Doing 'Stuff'

Posted by Colin Harvey Jun 5, 2009

After the celebrations of our 21st Anniversary yesterday, when we cruised up-river to Bathampton where we had lunch, trawled around Bath, and then came home to dinner at the Old Manor House, today has been a return to normality.

Actually, although I caught up on yesterday's writing back-log, what shocked me today was long I spent doing paperwork.

At least 90 minutes today were spent digging out the last bits of paperwork (share purchase and sale certificates and tax vouchers) so that my Accountants could do the tax return. That one was self-inflicted, but I had already spent close to an entire day breaking the back of it.

Another hour was spent switching Direct Debits from my 'old' bank account at Nationwide to Lloyds. In theory, it could be done on-line, but as I discovered, it isn't possible with Orange's website, nor is it with Scottish Power's website unless I give up paper bills, which the taxman is unhappy about. So with the hideously slow responses, following prompts down to dead-ends and then calling two out of three service providers, that was another 60-odd minutes down the pan.

Then there was the 45 minutes flapping around the Amazon Author's Page finding out that although they've set it up, it isn't connected to my books, and indeed I seem to have a 'ghost' authors page. Ah well, I guess that they'll sort it out in a week or four.

On the plus side, I got some crucial things done today, and of course these things have to be done, but I'm not sure why they seem to need to take so long. Slow responses from web pages, blind alleys and mutiple choice phone indices on one side, plus a need to deforest the amazon to satisfy authority on the other. They all add up to 3.25 hours spent doing things that have to be done, but which isn't writing.

Tomorrow I will write more. I will. I will.