Bridget Jones rides again?

If Bridget Jones can do it, so should I. You will recall how she monitored her behaviour – i.e. 2 cigs. v. good. Three glasses wine. v.bad – or similar.

So in this new year, my efforts to achieve or not, as the case may be should be similarly monitored. The good news is (in terms of recent achievements) that I had the neighbours over on Saturday night – well some of them at least, for others were going to the village panto. Bad timing. Must do better next year. I cooked all Saturday –v. successful were mushroom vol-au-vents and to a lesser extent, asparagus ones (all the mushroom ones went first – but then M was scoffing them. My special pizza went down well too – it always does – cut up into small squares, it was a messy but convenient sized finger food. Also smoked salmon squares on wholemeal bread – I copied that from the other neighbour dos.

Earlier in the week, I read through, for the second time, my novella, A Bottle of Plonk. From my days working in the Education Department of The Institution of Mechanical Engineers (the most boring job I ever had, bar one) I remembered that when sending examination papers to the printers, we got them back first as galley proofs, then page proofs. Even now in this digital age, similar comings and goings are required. So I read through the equivalent of galley proofs, returned them to the editor, who forwarded me page proofs, which I read again, each time commenting on any small errors that had cropped up, and have now finally checked the final PDF versions. Hopefully, A Bottle of Plonk will be published on line by Virtual Tales (http://www.virtualtales.com/) in February.

With a bit of luck that will coincide with an article about my recent successes, to be featured in Writers’ News in the March edition. (That’ll be about a month’s time, mid-February.) I’ve included my e-publication, my short listing in the WN short story competition last month, my fourth place in the HE Bates competition and the broadcasting of my radio story. Not a bad few months.

With my secretarial hat on, I took dictation from M at the end of last week and have now caught up with most of our invoices. At least, they’re all in the computer, waiting to be printed out and copies filed, etc. That’s today’s job, after the ironing. So I’m having an industrious day.

The bad news is that I have over-stuffed myself with chocolates - given to us by friends and loved ones - and cakes – my own and bought ones, too, and I can’t shake off the pounds.

But I did an aerobics session this morning – my third this month and year. V. Good. Bridget would be proud of me.