While living and working in Edinburgh in 2008 I set out to write one million words in 366 days... but only managed 800,737.

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Worksheet #2

It is two days since we went to the Tattoo and our shoes are still drying…

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I just sent away a bio note for an online publication (not naming names, but it wouldn’t take much sleuthing once the new edition appears):

Craig Cliff was born in Palmerston North and currently lives in Edinburgh; since the beginning of the Scottish summer he has purchased three umbrellas.

I sent the submission on the 7th of April, 2007. For the non-mathematicians: that’s a fifteen and a half month wait for acceptance.

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Edinburgh #3

We clutter under the sun
but the mourning will continue—
some things never arrive.

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The lock on our front door has been temperamental this week. Some days it takes two minutes of jiggling to get the key right in. This morning I got home after another free reading at the Book Festival (Gee Williams read a story called ‘Hiatus’) to find my downstairs neighbour jiggling. We had a wee chat as he jiggled. The woman who lives above me arrived back with a newspaper and a coffee. The man kept jingling. He asked if I wanted to try. I did. We got in, eventually.

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What does the above have to do with the weather? Well, I figured out why the key goes in fine some days, and is a bugger the next: rain. That is, if it’s raining, no problems. If it’s dry, good luck getting in. I’ll leave it to the chemists among us to explain the hows and whys. But I think the lock is trying to tell us something: It’s not raining, so what the F- - - are you doing going inside!