Tag Archives: bug hotel

Four Minutes to Spare

A big Bug Hotel

I managed eight submissions this month, one with four minutes to spare. This is slightly better than last month when my final submission went off after midnight my time, and relied on the time zone to get it there on time.

I have been looking at a different way of counting submissions. At the moment I count submissions to editors. If the magazine has two editors and I submit to both, I count it as two submissions. If it has one editor and accepts two forms I count it as one submission. I’m thinking that I may start counting the two forms as two submissions. It seems to me that as I am trying to extend my range, and write more forms, it’s fair to count the different forms as individual submissions. Does this make sense, and does anyone have any thoughts on it?

Yes, I like teasel

I’m also going to have to look at the way |I make submissions. Four minutes makes for a good title, but it’s a poor way to write poetry. As happened last month, some of the poetry is so fresh that if it were paintwork it wouldn’t be dry.

As you can see from the header picture, I was out and about today. The violets are out and I’m regaining my eye for detail. It’s a slow start. It always seems to take a long time to regain a habit once you have lost it.

A very pleasant day

Anyway – nine submissions last month, eight this month. This month will be busy (it’s already twenty minutes into March as I write) – 10 submissions to write, though if I apply the editor rule, I will only be able to count them as six.

This is a Bee Bank – I assume it’s going to feature nesting places, but I’m going to have to find out more.

 

Day Off

Well, this is vexing. I wrote this post and pressed the buttons and sat back as it loaded. I had added (Part 1) to the title, but when I switched on to write Part 2 I tried to link it to Part 1 and found it wasn’t there. This means that, for the first time in 72 days I have failed to post.

I am not happy. Ah well…

It was a day off today, and instead of making me drive to a distant tourist spot Julia allowed me to relax with a short trip to the Mencap garden.

We managed to fit in a Harvester Unlimited Breakfast on the way – so it wasn’t an entirely bad start.

At the garden, instead of making me walk round and look at things, and probably enjoy myself, she allowed me to do a number of jobs including refilling bug boxes (using hollow stems from the scabious we’d cut back a couple of months ago) and putting some bird boxes together.

I fear I may have seemed a little ungrateful for the opportunity to spend our day off working for an organisation that won’t allow me to volunteer officially. (For those of you new to the story I’m not allowed to volunteer to work with my wife, as I’ve been doing for the last five years, because of “conflict of interests”.)

We had a fig each after that, and I took some photos of the vine leaves.

It wasn’t one of my better days, though building nest boxes is always a good thing to do. So is eating fresh figs.

After that, we returned home for a cup of tea. I downloaded photos and, whilst snoozing happily in my chair, dreamed of Derbyshire.

At that point Julia demonstrated the depths of depravity to which a wife can stoop, waking me up to remind me I’d said I’d give her a lift to Wilkos to buy paint for nest boxes. Obviously I’d meant I’d give her a lift if I wasn’t asleep and it wasn’t too close to Pointless. I don’t ask much from life and a snooze and a TV quiz seem quite modest requirements. So does freedom from being woken up to go shopping.

We went to Arnold, and I took some photos from the rooftop car parks at Wilkos and ASDA (who are currently renovating their car park). They aren’t great photos, but they didn’t offer much in the way of scenery. The main theme is Rain, with a secondary motif of More Rain.