Wilting from the Heat

I don’t really have much to say today.  The main news, aside from applying for another job I don’t think I’ll get, is that I started to write my first novel.  Actually to write it, as opposed to planning it, which I’ve been doing for a while.  Technically I wrote a bit a few months ago, a fragment that came into my head and I wanted to get down on paper, but this is going to the beginning and writing from the start, with the prologue, with a view to capturing the attention first of an editor and then of potential readers.  I have not got very far.  I wrote about two hundred words before realising I was doing this all wrong, tore it all up (metaphorically speaking) and started again.  I think I will really end up writing the prologue nearer the end, especially as, chronologically, the prologue fits in just before the last chapter, but I just want to get something down to start and then move on to the first chapter, which will hopefully be a bit easier.

Otherwise, it has been a quiet day.  The heatwave has come back and that has made doing anything uncomfortable as the heat is just unbearable.  We’re not used to heat in this country; our houses are built to be warm in the winter (no air conditioning, loft and wall insulation).  It is a bank holiday and my parents were out, so that made work hard too.  I probably should have gone and sat downstairs when my parents were out.  My room is one of the hottest in the house (it’s notably hotter when you walk in), especially in the afternoons as there is only one external wall and a west-facing window which gets the sun all afternoon.  However, I’m territorial and dislike working anywhere else.  Then my parents came home and the TV went on, so working down there became impossible.

As I said, I applied for one job and considered whether to apply for another one (I don’t have the experience they want and I can’t go to interview on the day they want because it’s Yom Kippur but I still feel a moral obligation to apply for any job that is even vaguely right for).  I cooked dinner (macaroni cheese, my standby recipe for days when I don’t want or have time to cook) and had a gross moment when I discovered maggots in the kitchen.  I suspect they came from two boxes full of apples from our garden that had been sitting on the kitchen worktop for days, some of them not in good condition.

I recorded myself speaking for talking again for CBT.  It’s weird.  I was supposed to talk about something I don’t know about.  I obviously can’t talk about something I literally know nothing about, so I spoke about the weather without any preparation.  It wasn’t very good inasmuch as I was hesitant and kept stopping and not knowing what to say.  Five minutes is a long time to speak non-stop.  I drifted from the weather into climate change and back again.  Watching the playback, I looked vaguely nervous and uncomfortable and was stimming a bit (stroking my chin and cheek).  It’s such an artificial exercise and I’m not really sure what it’s supposed to prove or how it would make me feel more confident in a conversation with another person, which is very different to recording oneself on a phone.

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There seem to be a lot of butterflies and moths out this year, which is nice.