"We've come on holiday by mistake"
Mar. 3rd, 2011 07:52 pmAh, well.
I brought two count 'em two laptops with me, just to be certain sure. I had twenty-four hours of travel time; I can work on trains, so why not planes? And in coffee shops and pubs, so why not airports? I could finish my novel on the journey, and arrive in a state of grace...
And then I didn't even think of getting either one of the laptops out of the bag, all journey. And now that I'm here, I have both of them set up in different rooms, running cheerfully on American electrickery - and I noodle on the internets and check my e-mail and haven't even thought about opening the novel file, or any other work.
I seem to be on holiday.
But it's okay, I have a strategy to survive it. This morning I drifted around the shops and looked at things (I could buy a KitchenAid mixer, off the shelf, for $200. In the UK, that would cost me near enough £400. It's the wrong colour, but even so...) while the sourdough rolls arise. Any minute now, I shall put them in the oven. In half an hour, Karen will be home for lunch, and I shall feed her. Then I propose to endure the afternoon in the back yard, in the seductive sunshine and wicked warmth thereof, with a book and a cruel succession of gins and tonics. It's the only conceivable strategy in these sorry circumstances.
I brought two count 'em two laptops with me, just to be certain sure. I had twenty-four hours of travel time; I can work on trains, so why not planes? And in coffee shops and pubs, so why not airports? I could finish my novel on the journey, and arrive in a state of grace...
And then I didn't even think of getting either one of the laptops out of the bag, all journey. And now that I'm here, I have both of them set up in different rooms, running cheerfully on American electrickery - and I noodle on the internets and check my e-mail and haven't even thought about opening the novel file, or any other work.
I seem to be on holiday.
But it's okay, I have a strategy to survive it. This morning I drifted around the shops and looked at things (I could buy a KitchenAid mixer, off the shelf, for $200. In the UK, that would cost me near enough £400. It's the wrong colour, but even so...) while the sourdough rolls arise. Any minute now, I shall put them in the oven. In half an hour, Karen will be home for lunch, and I shall feed her. Then I propose to endure the afternoon in the back yard, in the seductive sunshine and wicked warmth thereof, with a book and a cruel succession of gins and tonics. It's the only conceivable strategy in these sorry circumstances.