Day 2 - Annette's Day

Well, this is fun, isn't it. Getting an immediate response to something written the day before. Actually, when you analyse it, writers do not live the most exciting of lives. They get up, groan, perhaps have a plate of corn flakes, make a cup of coffee, sit down at a computer - and hit keys all morning. Now my wife Annette has a much more exciting day. Annette is a volunteer for many organisations including Sutton Hoo Anglo-Saxon burial mounds and the formidable Alton Water workers (they make willow fences and coppice trees around our beautiful nature reserve reservoir). She is particularly fond of the grass snakes that abound around the lake and yesterday found one that had crept out of hibernation, half-starved, only to find it was still winter outside. 'Bloody hell,' it said, mentally of course, 'where's the ruddy sun when you need it?' The poor thin beast appeared to be gasping its last. So Annette went and caught a frog for it, but the other volunteers were horror struck and said she should let nature take its course and didn't the frog deserve to live too? So she let the frog go, but crept back later with a huge slug and left it for the snake, wondering if it would indeed enjoy a black slimy creature that was as static as a rock and without even eyes to blink with. However . . . however, later still she crept again and found both serpent and slug gone. She regarded this as a success.

Me? I got up, groaned, had some corn flakes, made a coffee, sat down at my computer and hit the keys. Yawn. Actually it's a new science fiction novel with the working title Ring-a-Ring o' Roses and I'm going to stun the sf world with its brilliance, so there.