Sinks and Spiders and Inspiration

I had to do a lot of pacing today, and play a not inconsiderable number of games of Mahjong Titans in a bid to jolt the creative process into action. And all this to aid the completion of Nearly King Jimbo Mark Two. Ye Gods, it was like giving birth all over again. Until now, I'd been fair whizzing through the draft but as the end appeared on the horizon, the writing process slowed until today I had to crawl through to the end on my hands and knees.

But I did it! And now the script is in the hands of my illustrator, Andy the Pen, to continue creating his lovely little cartoon illustrations for our joint project to be ready in time for Christmas.

And whilst I was writing and pacing, Andy was being Andy the Plumber because our kitchen sink had developed a bit of a leak. Nothing major, but enough to warrant something being done about it. As Andy pointed out, he isn't a plumber. So the leak was approached with some trepidation. There was a lot of staring at the underneath of the sink with a torch whilst water was poured down the plug hole and more staring was done as water dribbled through the u-bend where it shouldn't.

And then there was the cleaning out of the pipe work, which honked considerably and caused a minor amount of retching. Then there was a considerable amount of interwebbly search on 'How To Be A Plumber In Three Easy Stages,' and then a visit to the DIY emporium to purchase stuff like putty and glue and a plug system doo-dah and other manly bumpf which is way too technical for a girly like me to understand.

Once the whole process got under way, there was no stopping Andy the Plumber. I hid in my writing room maintaining a discreet distance. At one point the effort of my labour was eclipsed by the labour of Andy the Plumber; at least, he was doing more swearing. And then the cats decided to get involved in the general chaos by going on a spider hunt. It was a big spider, one that had been living undetected 'neath the sink for ages, I expect. Pandora limited her efforts in the spider hunt to the occasional pat in order to send the spider scuttling around the kitchen. Tybalt was far more energetic. He likes a good spider hunt and throws himself into them with great gusto, plumbing chaos or not.

In our various endeavours, I created a new character called Mrs Peddlestool-Smythe, Andy the Plumber created a whole new way to waterproof a sink, and Tybalt and Pandora created a whole new way of putting the wind up me by sending the spider off in the most unexpected directions.

But all was well in the end. I made veggie spag bol whilst dancing around the kitchen to Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames, and Jools Holland. We all agreed it was getting chilly in the evenings now. I gave a cursory glance to the three Christmas catalogues that arrived, uninvited, in the post today, then consigned them to the recycle bin. The cats lay, spide-hunt exhausted on the pouffe.

And the sink is now leak-free.

I'm not sure about the spider...