Braved the families and screaming kids of Asda this morning. What a nasty way to wake up. I was looking at the cheese graters in the utensils aisle when some snot-nosed child came up to me with a pastry brush and started painting my jeans with it (no paint, of course). I scowled at his father, who just seemed to think it was rather amusing, then went round the corner to look at scouring pads.

After that I quite forgot to buy any milk so am running the risk of botulism with a pint I defrosted from Christmas.

I came home and made scrambled eggs, then contemplated freelance ideas to send to the newspapers. I came up with three good ones, fleshed them out a bit and looked up the names of the relevant editors on the web.

I was sponging the mildew on the bathroom ceiling when two of them bounced back. The first, to The Times, had apparently been sent to an unknown mailbox. This was in spite of the fact that I’d sent it through a form on the paper’s site, which you’d have expected to be correct. Another was returned because I’d sent it through a Telewest mailserver which, according to SpamCop, is a persistent offender when it comes to spamming.

I was particularly narked about that because in effect it means that you can’t rely on a Telewest cable modem for business email. In the end, I logged on to Demon using the laptop and a regular modem (hence paid for it) and it’s not bounced back a second time. Demon must have a better spam record (or they send better quality spam, perhaps).

Either way, it’s unlikely I’ll be commissioned to write any of them. There are so many writers on the market, and there’s so little work to go around that I’m turning away loads of suggestions every week. There’s no reason to assume it’s any different in the lifestyle mags.

Anyway, the mildew remover seemed to work well - much better than the bleach I used when I was painting. I’ll have to email B&Q and tell them, since a guy in the Chelmsford store thought I was mad suggesting such a thing as mildew killer could possibly even exist.

Paul came around for a game of Scrabble, but in the end we got out the Rummikub instead. It’s much better as a two-player game. He won, for the second time in a row, in time for dinner.

We didn’t switch the TV on at all from the point he arrived until we’d finished the game, eaten and washed up. That must have been a good two hours, maybe more. It’s strange, we don’t often do that. Normally we eat in front of it, and can spend a whole evening saying little more than ‘do you want a cup of tea’.

It was very pleasant. Very different.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 20th, 2002 at 11:11 pm and is filed under Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.