Saturday 15 March 2008

Surprise parties

No, no, NO! He wouldn't do it to me. Would he?

Having recently lost most of my work, through Friday Project going down the pan (owing me £1000 in editing and proofreading fees), and another employer deciding to put business on ice and take a gap year, I went to bed last night and couldn't sleep for the fears and worries churning round in my brain. I was still awake when the damn blackbird started warbling outside my window. (Tatatatatatata - imaginary machine gun.) Drifted off around 5 am and was awoken two hours later by Mr Grumpy crashing out of the house and into the car.

Mr G is one of those men who people always ring when they have an emergency, so alarm bells rang in my head and I rang him, only to find him in Sainsburys. An awful thought occurred. Say, just say, he was shopping for a surprise birthday party for me? (Birthday is on Monday. Yes, I know; St Patrick's Day.) The last thing I can cope with on two hours' sleep is a party. When he came back with mixes for cakes and jellies, and a bag full of Easter Eggs, my suspicion strengthened. He was definitely up to something.

Had he been open about it, I would have taken half of one of the illicit Spanish sleeping pills and ensured myself a good night. As it is, I shall retire to bed late this afternoon and refuse to get up again. Just call it tit for tatatatatatatat.

2 comments:

Graeme K Talboys said...

Sorry to hear about TFP. I went through the same thing some years ago with one of my publishers going bust. That's when you learn that writers and freelancers are bottom of the pile, despite being the ones who do most of the work.

Up the revolution, I say.

hydra said...

Thanks for your solidarity, graeme. Oh for the days of a regular monthly pay cheque! Freelancing is such a dicey business, especially if you have a mortgage.