here] that will be

c) My Fault

and so they go away again, thereby causing Hassle and Delay and a whole nother round of Waiting.

Oh, and

d) the cat will get out. Onto the main road, where lorries are.

Pace, fret, fidget. Also, I'm hungry; but I can't eat when I'm waiting. It's a neurosis: that catastrophic certainty that I'll be one mouthful in and the door will knock, and then there'll be troops of people in & out and either the food will get cold or I'll have to just sit and eat in front of strangers who are not eating, and I'm psychologically incapable of that.

So I'm thinking tom yam soup with cellophane noodles and prawns and spring greens and green beans and celery and cucumber (I have a lot of green things just now) and spring onion and garlic and chilli and shallot - and I can't do anything about it, just think. And pace, and fret.

What mess am I?

In Which Barry Pwns the Back Alley...

(...And Drives Chaz Frantic)

I do not love him. I do not. He is an imp sent from hell to distress me.

This evening I let him out into the back yard, as I have been doing all summer when the weather's nice. I settled down to some late work, post-insulation men; next thing I knew, it was his supper-time, and he was not fussing around my feet. So I wandered casually out into the yard, to fetch him in - and he wasn't there. I searched it utterly, and the house too, and he really wasn't there.

Panic. From an upper window I can see partway into a couple of neighbours' yards, those he could easily get into; no sign of him. So I went up the back alley, calling, and still no sign. (And, of course, I'm going to London tomorrow, due to be away till Friday, and my mind is thinking "have to cancel, can't go if he's missing, what if he turned up and I wasn't here...?")

Coming back desperately to the house, I met a couple of local lasses at the corner, and asked if they'd seen a young black cat. No, they said, sorry - and then pointed over my shoulder and cried yes! yes!

So I looked back and there he was, scrambling up onto the back wall from one of my neighbours' yards (actually the neighbour who's been having new windows fitted; maybe the noises attracted him...?). So I hoiked him down, thanked the girls profusely and brought the wretch home; and am trying not to cancel plans to buy him a cat-flap, not to swear that he's never going outside again ever. I know you have to let them stretch their wings, you have to let them run; but - well, hell, it was his supper-time and he wasn't there, and that's too much stress for me.