I’m writing this in the Parador on El Hierro. Yes, I sneaked off for a weekend visit to my friend, quick, before she moves to a much smaller house with no room for guests.
It was a squash fitting it in. Last week I was translating for the tourist board, doing the paperwork to get paid for the translation, buying Christmas presents, tour guiding at the observatory and writing blogs. Organising this trip got pushed back to Friday, and I flew out first thing on Saturday. Not ideal. Even worse, I couldn’t find Tiddles, my laptop. I turned the house upside down, of course, and found several interesting things in the process, but no laptop.
One of the things I love about visiting El Hierro is that I get so much writing done. I think it’s mostly the psychological effect of getting away from my responsibilities. But no Tiddles would make that difficult, and of course it would mean no email.
It wasn’t until I was driving home at half past eight on Friday night that I made some comment to my son about the most recent astrotourism meeting, and the little light bulb lit up. I’d taken Tiddles to that meeting. She’d probably still be in the same shopping bag. And since that bag wasn’t in the living room, I’d probably put it into the guest room. Somewhere under the big heap on the guest bed, probably.
It was quite a relief to find her. And yes, I’m being productive again. I wrote 400 words of my ebook about the observatory during my half-hour stopover in Tenerife, more last night, 400 words before breakfast this morning, and more since. In short, I’ve done far more in the last 36 hours than in the previous three weeks. If I finish the current section, I think I’ll award myself a bit of fiction writing this evening.
In between the usual chatting to my friend and enjoying the glorious scenery one last time, of course.
Aaaargh! I’d be frantic if I lost my laptop – it’s my only computer and I can’t read my own writing so no laptop = no writing. I’m not going to let that happen.