Feels like Summer!

What an amazing day - an example of how the warming presence of a full-bodied sun can really make a huge difference to everything... My day started with an early awakening as the sun crashed blindingly through the skylight and burned holes in my eyelids. I washed quickly and put on my new (charity shop) dress, which made the day feel special from the very beginning, then took my tea and muesli outside onto the patio. It was warm enough to sit in short sleeves! :)

I raked all the leaves off the lawn and revealed the huge horse-hoof holes beneath. Hmm, at least the grass will get some light now, and some air, but I will have to get around to filling in the holes if I don't want any twisted ankles in the near future. The tonne bag of leaves started off our leaf compost project - we plan on composting as many leaves as possible annually so that within 3 years or so we'll have our own seed compost.

I spoke with BT and ordered our phone connection. Apparently these days you have no option but to sign up to a 12 month contract :( The actual connection will take place next Tuesday - much later than the 24-48 hours which had been promised in earlier conversations, but the Scottish BT call centre guy assured me that "never in all creation has it been 48 hours, let alone 24 - it's a three day turnaround" which made me snigger, despite feeling somewhat annoyed. As if BT had been around since the very beginning of time.

Feels so good to be working outside, as well as being able to relax in the sun. We were prevented from sitting outside while we lived in our previous house, as the neighbour had a horribly aggressive dog which would launch a snarling attack every time we tried to walk to the end of our garden. It's been two, almost three years of being confined to the house (or brief forays into the park) on sunny days, so you can imagine how heavenly it is to finally have the chance to enjoy being outside in our own, private space! :) We've been busy digging and weeding beds in the vegetable garden too, there's plenty (read: mountains) of work to be done down there if we are to be able to plant out the seedlings we have grown, and sow the seeds we are itching to get in the ground, but many hands make light work.

I have caught myself searching the recesses of my mind for something stressful - until Ember ended I was so used to there being great threatening shadows of deadlines and stressful tasks at the back of my brain that it seems like a dream to search and not find anything of the kind... Phil says he's found himself doing the same thing, thinking "what am I supposed to have done/be doing?" and then realising (with surprise) that those things have gone now, we can chose what to do day by day. There is so much to be done, but we have the rest of our lives ahead of us in which to do it all. That's the idea, anyway! :)

Filing Accounts Online, and a Secret

Day Fifty Seven.

Despite my earlier post about my nightmarish blog backlog, I still intend to persist with the 100 Day Project, and endeavour to fill in the gaps. I realise now why my camera batteries needing charging had become such a big issue - when I found the charger I saw that the plug had been snipped off, leaving just bare wires... This was the problem I came up against last time I tried to solve the dead battery crisis... So there may not be any photos for a little while :(

I felt a huge sense of achievement today, not least because I successfully filed my Self-Assessment Tax Return online, with a little help from the telephone helpdesk, but also because I DISCOVERED A SECRET. I'd left it this late because I knew I needed to know something IMPORTANT before I filed it, and the Important Thing turned out to be called 'Profit Averaging.'

It only applies to farmers and "creatives," whose self-employment earnings can fluctuate hugely from year to year, and allows you to make an average figure of income from two consecutive years. It makes a magical difference, and even the helpdesk man was surprised to learn about it from his guidebook.

After the number crunching was done, I took myself off for a brisk and lengthy walk, incorporating an amazing twenty minutes or so of lying on the pebbles by the river, enjoying the shapes of the trees, the smell of the breeze, and light reflecting off the water.

It almost feels like Spring is here!

Last Recording Day

Day Forty Six.

Not an easy day, but we did the very last of the recording for the album, and now all that's left to be done is... well, quite a lot of fiddly things, but the project is moving on and all is well.

After a long bath in the relaxing, evening silence of the house, I plugged my headphones in and got to work on topping and tailing all of the tracks (and making sure we had only the essential tracks) on each song. Sometimes when you record a few takes, you keep all of them, even though you may have decided at the time that they weren't good enough. This can be useful if you need material to cannibalise later, but more often than not it's simply confusing and a drain on your time.

Got to bed at 1am, tired, but satisfied with a job well done.