In Dreams Awake

Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.

(Henry David Thoreau)

Saturday 19 September 2015

Balm

 Currently I'm dividing my time between Yeovil, where I work and have digs; and Barnstaple, where I still have my home with Caz. It's an hour and a half between the two places when the weather is good, which of late it hasn't been. So I'll work two days in Yeovil and then drive home through a torrential downpour, spend two nights with my wife and return to Yeovil through fog and more rain. Then I head west again a few days later. This is a bit tiring.

 In addition to that, the Customer Assistant at my new shop quit before he even started, which has left me zero staff. I'm running a new Barnardo's store all on my own, on four days' training, and there's no prospect of help. Another branch has no manager and staff have to keep going there to hold the fort, leaving nobody free, besides while a new shop is due to open in 10 days or so and that's drawn every other pair of hands. And of course Caz and I are expecting our first child, we're almost at 20 weeks now, so we're buying baby things and making plans, and all in all there's hardly time left over to sleep.

 I've written 250 words in the last week, and that isn't like me, not at all.

 Writing has always been my balm. I blogged last summer about my family and upbringing (See So Bends the Tree), which wasn't pleasant, and creating a world of my own is how I dealt with all the problems. Always has been. To not write feels... wrong. It dislocates me, leaves me feeling not quite right, even though I'm happy in my life now, for the first time. Being happy hasn't stopped me writing though. It's being so busy which has done that.

 Once Caz can go on Maternity Leave in November, things will be easier. We'll have one home and will both be in it, cutting out the travelling and the worst of the early mornings (4.40am sometimes. Ought to be illegal). Until then I'll just have to make sure I manage a few words a day, 200 here and just 100 there, enough to keep my head in the story. And who knows, I might find I do 1000 once a week or so by accident.

 I hope so, because the creatures hunting Linth hap Talia are getting close, and I want to find out what happens.