A good day

Yesterday went well on all levels. It started (or rather Wednesday night ended) with the acceptance of my commissioned workshop for Computeractive magazine. As a result, I've been asked to write five more workshops from the list I sent in when originally pitching. With a bit of luck this will bridge the gap left by the closure of the Australian edition of the Windows XP Magazine. Although July hasn't been my strongest month in terms of money coming in, it's been a good month in that I'll have written for two new magazines (Computeractive and BBC Countryfile), plus reacquainted myself with a third (even though it's only a small box, and I'm not at liberty to disclose who the work is for). This will be the first time I've openly written for two competing UK publishers, but the sad fact is I can't rely on Future forever, and work from other magazines within the company is sporadic and could well be drying up in one or two cases too.

I spent most of yesterday in (or travelling to and from) London to meet up with my brother whose work occasionally sees him spending time in the capital. We caught up over a late lunch and it was good to see him - we don't see or speak to each other nearly enough, but he hinted that his work may bring him more often to the smoke, so going forward we'll hopefully stay in contact a bit better.

Then in the evening we went down to Abberton Reservoir for a barbecue organised for volunteers as a "thank you" from the Essex Wildlife Trust.

Today could be another good day, but I suspect the weather may frustrate us. We're supposed to be going to Newmarket this afternoon for some late racing and to see Madness in concert, but the heaviest of today's rainfall falls over the region during the time we'll be travelling to it on the A14 (we're going via Ipswich to pick up Joe and his mate who are accompanying us). I'm a little worried about how the driving conditions will pan out, but we may get there only to find it's all cancelled due to bad weather anyway!