I'm back!

The routine has fallen out of this blog - of that I am acutely aware - but I am going through a whole host of changes and hope to bring that to this blog in due course, so for now, please accept my apologies and see this site as a 'site under re-construction' deal in the meantime.  It is not that I have lost interest in writing, rather that other interests and necessities (such as earning money) have been tugging at my shirt hem like a three year old needing urgent attention.  

First and foremost, I've been adjusting to being back in Prague, then had a flying visit to London which threw me in terms of climate and didn't help get me back to a sensible sleep pattern.  (Not to mention all this airport stress getting too much.  Though I got a rather nice kind of over-clothes-massage from the security woman in San Francisco.  She said I'd been randomly selected for it and it was, "My lucky day".  The architect stared at this potentially arousing intimate pat-down as she reached around my back to check I wasn't storing a bomb under my bra fastener and, when finished asked me, "did you enjoy that?!"  But most people are finding all these airport checks and restrictions less than amusing: see this )

And now Prague time beckons because all my meet-ees who didn't want to start back immediately due to a couple of Bank Holiday days here that meant everyone took time off, are now booked in and I am down to my last 500 crowns in all Christendom until I get paid and have thus taken to eating sweet corn out of a tin mixed with mayonnaise as my evening meal.  And I'm worn out from the trying to squeeze in an important couple of meetings while in London and slept longer this morning as a result.  So I'm still thrown as to what time zone I'm on and will somehow have to manage to get up and leave the house at 7.30am tomorrow for my first meeting!  Phew!

The good news is, there are positive things afoot, from the spectre of a bit of freelance writing (that will materialise, won't it?) to a possible music publishing deal which is waiting to be assessed by the MU that I've had to re-join in order to access their free "Contract advisory service" which could threaten to send me overdrawn if I don't get some Skype meet-ees in London or a substantial article payment in £s soon.  So I'm on the edge of the platform again financially, but the memory of San Francisco sunshine and palm trees is keeping me optimistic.  For now.

In the meantime, I hope to make the necessary changes to this blog in due course, as well as fill you in on the rest of the road trip experience as and when I can.  And when I get my new website page up and running, you'll be the first to know!  Just for now, I'll introduce the first change:  henceforth the architect shall be known as my cowboy, purely because of the acquisition of this hat:

I can't prove to you how brilliantly it suits him with a photo of him in the hat because it would break his anonymity, but take it from me, all who've seen him in it attest to the fact that he was surely born to be a cowboy!

A sea of changes, an ocean of resistance and surprises from an old friend

I feel worn-out from a day in which I have sought to achieve more than was ever going to be possible, but nonetheless have made progress.  Much to the consternation of some.  It was always going to be difficult, having to put my foot down to some meet-ees and actually say, "no, this is not how it's going to be anymore."  I cannot afford to provide favours for all and sundry and keep my rates to an acceptably lowly 'female helping profession' kind of level any longer.  The saying, "no" part has come easier in many ways, than I expected.  Czechs prefer you to be clear, not wishy-washy so saying an outright, "I cannot continue with this" is preferable to, "I don't think I'm going to be able to continue" and is exactly what I needed to say.  This has by and large been accepted without quibble.  After all, a clear, "no" leaves no room for negotiation.

Asking for what I need from new, 'met-once but not established into the timetable' meet-ees has been a little bit harder.  So has asking for what I need from friends who thought they could have endless favours and fashionable amounts of freedom to come and go as they please.  But it is all necessary and worth it in the long run to actually clear my timetable of so many hours of dead time where I'm virtually drawing blood from a stone and barely getting paid enough to allow myself to eat and drink healthily that day.

So, enough is enough.  I'm being 'reasonable but firm' about what I can and can't tolerate.  And I'm trying to work around problems as they arise and see if I can knock down the most persistent and pervasive ones.  The next hurdle is another visit to the bank.  My favourite thing.  Camping out in an over-the-top affluent-looking waiting area with a fountain no less, waiting for my number to come up on a screen, not only makes me think I must have ended up on a stopover in bankers' heaven but makes me spit with fury at what nonsense they're spending my banking fees on.  If I spent my meet-ees fees on champagne and oysters, it would be close to the equivalent of this I suppose.  (Mind you, champagne and oysters would actually be rather nice and a definite 'pick me up' for my otherwise lethargic and melancholic state, whereas an indoor fountain and wood panelled 'pods' to either sit and wait on or stand and write at, offer no such succour.)

And so it is that I find myself at the end of this long and busy day of once again trying to achieve the impossible, sipping hot chocolate with coconut liqueur and marvelling at the surprises that have befallen me today.  Namely, a parcel I collected from the post office from the Russian Countess, containing a stash of chocolates, including a chocolate covered marzipan bar I had wanted to buy myself over Christmas but ran out of money for, some German champagne truffles, a lovely traveller's notebook and a card with sentiments expressing some unfounded belief in my achievements.  I can only stare in amazement at such luck and cherish the thought that there is someone out there who thinks that the work I do, the stuff that so far seems to have no commercial value whatsoever, is somehow highly significant and is revered by another creative soul.  That warms the cockles of my heart better than the hot chocolate.  And that is truly saying something because I'm becoming something of a hot chocolate fanatic these days.