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Both Catie and I had deadlines to reach so unusually had booked some childcare for the day, but it fell through, leaving us both up shit's creek, but with a paddle. We could get out of shit's creek, but we'd end up with a shitty paddle and someone would then have to clean the paddle, so it wasn't ideal. But I suppose it was our own fault for heading into a creek of shit in the first place. The smell alone should have been enough to dissuade us.
So instead of having a full day to work, we split the day in two. I took the kids to the supermarket and then round the bookshop and then for a pizza. When we arrived at the restaurant Ernie held up a pen that he'd been admiring in the bookshop, but which we hadn't paid for. He didn't know he'd done anything wrong and was happily showing me his acquisition. Although I have been known to pinch the odd thing myself and am the reason that pick and mix costs so much to other consumers, I am not about to get into the Fagin business, so we had to trudge back to the bookshop to return the pen.
I made it clear to Ernie that you can't take things without paying and so didn't feel the need to make him to apologise to the shop keeper like Flop does to Bing. Mind you, Bing had slurped on a lolly so Flop couldn't just put it back, though given they go back and pay for it, it seems a bit weird that Bing can't keep the lolly. We just put the pen back and Ernie didn't have to apologise to a Waterstones' employee who wouldn't really have given a fuck anyway. Because I am not Flop.
He was sad because he loved the pen, but I told him that he could come back and buy it with his own money another time, if he still felt that way. I suspect he will forget about the pen. Like his father, he loves hard, but is mercurial. By which I mean he contains mercury and is able to accurately gauge the temperature in any room. It's just a thing that happens in my family.
I did 8.30am to 1.30pm and then worked until dinner time. I managed to get the first draft of the book done. There's a few little bits that I am not totally happy with, but I don't think it's far off. It weighs in just shy of 77,000 words. I doubt my editor will insist on another 3000. I did 5000 too many for the Problem With Men, so the way I look at it, she still owes me 2000 words.
It will come back to me in a few days and there will be issues to resolve, for sure, but I am hoping that it will be another week's work, maximum. I don't actually have anything else to work on after this, apart from my various podcasts (and there's quite a few of them, including a new one about bollocks), but I am quite happy about that. I might take it easy or I might just do some work on something for myself. I'd like to write more books, but I guess I should think about stand up too. And maybe we can start doing some sketches and stuff for Twitch of Fun, which I think will return after Easter.
It's weird to be in a position where I am praying for no actual work to come in. Writing wise it's been pretty full on for the last 8 or 9 months. Maybe I'll give my brain a holiday.
Anyway it felt like I should celebrate finishing the first run at the book - only eight weeks late - but by the time I was done we were both too tired to do anything. So Catie went to bed and I had a zero alcohol gin and tonic and some salt and vinegar peanuts on my own and watched Dragon's Den. Let no one say I don't know how to party.
