Nayu's News #20

(random anime girl taking a breather from life thinking Ah, what a week)

Post Summary

What a week! So much has happened: putrified cucumber, car stopping outside my house and not starting, lots of lovely books read, editing a fun wip, realisation I'll be editing another fun yet more serious wip, date with a vampire, attack of the sleepies and other 'stuff'. I think I'll do this in order. 

Car trouble

(random anime girl with a car thinking All set to go now! Got everything, including the kitchen sink)

I realise this was placed after the cucumber issue, but really it happened first. It was one of those days where things weren't exactly wrong, but they weren't exactly right. After running my usual Wednesday errands, I drove up to my house as normal. I park on the pavement, near our drive (which is on a hill, making it almost impossible (unless you are brave) to park there. Plus if we did park down it, no one would get anywhere! Wednesday is our day for bin collection, so there is always at least 1 bin in the space I park by the time I'm back from my errands. 

I went down to the end of the cul-de-sac, turned around and pulled up to my house. I stopped the engine, got out the car and moed the bins onto the driveway. I then got back in my car, put my key in the ignition & my foot on the break and....

 

(random surprised any girl thinking What's happened to the car?)

...nothing. It wouldn't start. It wouldn't even rev up. Other people might panic, but I've flooded the engine before so I knew I needed help. I did try to remember how the guy had fixed it the last time, but forgot. So I called the RAC who said they'd be with me in an hour. The last time that happened they'd been with me within 30 minutes of the call. 

My family came home while the car was still slightly out in the road. They tried and like me failed to get the car to start. They were able to roll it to a more convenient parking space. 

I get a call. I thought it was the RAC guy calling to say he was 10 mins away. It was the control people. They asked if I had an urgent appointment that day. I said no. I'm a motability customer, so they are really keen on making sure that I'm safe and not needing to go anywhere. They explained they were really busy at the moment, and would it be okay if someone came by 5pm? They had to give priority to motability customers who were stranded on roads, not safely at home. Of course I didn't mind so I waited. 

Family went back out for the afternoon. I decided to go try my car again, after a quick prayer that it would actually work. Hey, it worked! I then cancelled the RAC, phoned my family, and got on with the afternoon. The car has been working fine since, and hopefully it will continue to work for a good long time. 

(random anime girls going to the beach: I didn't go out, but felt their happiness matched mine when the car worked)

The putrified cucumber

(This could be one of the girls from the anime & manga Maria Watches Over Us thinking about where she's put stuff)

I'm a very forgetful person, as a lot of you know by reading this blog. Often it's me who forgets about a piece of fruit/veg in the fridge (my shelf is on the bottom) and thus usually the perpetrator for rotting food. Not this time. 

I'd come home from work on Thursday, had poured a drink and was preparing a snack (a scone with jam & Flora). I reached down to get the Flora tub, and felt water on the lid. Puzzled I pulled it out, and was horrified as a watery substance dribbled off it. I knew it wasn't any of my stuff (although I did double check). I then began looking upwards to the next shelf. I saw some meat, which I hoped wasn't leaking (gross!) but it wasn't the meat. There was a cucumber which looked fine, but as I pulled it out more water went down. The cucumber had purtified.

 An unhappy fridge

It turns out that family thought the cucumber was mine so had left it. From the front it was a perfect cucumber. We weren't to know a good 1/2 of it was rotting. It took 40 minutes of cleaning to get rid of the cucumber watery goo. I need to point out that it wasn't that bad, I'm just slow at cleaning (don't do it often as it's tiring), I need lots of breaks while doing it (as it's tiring), and I'm not fond of gross things. 

I did find the whole situation rather funny, and quite an entertaining start to the afternoon. The scone was well deserved! 

 Mmm, yummy!

Reading books

Anime girl thinking I love reading!

I know, I know. This is a book review, so reading books isn't a major reelation, right? Wrong. Lately I'm so tired I haven't been able to read as much as I liked. So this week I've been trying to read when I'm up for it, or even if I'm a little tired I'll read. Which has meant that this week I have read books! Reading makes me happy, and I had missed it. I adore anime, but there's nothing quite like reading a book. Or two. Or five. Or more than five. 

Editing progress & writerly realisations 

 Anime girl is thinking Yes! That plot part would work here, and if I just add this there...

This morning I had heaps of fun editing my fairy wip. I still had to do some formatting of documents before I could work on them. Since it was 'easy' editing I stuck Charmed on Netflix in the background. I like to have something on when doing easy edits. I haven't reached the series that I haven't seen yet, so I could easily pay only half attention to the episodes. I'm now on Chapter 1 edits. I call it easy edits because I've done the hard work of noting down everything that needs changing - now it's a case of putting the notes into practice. I'm hoping to make significant progress tomorrow morning. It took a while to make those editing notes, but it turns out that there aren't actually a lot of changes to be made in each chapter. There are 12 chapters in total (got to love children's books sometimes for their short length - which by no means makes it easier to edit). We'll see how far I do get. 

Writerly realisation - that was a wonderful one. For months, because I've had little let up from my chronic pain, I've been working on a lighter wip, one that isn't too dark, which doesn't spend a lot of time exploring deep emotinal stuff. That's how the fairy series was born. Quite a few of my novels for older children hae deep & meaningful plots. They aren't super happy. I haven't been up for working on them. However, on Thursday (or was it Friday?) I just knew I'd be going back and editing Inescapable Ties, the one with a Muslim protagonist who is awesome! I know I'd say that as I'm the author, but early readers have enjoyed Safiya's debut, so it's time to see if the wider world will like her too. What's not to like about a teen who ends up helping girls who have been trafficked, and trying to free herself from her dead brother's grasp? As you can see, IT deals with some tough issues. Muse now feels ready to dive back into it, so it'll be looked at as soon as my fairy wip is edited. 

My date with a vampire, attack of the sleepies & other stuff. 

 Akari from the anime Aria as she falls asleep while working.

Wednesday heralded my life essence being syphoned off by the vampire to the laboratory. I'm always tired - that's normal. But I've felt so absolutely exhausted lately I know something's not right. I'm hoping I've got anemia again. I know it's weird to want to be ill, but at least if I'm anemic they can do something. Iron tablets worked a treat the last (and first) time I had it. I'm a bit stuffed if it isn't iron. Hopefully I may know the results on Tuesday. I hope it's easy to fix because I miss not being able to read as much. I can't always watch Shugo Chara, which requires concentration (see here for the reason), it has to be Winx which I don't have to think about translating. However, it makes reading that much more special when I can do it. I've taken a break from craft as I have neither the energy to do it, nor the mental energy for concentrating. 

Yummy ice cream!

I think that's pretty much this week sorted. I've got a friend coming over in 30 minutes to eat cake and ice cream with me (4 types of ice cream, don't forget that!). Fun times ahead! I hope you've all got one fun thing happening this weekend. Take care, and check your cucumbers! 

All of that was written on Saturday. Today is Sunday, and I'm not feeling well so no reviews from me for a few days. I promise I'm resting up. I debated scheduling reviews, but I could do with spending the 2 hours resting. By resting I mean reading! 

I'm being good, I promise