Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

Could not help but be amused on receiving this email today: '100% Genuine Reviews. What was great? What wasn't so great? What really stood out? Our genuine guest reviews help fellow travellers choose the right hotel - and your expert opinion counts! So go free...' I bought a new diary but, being tired, unfairly pick fault with the year planner layout. It was picked from a small selection of leftovers held behind the counter of the stationers in a cardboard box. I tell the assistant about the hotel burglary, but I don't much care for spreading bad news. A handbag, a diary, a notebook, even the handmade for Mum key ring, they are but things. This new diary with which I have yet to bond was the cheapest nearest thing to what I wanted, and it will do perfectly well after the restoration of sleep. I will dream of the delight of the hotel management when they view my genuine guest expert opinion on the Late Rooms site.

One Heath-Robinson inspired burglar alarm Yesterday was unusual in that it was the first day this year I didn't post a blog entry, plus a few other things. Today I was very tired, and as I recount backwards, it will be shown to be unsurprising. Today I wore a yellow shirt, signifying the role of Welfare Officer at a TAGB tournament. Should a child or vulnerable adult be in need of assistance, for reasons of paperwork errors or emotional meltdowns or the physical shock of being hit by a determined opponent or a mysterious case of lost sparring equipment, then the Welfare Officer steps in. The resilience of the children was impressive. It speaks well of the standard of training. Most of my conversations went like this: 'Did you get hit?' 'Yes.' (Wipes tears from cheek.) 'I'm okay though.' Outside it is snowing. The car park was slithering with eager competitors as we arrived. The breakfast; digesting noisily in my stomach; was free, and th

The last of the haiku challenge set by Suze . The three themes are: quench the real loam (which make an oddly pleasant sentence.) This day has sped and the next two are fully booked, so these haiku, though neatly written in order of topic, are rushed out and my return visits to participants will be late, for which I apologise. This morning I took off early and fast for a hospital appointment (some faulty toes, uncomfortable not life threatening) and left my coffee at home. So this first effort is from the heart: In such rush Coffee left cooling Is longed for The pharmacy queue was groaning so I left my paperwork and sought out a hot cup at the ground floor café. Sat facing the corridor, am struck by the contrast of the casual snacks and the life and death stories passing by. And what could be in those green plastic bins, wheeling by my table? So the next effort has a gruesome shade to it: Surgical waste Wheels past pastries:

In the hedges, regardless of the wind howl and the punchy rain, daffodils and primrose hold their petals. We go down by the river and slide in mud where the banks overhang. Dog is in the water, swimming after sticks. Here is a fallen tree. Here are wood anemones, thriving in shade, with stems so slender the flower heads seem to float. Here is Dog, leaping in a wake of squawks and there goes pheasant, ruffled. From the river we follow the path, steeply up, holding whips of sapling for balance. From here the river turns are observed, only a few shades lighter than the earth that flanks it. Between the trees we walk and talk of which will fall next and where will be best to forge that river. From this day, the light draws out, winter must decline: regardless of the wind howl and the punchy rain.

Final proofs for the Tae Kwon-Do book are received today by email, just as I'm heading out of the door to get to work. Override the urge to stay home and press home-printer ink to paper and tremble over the responsibility of using up all my savings. I should be used to this by now. I always use up all of my savings. I don't remember having any regrets over this habit, not afterwards: the nerves clang before and during. I said to myself: but I won't write about this or it will get boring, I will turn egoist. I won't write about the book or how I feel about the money: I will write about the washing that got rained off the line, how the blue morning grew sombre. And see what has happened?

Not everyone has the opportunity to be photographed at work. One of the parents of a junior class student has a new camera, and with permission from us and the other parents, has been whiling away the wait with shutter clicks. In my desk based day jobs some daydreaming was inevitable. They were moments of retrieval: self-preservation. I would view my desk as a still life, see how all the greys of the table tops and old fat boxed computer screens were patterned in the shade of the office foliage, how futile the chain of coloured paperclips as perceived against the weight of in-tray contents. I would think up electronic responses that could never be writ, in case I pressed the irresistible Send. Inevitable, too, the gaze that drifted through the window out into blue or cloud or glare or stars or one's own reflection. In those in-trays lay so much that was nonsense and so much that was pitiful, regardless of the job. Generics and specifics, absorbed in my pauses, part

Only one alteration on the Tae Kwon-Do book proofs today: so the signing off for printing is very close. Brain cannot compute. Brain says: this has been spoken of for so long, it has built an invincible association with being far away. But like exams and giving birth, the day will appear, the real day, out of daydreams and practice some real testing, happening, hyper-real hours will hit my life… Then the aftershock questions: did that happen, has everything changed, why hasn't everything changed, is it good enough, have I wasted my time, did that really happen? Size: Finished: 297 x 210mm. (portrait) Pre-press: preflight: 40 page(s) PDF Proof: 40 Page(s) Printed: Cover printed full colour both sides on 250 gsm. silk 36 pages printed 4 colours both sides on 170 gsm. Inaset Offset Finished: Fold, saddle stitch and trim to size Packed: 13kg packed in boxes Delivered: One address local delivery Preflight, the specs say, silk, saddle stitch: 13 kilos o