Cabin fever and actually having work to do…

Miraculously the freelance writing work is coming in thick and fast. Assume this is due to other writers being off on holiday. Nice. At least the weather is shit. And I did spend several days dossing about by the lido in June.

I should leave the house more…

My routine:

8:30 – 9am Get up. Muck out cats. Clear draining board. Put wash on.

9:30 – 10:30 Banana milk shake. Have first coffee of the day, Nespresso naturally. Go into garden and pick yellow heads off dandelions. Wonder why they are so rampant when I pick all the heads off every day. Take BBQ prongs and red bucket. Prong slugs and snails into bucket and later catapult over fence into roughage above railway line. Wonder why they are so rampant when I throw them over the fence everyday. Wonder where the jet planes overhead are going.

11 – 1145 Go for run. Get frustrated with boring, uninspired playlist but work out first line for novel I will never write, endless short-story plots, also great lyrics for love-trauma songs. Forget all this as soon as I’m in the front door.

1200 Back at work after fairly quick shower. Have second coffee – cheap cremated granules. Think about how I ought to leave the house. Think about deadlines. Checking clock until lunch.

1300 Lunch – microwave meal. Read Guardian website headlines. Try to understand what the hell is going on. Think that 100% inheritance tax going to the welfare state is not really my bag. Indulge in Pinterest binge. Consider home improvements and lust after high-class kitchen. Think, really should redecorate kitchen after having had paint samples on wall for TWO YEARS.

1330 – 1600 Try to work. Get bored. Scroll through Instagram (addicted). Try to think of witty humble post to reflect slow, less glamorous period of summer. Post, then delete 20 mins later. Browse favourite internet shopping haunts. Think about writing a short story. Consider writing something autobiographical for fiction class and palming it off as fiction. Hoover. Get pissed off with hoover overheating and dying after 20 mins. Think about the tragedy of plastic in the ocean. Obsess about recycling but find no answer to the problem.

1600-1800 Work then… panic about deadline. Think ‘I will have to work over the weekend.’

1800-1830 Simpsons, then feed cats. Make G&T at 1830.

1830 – 1900 Watch Dinner Date (ITV Be) whilst trying to write article alongside. Think about second G&T. Think the Diet Coke placement should make me drink less gin but it doesn’t.

1900 – 2000 Watch reassuringly soothing Jamie At Home. Fantasise about living off the land. (1900 second G&T). Think about the dill and garlic “having a party” in the cavity of the trout Jamie is cooking. Like his turn of phrase. Realise he’s articulate because he’s on coke. Reminisce about the time me and my sis went and made friends with musician Tim Kay because his music was on the show. Consider that “Take time to make yourself feel good” may be the best, most wholesome (?) lyric ever written.

2000 Onwards start talking aloud to cats (I’m a liar. This has been happening all day). Consider that cats are main point of social contact beyond flatmate Danny leaving at 1100. Where the hell are flatmates? Human contact???? Mon to Weds this can easily be the case. Jamie? Decide to stop working and chain watch Mad Men.

23-2400 Bed.

Decide that tomorrow I will go to a coffee shop to write.