I am not mad! Honest!

Well you will think me insane. Until last night I was doubting myself with this one and even for me this is crazy. I put my chickens to be at dusk as you do and every day there is a pigeon. Nice to believe its Walter but too far away to really be sure. Yesterday there were no pigeons when I put them to bed so I asked "are you there Walter?" and she came and sat on the tree. Well she does know me but still shes a wild animal and this is just amazing.....She is NOT tame. Not at all. I disturbed her eating from the feeding table yesterday morning and just like any wild bird she flew away. She will not sit on me or come to me and is not hand tame at all like pet. She does tho know I am refering to her when I speak and call her Walter and she definitely turns up each evening to say hello to me and this is far more than I would ever have believed possible and I never expected this. Its brilliant.

The dishwasher has yet again gone wrong. Fixed again - I wish I could believe it was the last time................ Anyway had to wash up all weekend and finally now its working. Never will I buy anything Smeg ever again!

Bath is finally in place so we will eventually have an upstairs bathroom. This bath we bought in 2007 and it has coloured lights and jets of air and water - supposed to be good for backs and your health etc. I think everything is far more eco nowadays so its very out of date. Took us this long to get round to putting the thing in. We have an ikea sink to go with it and toilet-to-go from Wickes! Still its all white!

Hopefully soon we can rip out the old bathroom which is going to be my dedicated work room and i need this now. I am also about to start a part time temp job - suspect very boring but never mind. Only 25hrs a week and only for a couple of months but since income is down by 2k from last year I have to do it. Could do with working indefinitely but probably will not manage that one. The summer will start soon anyway so hopefuly it will get busy again. I am also considering doing the very expensive but probably worth it Brum xmas market so have to try and pay for that soon. And starting part 3 of webdesign tomorrow evening at Leamington college. Right now do not know where Leamington college is so am off to investigate in a minute so I am not late getting there. I would rather have done this course in January and more locally but it didnt run due to lask of students so I had best do it while I can. Tho price of it has doubled which is really bad. Its now nearly £400 for the whole course but you pay in 2 halves so hopefully I will start earning soon.

Publisher has again lowered the rate of articles so I am not writing any more for them but am trying to write a book instead. Well aim high etc. They owe me nearly £700 ( currently £400 and £180 in 2 weeks time) but so far are 2 weeks late paying. Hopefully they will eventually pay me. If not I am being advised to go to small claims court by the accountant so will probably have to do that cos its not very expensive when you are owed so much to do this. I will leave for a couple of weeks though cos you have to be seen to have been reasonable. Also best to do everything at once rather than 2 seperate claims since its cheaper. Technically they only owe me £400 right now but wil owe the rest in 2 weeks so if I have to go to court it will be cheaper to do one claim for everything rather than 2 smaller ones.

Why is everything so complicated in life. I mean why do they not just pay me? I really need this money too to pay for the events for the rest of the year and can do without this hassle. I am actually glad they decided to lower the rates of pay. Originally it was £90 per page ( so £270 for some articles0 then this publisher bought the mag and they lowered it to £90 per article and now they want to pay just £60! Considering some articles take a week to write, several sometimes expensive experiments and can use lots of supplies up to get the formulation right, and by the time you have invented the product and tested it etc this is just ridiculous to only pay £60 per article and makes it not worth doing anymore. Besides having to take photos of the whole process send them by endless emails and even send them your products so it costs. You do not even get to keep you wonderful new invention. Tho I admit to having made extra most times so I could. It was lovely to get published though. Having said all this though it will be wonderful not to have to chase them every month for payment! It really is getting very wearing ringing up day after day and being fobbed off each time. Last time I ended up borrowing a phone so they didnt know who called and ringing over and over until I got to speak to the woman in charge. She was not happy. But neither am I and I need to be paid. They have published the work so now pay me. Are all publishers this much hassle I wonder?