This morning, I finished the first handwritten edit of Tilda 3.
What does that mean, I hear you ask? It means that Tilda 3 has moved from the first s****y draft in a notebook, past the first s****y draft on computer, and is now a paper copy full of multicoloured scribbles. It's still as far from a proper, finished novel as you can get, but my read through has helped me to see where the novel needs expanding, and how the mahoosive climax can be written so it's all Tilda's fault...
It also means that, when I head off to Weobley next week, to spend four days at a Writing Retreat run by two wonderful ex-cloudie friends - Jayne and Moira - I am in a position to either start typing up all the edits to Tilda 3 OR crack on with the first s****y draft on computer of Tilda 4. This fourth adventure for Tilda is going to start in a dark place... and involves Issrayan dragons.
Nuff said.
And the Car Park Capers?
Yesterday, Mr Squidge and I went to Leicester. We don't go often - we're not into big name shopping and we can get most of what we need in the town centre at home, but I had to pick up the new Paschal candle and palm crosses for church from the cathedral shop, and he wanted to visit Nada, a zero waste store. I also had to begin the process of applying for my e-Visa for India (I'm off to Trichy again, mid-April, in case I hadn't already mentioned it), so we planned to drop by Belgrave Gate and a particular travel agent's on the way home.
Anyhow, we checked where we could plug Sparky in to charge while we mooched, and headed off to the car park.
Now, finding the recharging points in any car park is a bit of an art. They are normally on the ground floor, well signposted and have green parking bays. We drove around all three - extensive - floors in the Highcross Rooftop Car Park and couldn't see a single one. Now, we didn't really need to charge - we'd have got home again quite comfortably - but we thought we'd do it anyway, as keeping the battery topped up is better than letting it run low.
We ended up pressing the 'Help' button. "I'll get my colleague to talk to you," the nice lady on the other end of the intercom said. Five minutes later, with no more contact from the disembodied voice, we were about to park up and not bother charging. Then said colleague appeared in person - and directed us from the sunny rooftop, back down onto the first level, to 'the dark new bit.' That didn't sound particularly attractive, as dark bits in car parks aren't very safe, but off we went.
We drove round the roof twice, trying to find the way out (signposting really isn't this car park's strong point - the exit was a very narrow ramp, hidden behind a wall with a teeny tiny sign) and followed the instructions back to the first level. Even there, we couldn't find 'the dark bit'. Then - Alleluia! - a green charge point sign. And another, pointing the way to - yup, The Dark Bit.
Now, the reason for the darkness became apparent as we drove towards the charge pod points. The lights were on motion sensors. So this newer part of the car park was being environmental with reduced lighting for most of the time because - let's face it - all it would've been doing otherwise was shining on empty, stationary vehicles.
We plugged in, and it took a while to download the app to enable charging - different suppliers have different apps you need to sign up to, which results in lots of faff when you start using a new supplier anywhere. I spent the time admiring the artwork... They were very keen to get the environmental message over, weren't they?
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After all that, can you believe we didn't get much of a charge? It took so long to download the app, the charge point didn't let us draw any more power because it didn't think we were signed up to it.
But at least we know where we can go in future. And we both got the shopping we needed, had a lovely lunch in The Globe pub, and a mooch around the city centre in the sunshine. On balance, a good day.
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