Saturday 7 September 2013

Omens

Not sure if I should take this as an omen, but yesterday I planned on sending off a partial submission to an agency in London. Spent the morning preparing the cover letter, the synopsis and printing out the required pages, addressed the envelopes and noted the postcode matched my initials. Nice one, I thought. Maybe this time, all will go well.

Went next door to do some ironing before going to the post office. Managed to get several items done while defending the to-be-ironed-pile from Tim's repeated raids. After the sixth chase across the landing and halfway down the stairs, I yelled at him and he trotted mournfully away to lie down in a quiet corner. 'It won't be long,' I promised him. 'We'll go for your walk SOON.'

Went back to ironing, and five minutes  later became aware of ripping sounds.Walked to the door, looked into the adjacent bedroom and there was Tim, on the bed, which is forbidden, his jaws clamped around my newly done partial submission. Wah! I saw red. Shrieked at him, yanked it from his sharp white teeth and he shot off the bed like an Exocet missile. The outer envelope was ripped to shreds, but thankfully there was no damage to the other stuff barring a few faint teeth marks on the back page of the submission.

I flung the remains on the highest shelf in my study - the envelope had been on the four and a half foot high bookcase when he found it - and stormed downstairs and took him out for a walk. (I remembered to switch off the iron first, I assure you!) I walked him on the longest walk he's had so far, in the rain, by the river, and for the first few minutes I was so annoyed and so tired (a lethal combination) I almost cried. No one would have noticed tears in all that rain, but the further I walked the less tragic it all seemed. His tearing it to shreds wasn't really an omen. I could soon replace the outer envelope. In fact, when I took two out of the folder - one for the SAE - a third fell out onto my desk. Looking back, it's almost as if the fates knew what was about to happen.

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