Taking a short break from writing

I have had an enforced break from writing over the last two weeks. I sometimes do some relief driving for a friend who runs a courier business in our city. Whenever he needs a short holiday or he needs to attend a meeting (as a member of the local council) he asks me to fill in for him. This work has several benefits for me, including:

• plenty of extra exercise – it’s demanding physically
• it gives me plenty of fresh air
• it forces me away from the computer to rest the eyes
• it gives a modest amount of extra income.

Injury

Two weeks ago my friend rang me early one morning to say he’d injured his back and could hardly walk, let alone lift parcels. Within twenty minutes I was ready to take over for the rest of the day. I ended up doing the rest of that week and all of the next week. He is now on the road to recovery, taking each day carefully. He is so pleased that does not need a repeat of an operation he had twenty years ago. So am I – I’m not sure I could have coped with running his business for 2-3 months while he recovered.

Emergency articles on my blog

I didn’t have much of a gap in the posts that appeared on this blog during my enforced absence from the computer. This was because I usually work ahead with my articles, setting them to appear one a day over the coming week or weeks. On occasions I have worked up to four weeks ahead, especially when I know I will be busy on other matters or away from home for a period.