Thumbs up

The trouble with stress is that, due to one thing and another, one tends to make mistakes and have accidents. It's the how things are.

And I am in pain.

Last Wednesday I had an argument with our dog. I'm not blaming him, he was confused and upset, and I made the mistake of putting my right hand near a mouthful of a canine's canines.

As a writer I'm always on the look-out for new experiences - for example, exactly how painful is it to have one's hand (and thumb mostly) chewed by a dog?

And now I know the answer. I managed to hold it together while we got the poor puppy sorted out and under control so he didn't disgrace himself again. However I was dripping blood all over the carpet for a while. Then this poor old body of mine went into shock which was quite interesting. The Teacher is a dab hand with the first aid (fully trained and regularly re-certified) so she patched me up.

The thumb came off worst with a 2cm gash crosswise just below the last joint - this has been very inconvenient as I lost the advantage of an opposable digit for a couple of days. It's getting better now but occasional I bend the joint too much and that is quite painful so I end up uttering an "ow" which generally surprises the people around me.

I probably should have had stitches but the prospect of hours in A&E (as a non-urgent case) was not my idea of a good night out. I'll have an interesting scar.

I have finally got around to moving my computer and my nice chair (which I bought when I was working in Reading) to the office so that I can work without interruption. And I need to because I'm falling behind.

Yesterday we auditioned the kids for the Monsters trailer, we needed two girls for important roles, one for a less important role (but a few lines of dialogue), and one boy for three words. The casting call specified 16 or over but we were, of course, deluged with 15 year olds wanting to audition. We couldn't take them, because then we'd have to mess about with licences and that's just horrible.

Did I mention we have a new producer? Unfortunately Kate decided she couldn't do the project justice, but suggested Tiffany who has real TV producer experience, and she's great. We're also having a change of DoP, because the shoot date has been decided (the only weekend all the actors are available) and the current one couldn't do that weekend. We're shooting on the 19th and 20th of this month.

Only two weeks.

And there's so much to do ... and I really don't have to do much, which is hard.

In other news...

The Teacher is now the "Assistant Headteacher" but I'll still call her the Teacher in the blog because it's shorter. The Boy has the dates for going down to shoot Bamzooki for CBBC. No new news for the Daughter as yet, but she's working hard as Production Designer for the Monsters shoot.

---

What's on the turntable? "Overture" by Bjork from "Vespertine Live" (courtesy of Spotify)

Chair lift

There was a meme going around a few weeks ago about putting up photos of writing workspaces. Not that I got memed but I did wonder what in the world I would show.

It is true that back up north I do have an office, but here in Reading? Nothing. Just the computer and sometimes bits of paper. No cards, no corkboards, no stick-it notes.

I also don't have a decent chair. For six months I've been sitting on the sofa with a pillow behind me for support and the computer perched on a stool. The only other option being the laptop on the table and me perched on the stool without any back support. Not good.

Today, having made a point of not completely knocking myself out at work, I decided I would buy a decent chair. So off I went to Argos and played with their high tech ordering system and located the very last of their (one person self-assembly, made in China) ergonomic chairs.

Excellent. I bought it and then discovered it was too bulky (20Kgs in a big box) to carry back to the flat nearly a mile away. Off I zoomed and located a convenient cabby, got back to Argos, loaded up, got the thing to the flat. Dragged it up a switchback flight of steps and collapsed into the sofa.

Having recovered I set about putting it together. Self-assembly is a lot easier than it used to be so just 45 minutes later I'm proudly enthroned in my super-duper ergonomic executive chair. The lumbar support is adjustable and I have it placed just right for me. It's really comfortable.

There is just one small problem.

I have nothing the right height to put the computer on. I need a desk.

---

What's on the turntable? "Pentangling" by Pentangle from Light Flight.