Things Are Looking up

I just reread my last post and noted a couple of typos that have now been put right. Normally I pride myself on my proofreading skills, so I really hope that's just a blip that doesn't carry over to my professional work, I've finished my article drafts and the first one has been proofed and delivered. Two more go tomorrow and I'll take extra care with the proofing. The last batch goes later in the week.

Healthwise, the week has been just as bad, if not worse than the last one, at least until Friday. Following a night of pain, diarrhoea and sickness, that morning I called the Macmillan nurse and was given a reprieve from the meds for three days. Later I was persuaded to go out, take Rafi for grooming, walk Jade on the beach at Branksome and find a dog friendly pub where I could watch my daughter eat her lunch and even share a bit of it.

We found an excellent inn for that. Called The Plantation, it was decked out in old colonial style with a lovely conservatory restaurant and bar areas where we could take our dog while we ate and drank. They even brought her out her own drink of water in a special dog bowl. The service was superb, making us feel really special. I'd never noticed the place before, but someone said it used to be a residential home so I guess it's new. Sitting in the car on the way home I realised I felt better than I had for weeks.

It has been good ever since, with nights for just sleeping. I went out twice yesterday, dog walking in the morning and to my granddaughter's football presentation in the afternoon. That was in a sports club we'd never been to before, very civilised with a bar and a covered area we could sit. Outside was a children's play area plus various pitches and sports grounds. It is obviously popular with families in the local area as there were plenty of people there who were not associated with Poole youth football teams.

The girls had a great time and all received their awards for playing for a whole season, with one or two singled out for special praise.

A little drama took place here over the weekend, when the editor at Constant Content found a web link in my submitted article. This is not allowed, so I received their standard email saying they could not accept my piece for that reason. But I was puzzled, as I know the rules and definitely hadn’t put in any links.

Had they made a mistake? I posted my question in the forum and got an almost immediate reply saying no mistake, I should check it again. By moving my cursor over every word I eventually found it and worked out what had happened.

Later I found another message suggesting it might help me find it if I highlighted the whole document. That Ed over there is amazing. I’d have thought it above and beyond his duty to work in the forums to try and help authors even on a Sunday.

Just in case you are dying to know how that link got in there, I will now explain. When I do my online research, I often cut and paste info I think will be helpful into my research Word document, adding the url of the page I found it on. When I write my own article, I paste in foreign names from there, to make sure I get them right.

That’s all it was. One of those darn names had a hyperlink on it. Yet another thing to check when proofing in future.

Anyway, I was able to delete the link, but it took a while before I could resubmit. Kaspersky suddenly screamed at me that someone was trying to insert a virus into my system. I gave it the usual instructions to block it, but it obviously wasn’t quick enough. I was working in Firefox but suddenly up popped IE, then again, and again, and again.

I turned off my broadband and turned on my SuperAntiSpyware, yet again. Forty minutes later it had dealt with about 93 suspicious files, including about nine Trojans. No further problems.

So I was able to resubmit my article last night and at 6 am today I found it had been accepted and was able to offer it to the customer. Finger crossed, it will be accepted.