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The good morning, good night thread

Started by Ed, October 22, 2007, 03:49:05 AM

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Geoff_N

#4110
September 03, 2012, 02:57:52 AM
Congrats, Delph. That is a remarkable portrait. Hope Patrick gets to see it sometime.

Just returned from the writers' retreat in Methana, Greece. Marvellous in spite of 38C mid afternoon temps. I spent mornings on a bike up volcanoes and around the coastline, afternoons in the sea, evenings in tavernas. Oh, and I wrote a bit sometime. Journey back was weird. After a dialogue in shouted Greek, our taxi was waved through a police block. We thought maybe they were looking for robbers, but then we smelt smoke. Yep, we drove through a forest fire near Corinth. Flames licked at our tyres! I'll blog more once my head is on the right way round in a day or two.

Ed

#4111
September 03, 2012, 04:05:08 AM
Sounds exciting, Geoff :afro:

We are just packing up to go home. Will have a final dip in the pool and lunch here before heading back. The great thing about taking a break here is it's only forty minutes from home, so no travel hangover... and no 38 degree temperatures to contend with :cheesy:
Planning is an unnatural process - it is much more fun to do something.  The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise, rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression. [Sir John Harvey-Jones]

delboy

#4112
September 04, 2012, 03:56:42 AM
First day back at work today for a fortnight.  :(  As suspected, last week the writing went very well. Many thousands of words penned for the first time since February. There's a pattern here - roll on the next week off!

"If you want to write, write it. That's the first rule. And send it in, and send it in to someone who can publish it or get it published. Don't send it to me. Don't show it to your spouse, or your significant other, or your parents, or somebody. They're not going to publish it."

Robert B. Parker

Ed

#4113
September 05, 2012, 02:46:20 AM
You mean roll on Christmas, Del? :shocked:

Woke up with a cold this morning. Shouldn't complain, really, because I haven't had one this year, as far as I can remember, anyway. It's damned inconvenient, though. Hopefully it'll be one that goes as quickly as it came. I blame the pool at CenterParcs, and all that cycling. Exercise in general. I don't think it can be good for me :scratch:
Planning is an unnatural process - it is much more fun to do something.  The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise, rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression. [Sir John Harvey-Jones]

Geoff_N

#4114
September 06, 2012, 03:56:15 AM
Stayed up last night to write up my illustrated blog on the writers' retreat in Greece. Much is on my escapades, including being laughed at by dusky maidens while I was being known as the one-glove man. Really! Check it out at
http://bit.ly/RFWXJM

Geoff

Geoff_N

#4115
September 08, 2012, 03:59:41 PM
I entered the Ether Books friday 6-word story yesterday.

Coffin for sale, one careful owner.

I know we at CD have done 6-word stories before. Bit of fun. Try some while it's holiday quiet here?

delboy

#4116
September 09, 2012, 11:57:45 AM
I can just about do six words these days. My story is an open-ended mystery:

________________________________________________________________

Knock. Knock.

"Who's there?... Oh shit!"
________________________________________________________________
"If you want to write, write it. That's the first rule. And send it in, and send it in to someone who can publish it or get it published. Don't send it to me. Don't show it to your spouse, or your significant other, or your parents, or somebody. They're not going to publish it."

Robert B. Parker

Geoff_N

#4117
September 14, 2012, 09:18:28 AM
In the dentist chair I was asked if I'd done anything exciting recently. I replied that lately a new book of mine had been published and I'd cycled up a Greek mountain - oh, and I am in the paper today.
She said, "And the weather's been so awful, hasn't it?"

And I thought it was me with the hearing defect, although she might have thought I was joking.

Ed

#4118
September 15, 2012, 03:15:15 PM
Had a God-awful week. Unbelievably bad. We had a load of heavy equipment suddenly fall from its fixings for no apparent reason, and it fell on livestock -- it was absolute carnage. We spent two days going around all the other equipment we had fixed with these things, shoring and propping, very gingerly, knowing it could fall at any minute.

Awful as it was to see the animals suffer, literally blood and guts all over the place, it could have been so much worse. It still led to a few sleepless nights for me, and days worrying that I had missed something. Finally, after three days, the manufacturers reluctantly admitted they had made a mistake with the technical specifications and instead of holding the weight that was advertised, they actually could only support a tenth of that load. Still bad for our reputation to have had this happen, but at least I know for sure it was not my fault. My friends told me I aged ten years in those three days.

Now we have a load of work to do, going back over the jobs where we have used these fixings and replacing them with stronger ones. That on top of a strenuous workload already planned. Ooof... ::)
Planning is an unnatural process - it is much more fun to do something.  The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise, rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression. [Sir John Harvey-Jones]

akaShoe

#4119
September 15, 2012, 03:57:16 PM
Sheesh, that IS awful, Ed!  Still, better to find out about the error due to the loss of some livestock as opposed to, y'know, any of several more tragic scenarios.

Honestly, my 1st instinct would be to sue the pants off'n the company that sold you those fixings... but then again, I am an American, so suing the pants off'n somebody is pretty much ALWAYS my 1st instinct.  :afro:

At any rate, hope things smooth out for you!

Geoff_N

#4120
September 16, 2012, 01:47:21 PM
My first instinct is to feel abject sorrow for those animals, and their loved ones, and the owners, and of course for your angst, Ed. At least you can take a crumb of comfort that it wasn't your fault. You have nerves of steel - good stainless steel.

Ed

#4121
September 17, 2012, 03:23:58 AM
Thanks for the sympathy, guys. My nerves were truly shot by the end of it, must admit. Now I have a little bit of an appreciation of what it's like in bomb disposal. It's obviously not on the same scale, but there was a lot at stake, not only in a monetary sense, but we ran the risk of some of this stuff coming down on us. All the time we were propping and chaining we had to keep our wits about us and visualise which way it would fall if it was going to. I didn't eat all day -- just worked flat out for about sixteen hours. It was the most harrowing day of work I have ever experienced. Still, we're a resilient lot, aren't we? You just have to suck it up and get on with it :afro:
Planning is an unnatural process - it is much more fun to do something.  The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise, rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression. [Sir John Harvey-Jones]

marc_chagall

#4122
September 17, 2012, 03:58:52 AM
Bloody hell, Ed! Sooner you than me.

delboy

#4123
September 19, 2012, 03:47:20 AM
Sh#@ !! That sounds awful, Ed, on all sorts of levels.

I recall driving down a country B-Road once at night and the car in front of me hit a cow (the farmer had left a gate open and several cows had wandered out, they were black, the hedges were high, there was no moon...) and it went up on his bonnet smashed all the windscreen and bent the entire front end of the car then rolled off right in front of me, I went over him, sideswiped another member of the herd, and managed to pull over reasonaly safely. We had to call the police, they got a gun from somewhere and shot the wretched creature, but it took a long time to get organised and all the time the cow was lying there bellowing in pain. It's awful so see stuff like that, and I'm sure that scarcely compares with what happened with you (let alone all the other factors).

Stay strong!!
Derek
"If you want to write, write it. That's the first rule. And send it in, and send it in to someone who can publish it or get it published. Don't send it to me. Don't show it to your spouse, or your significant other, or your parents, or somebody. They're not going to publish it."

Robert B. Parker

starktheground

#4124
September 20, 2012, 06:38:14 PM
Aww that's awful Ed! I would've been traumatized too; it makes me sad to even see roadkill.  :(
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