Tuesday and it back to work for everyone, except me who wakes up feeling strangely hung over, for which I have no logical explanation. So I do my vitals and find my blood pressure slightly elevated, I wonder if I am excited, I check and find I am not, so I get up. With the kitchen cleared I make the builder badgers coffee and have a conversation about the invoice for the electrician. A take time over breakfast and then I am in full poet admin mode. There is a sheaf of questionnaires to fill in about the two new collections, including cover designs, proofreading and production details. Its a flog but I get there in the end and send them off to the Americans to start the work in earnest. Its lunch time and I’ve run out of spoons already so I start to draft the blog to the background of old TV dramas.

I lunch late as I am not feeling well, but make the effort to clear out the fridge of all the food that is out of date or that we will never eat and then make the builder badgers more coffee. These badgers are diligent builders and earning their corn, the walls of the new patio are growing with the wiring being built in for the lighting. At the top of the garden they have already dug out the old raised bed ready to put in the new sleeper surround. It is building in the wall lighting in the patio that is the tricky and precision work, so the lead badger is being very careful to get it right. At the moment there is no rain forecast until Friday so the badgers have a good run at the project. I am hoping that by the weekend the back garden part of the project will be nearing completion. I take the blog forward a bit more and begin to plan the evening, of course there is the Red Eye to finish.

I’ve entered the inpatient waiting on the Americans stage now and find myself checking my emails to see if they have started work on my collections, as they are five hours behind us they do not start their working day till 1 o’clock our time, so its the afternoon or evening when I am most likely to get any glimmer of hope to see my new collections become tangible books. It is the proof reading and corrections that keeps me occupied and engaged until I get to hold the new book. I spend some time reading the collections that I have already published. I know I am biased but when I go back and read some of them I think that they are not so bad. They may not be the universal stuff of Pablo Neruda, Ginsberg or any of the great poets but they do at least say something about my personal universe. Once the next two are published it will probably be time to take a break and have a period of reflection and recharging the verbal batteries.

My partner returns from work and the builder badgers start to pack for the day. Once they are waved on their way the bins can go our and Tesco can deliver unhindered. So the evening beckons and I ease towards it with my eye on taking my night meds and getting a good nights sleep. All goes to plan apart from falling into the Eurovision semi final trap. Its that time of year and no doubt I will be glued to the final on Saturday. On the positive side the Americans have confirmed they have received everything that I have sent them and that they are starting work on the collections. Once again I am starting to get excited about the new collections as I head towards bed.