Isn’t it strange how one thing dropping into ,place can open everything up? I know the reverse is often the case, and one thing going wrong can mess a lot of things up, but it doesn’t generally seem as easy going the other way.

Yesterday I finally got round to plugging a keyboard and mouse into my laptop and suddenly I am productive again. Just because it’s called a laptop doesn’t mean that I have to sit in the living room with it on my lap.

The result was three blog posts, plus half a dozen prose pieces written (some with haiku and tanka attached) and a dozen tanka transcribed. I now have enough material to have a serious go at submitting to all the magazines I have listed to target. This feels good.

I also didn’t spend half the night messing about with a fiddly keyboard and a lack of concentration, so I feel better in myself too.

Now that is underway I feel like tackling the broken computer and will be downloading the relevant stuff to rescue it this week so I can get it started again. If that works as claimed I will be able to get all my old work back, which will be even better.

Of course, I have learned nothing and am still not backing up properly, but that’s just how I am. The work I am producing won’t be brilliant either, as it normally takes months to tweak it, but at least I’m back in the game an straining at the leash. This is most unlike me, and particularly unlike me in winter, when I normally go dormant.

I even manged to write most of thi blog post at work before anyone else appeared. this blog post. Four minutes past five and I am about to post my blog for the day. This is not normal.

Featured coin is a Belgian 5 Francs of 1873.