Daylight
Yesterday (well, technically this morning around two o'clock) I finished the latest read-through of Benfro book two. Today I should have been at my desk all day typing up the corrections so that I can get the manuscript in the post to my agent by the end of the week.
So instead I took the dogs for a long walk and then pottered in the garden.
I was extremely fortunate as a child. My sister, two brothers and I all grew up in the countryside. Our house was the converted laundry block of an old country mansion that had been demolished in the 1920s (the mansion, not the laundry block), and this meant that our garden was five and bit acres of formal planting originally laid out by Capability Brown. There was a wild garden, full of vast bamboos and exotic species, a ha-ha, several walled gardens and endless lines of mature box hedges, secret walkways and grottoes. And it was all private.
As a playground, it doesn't get much better than this, as our parents constantly reminded us. And so, if it wasn't either dark or blowing a gale, we were expected to make our own entertainment outside.
And then, at an all too early age, I was sent away to boarding school. Here, if you weren't actually being taught or doing homework, and it was neither dark nor blowing a gale (and sometimes even if it was) you were expected to be outside, either participating in some kind of manly sport or standing, shivering, on the sidelines cheering on others participating in some kind of manly sport.
So from my earliest memories right up until I moved to Aberdeen to go to university, it was drummed into me that daylight meant outdoors.
Perhaps this explains why I've found it so hard to settle into a routine job. I'm uncomfortable sitting inside when the sun's shining - a matronly voice in the back of my head is constantly saying that I should be outside doing things. Never mind that there's nothing outside needing done, sitting inside during the day is wrong.
Over the years I've managed to suppress this natural urge. I can now sit in front of my computer and type for hours, even if there's only a light covering of cloud and no threat whatsoever of rain.
But it still feels ever so slightly naughty.
And so today, when the thermometer struggled to rise above zero (that's celsius, before your North American types get all excited) but the sun was bright and cheerful, I decided it would be better to pull weeds and generally tidy up some of the mess in the garden. Benfro has had to wait.
Hopefully tomorrow it will snow, all day. I really do need to get these corrections done by the end of the week if I'm to embark on book three at the beginning of the new year (as Mr Stuart told me to - and I listen to him.)
So instead I took the dogs for a long walk and then pottered in the garden.
I was extremely fortunate as a child. My sister, two brothers and I all grew up in the countryside. Our house was the converted laundry block of an old country mansion that had been demolished in the 1920s (the mansion, not the laundry block), and this meant that our garden was five and bit acres of formal planting originally laid out by Capability Brown. There was a wild garden, full of vast bamboos and exotic species, a ha-ha, several walled gardens and endless lines of mature box hedges, secret walkways and grottoes. And it was all private.
As a playground, it doesn't get much better than this, as our parents constantly reminded us. And so, if it wasn't either dark or blowing a gale, we were expected to make our own entertainment outside.
And then, at an all too early age, I was sent away to boarding school. Here, if you weren't actually being taught or doing homework, and it was neither dark nor blowing a gale (and sometimes even if it was) you were expected to be outside, either participating in some kind of manly sport or standing, shivering, on the sidelines cheering on others participating in some kind of manly sport.
So from my earliest memories right up until I moved to Aberdeen to go to university, it was drummed into me that daylight meant outdoors.
Perhaps this explains why I've found it so hard to settle into a routine job. I'm uncomfortable sitting inside when the sun's shining - a matronly voice in the back of my head is constantly saying that I should be outside doing things. Never mind that there's nothing outside needing done, sitting inside during the day is wrong.
Over the years I've managed to suppress this natural urge. I can now sit in front of my computer and type for hours, even if there's only a light covering of cloud and no threat whatsoever of rain.
But it still feels ever so slightly naughty.
And so today, when the thermometer struggled to rise above zero (that's celsius, before your North American types get all excited) but the sun was bright and cheerful, I decided it would be better to pull weeds and generally tidy up some of the mess in the garden. Benfro has had to wait.
Hopefully tomorrow it will snow, all day. I really do need to get these corrections done by the end of the week if I'm to embark on book three at the beginning of the new year (as Mr Stuart told me to - and I listen to him.)
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