Good morning, friends and fans!
Welcome to another “Peek Into My Week”, a behind the scenes look into the (I hope) interesting events occurring in my daily life!
August 16, 2021.
For the most part, my weeks are the usual ensemble of dreary routine events – work, book marketing, finding time to write, highlights, lowlights, tinkering on Dolly (my 1962 Beetle and daily transport), arguing with my wife about dinner, tripping over cats, or rearranging the furniture – but just occasionally something interesting happens, interesting enough to want to tell someone about!
Here then, for your enjoyment, is my recollection of noteworthy events in my past week!
While I’ve been posting these journal entries, it’s probably come to your attention that while I’m a writer I’m also just an ordinary person with an ordinary everyday life, and ordinary everyday person problems! That’s all I ever hope to be, no matter how much success I achieve as a writer! That said, let’s take a look at the past week – excuse the occasional rants!
Monday:
Monday was a day I spent resting and recuperating from the long weekend! In the morning Kay and I went to Spar for a little light shopping and then down to the beachfront for a coffee while we watched the waves and the seagulls flying backwards in the wind. After that we went home and it was chill-time. I packed the things I’d need for Tuesday’s appointment at the body shop to fit Dolly’s new front and rear windscreen rubbers, and had a nice relaxing bath. Then I browsed through three old 1960’s encyclopedias I bought from a charity shop for R1 each last Saturday, and in the evening we enjoyed a few episodes of “Poirot”. Monday passed very pleasantly, and I felt like I’d accomplished something worthwhile, considering the long-weekend’s projects – the wooden Victorian style awning and the breastplate I made (described in last week’s “Peek“).
Tuesday:
Tuesday came at last – the “big day” where I would take Dolly in to have the windscreen rubber seals replaced! …unfortunately things went off to a slow start! I sent a message to the workshop to confirm our appointment and received a reply which indicated that the owner had forgotten to order the rubber seals from his supplier “because yesterday was a public holiday” and would get back to me! What did the public holiday on Monday have to do with it? That’s quite a slap in the face when I think about it, because I paid in cash via EFT last MONDAY, a full week before yesterday’s public holiday! I sat back to await the outcome, dissatisfied.
He reported back to me in the afternoon that he had to order the items “from another supplier” and that it would take up to another week for delivery. This meant that I’d have to wait another week before even finding out when I’d be able to get the job done! Honestly, if I hadn’t already paid the man (a mistake on my part) because he was so all-fired eager to get the EFT before supposedly placing the order – and then while waiting for my EFT to go through, told me that he’d already paid in advance… now all of a sudden, he’d “forgotten” to place the order? I detest people who lie to me so brazenly, and I’m getting the distinct and troubling feeling that I’ve been ripped off! I’ll give him his week – and if he hasn’t got a satisfactory answer for me by next Tuesday, I’ll demand a refund!
Wednesday:
Wednesday was quite hectic at work. In the evening I managed to get some writing done on “Sentinel”, which I admit I quite enjoyed. Writing space battles has always been something I enjoyed about writing sci-fi! Naturally, there’s more to it than just the battles, there’s also the bits that lead up to it that need careful working out, and the bits at the end!
Thursday:
Thursday morning the rain came pissing down hard again, so I was not impressed with Mr. Van Rensburg at the workshop one little bit!
I also had more bad news, another of my friends had been given notice – he’s being retrenched. His company is cutting back about two thirds of its staff around the country due to a non-renewal of contract. As a highly qualified electrical engineer, it shouldn’t be too difficult for him to find another job – but this being South Africa and him being a 49 year old white male who’s a bit overweight, it won’t be easy.
On the bright side, I managed to get some work done on finalizing (editing) “Hotel No-Tell“. It’s another 1000 words longer and much more rounded off. It’s part of my writing technique to finish a story in first draft form, then to leave it for a while, come back to it and do an edit. I also worked on “The Song Of The Drillipede“.
Friday:
Friday was a lovely short work day, and I went home to spend some time with the love of my life! I stopped off at KFC on the way home to pick us up a nice big lunch that would ensure we had enough leftovers to last us the rest of the weekend! Kay was still working when I got home, so we enjoyed lunch together in her office, and then I eagerly got out of my work clothes and into my pajamas and settled down on the sofa to enjoy a quiet doze until she wrapped up work about an hour later.
I was still pondering a way forward in “The Song Of The Drillipede“, because although I’d got quite far, I still hadn’t worked out exactly what sort of supernatural foe or adversary Captain Flane would have to face in the depths of the mining colony Eriksen, and this omission formed quite an obstruction. How could I proceed if I didn’t know what form their adversary would take? After bouncing a few ideas around with my sounding board, a.k.a. the Wiffle, I found just the right idea, and I’ll be going forward with that in the next few days!
Saturday:
On Saturday morning we went out for our usual round of errands, and along the way I finally followed my urge to visit a little recycling depot (a.k.a. scrap dealer, or Womble) to have a look for some handy bits and pieces I often use in my projects. As it turned out, I’m very glad I did, because while browsing the rows of shelves laden with all manner of items, I spotted a Beetle exhaust – but not just any old exhaust, a 4 into 1 performance exhaust, and it was made of stainless steel too, which explained why it was in such amazingly good condition! Since Dolly’s stock exhaust had never been quite right since the work I’d been forced to do a few weeks before, I’d been looking for a solution, and this would be it! The exhaust cost me the princely sum of R200 – about R1400 less than the new going price, and thanking the Universe, I paid the man and made a bee-line to Dolly – where Kay was waiting outside, smoking!
Since I’d agreed to the common-sense suggestion my Love had made – that my hands needed a rest and that this would be an “off” weekend – I put the exhaust aside to deal with next weekend!
Sunday:
Cheers!
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All material copyright © Christina Engela, 2021.