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Posts Tagged ‘social isolation’

It’s about time I put my head up

Posted in A writer's life, phd, tagged , on August 10, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Apologies for my absence. I’ve been head down working on the second draft of my exegesis to a deadline. The deadline was my supervisor going on long service leave until early 2021 and so if I wanted his feedback I had to get the damn thing drafted by mid-July. Phew! I made it.

The novel for my Phd was mostly done before, but I had a sensitivity read by a non-binary person and managed to make some changes while checking over the manuscript. For the purpose of the PhD that novel is done. It’s parked until it’s time to submit and copy edit etc. This means I am now free to try to shop it around. If it sells there will be two versions. The one I’ve parked won’t change and there will be a published version.

I’ve started the ball rolling on selling the novel. I have to mentally prepare for rejections and silence. On the bright side, I have a bit more time to work at a slower pace on the third draft of the exegesis so I’m taking a short break to work on other projects. I’ve been dabbling in family history and that’s so addictive. It’s like a puzzle game. I’ve had to stop now or so I tell myself. And I’m working on a science fiction romance I drafted years ago and I hope to get that into shape for submitting or publishing before I have to get serious with the PhD again. I have a few novels in progress and one I should be drafting but I can’t do it all with a PhD on the boil.

I’ve started the intermittent diet because wow social isolation, iso baking and sitting on my arse! Oh dear. I may not succeed but as I’m getting older, the weight just goes on quickly.

My son has been staying with us and hopefully will be able to return home to China soon. He works and lives there. It has been lovely to have him around and he cooks too so ‘oh dear’.

I’m hoping that y’all are coping okay with the pandemic restrictions. I feel like I don’t have friends anymore. It’s weird. There’s Facebook and stuff but it still feels distant and strange. The restrictions in Canberra are easing but with the outbreak in Victoria and New South Wales I can’t help but be fearful and careful about exposure. It is also gut wrenching when I come up against the Covid-19 conspiracy stuff. I’ll just not start on that.

I chose not to participate in the New Zealand World con, mostly because I was head down and busy but I anticipated stress so bowed out. I was a member but I didn’t attend. I’m sad for New Zealand. What a blow!

This time last year I was at David Farland’s fantasy workshop in Dublin the week before Worldcon.

Anyway, I’ll leave you with a picture of this bread I made. I sort of made up the recipe and the method. I used a biga (preferment) but only a part day but man did it get big. Bigger than my head.

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Sticking my head up and then down again

Posted in Pandemic, tagged , , , , , , , , , on May 11, 2020| Leave a Comment »

It’s now May 11.

I’ve been marking assignments and have another two weeks, at least, of marking. All the tutorials for this semester for me are done and I’m relieved. Teaching online is not the same as in person. These were drastic measures for drastic times and getting up to speed was stressful.

So things though have proven okay. I sat in on some seminars and they were good and apparently the attendance rate was better than the face to face ones. So maybe I should withhold judgement. I also got some ideas about my redraft of my exegesis. Also because of said marking I don’t have much brain power to tackle it. I am positive though and that’s a good thing.

It’s getting close to Winter here. It was one degree C this morning. Lucky our Tesla battery had some charge and I could run the heater to get out of bed. We are trying to minimise using the gas central heating as it costs thousands to run and I’m the only one home and I’m not usually home so it will cost thousands more than the usual thousands. Lucky we have reverse cycle in most rooms and that runs off the solar if it is sunny and cold.

I’m a bit stiff from filling the skip with rubbish. We are doing the home isolation clearing up and landscaping the yard thing. I’ve sort of given over baking mostly although I’m still baking sourdough regularly as I have been doing for over a year. The impetus to landscape the yard is mainly coming from my daughters. My younger daughter pledged 6 hours yard work for my birthday and she’s nearly fulfilled that. My granddaughter Y also pledged time and she did a bit of work yesterday too.

Next step is getting the skip removed and ordering in a mountain of soil, mulching and garden edging. I look into my crystal ball and see lots of work on the horizon but a nice garden come spring.

In other pandemic news, my son is coming back to Australia. He’s been hold up in Edinburgh as he couldn’t get back to his job in Asia. He had to do two weeks quarantine in Melbourne and the he’s coming here to stay in June.  I see the potential for an extra pair of hands.

I have been saving for my half of a Tesla 3 EV car but production has stopped and I don’t know when we can or will buy one. Maybe 2021 now or later. So I want do use some of the $ to remodel the kitchen. You tube is great for this stuff.

I watched hours of Youtube tutorials on repairing or refurbishing the BBQ grill. I did all those things suggested and the damn thing is still blowing flames out of the air hole and not the actual burner. Last ditch effort is to use a brush and then look at the valves. OR throw the damn thing away and buy a new one. The only thing I can think of is that maybe the burner/valve got damaged when we moved as it hasn’t worked since we moved here. We had to be a new cheap bbq for the housewarming. But then, the new grill did the same thing. Flames came out the dial instead of the burner. Perhaps I’m cursed. It was enjoyable however in learning about the BBQ as it was like a car engine for me-I knew it was there, didn’t know how it worked and didn’t want to. Now I feel a little liberated and less scared for all the bits. The actual grill looks great and is much cleaner. I still hold hope that it will work.

The kitchen is more like a pipe dream because of the floors. I need to do the floors and we want to do the whole ground floor so that $$$ and TIME and backbreaking work no matter which way you look. If we do wood we have to move all the furniture out into the garage and you can’t walk on it while you are varnishing for at least a week, maybe two. If we do floating that is easier but they need to be replaced more often. If we do tile then it’s more durable, but cold and we’d need a tiler as I know from experience I can’t tile anymore. It kills the knees, the back and the hands and I’m not that young anymore.

Anyway, I may just be social isolation crazy. I’m still staying home as much as possible. No vaccine. No mixing. Lucky for us in Australia we have only a little of the virus and I’m hoping it will stay that way.

In other news, I’m still weaving. I finished these and it was hard. I totally stuffed the winding and didn’t realise until it was being warped. I tried to just adjust things without taking the unwanted threads away, then when I wound it up I couldn’t unwind the threads as the unused ones went round and round, so I had to undo it all (way fiddly) and then rewarp. The actual weaving part was very quick.

New project is a plain weave, cream and green checks for my son. But I have ideas for new projects!!

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