The Meerkat Muse: 12th of March, 2025

Welcome back to the Meerkat Muse! We are now into the middle of March, but has spring begun to, um, spring?

Inclement Irritation

It certainly hadn’t managed to, two weeks ago today. It poured down, with a ferocity that took even this weather-worn greymuzzle by surprise. Rain is hardly unusual, even heavy rain, but this felt worse than usual. Fortunately, it stopped by the time I was due to go home from work, and blue skies appeared, but for how long?!

The Battle to Believe

When it comes to football, I have become utterly cynical. Successive ‘nearly’ seasons with Liverpool, and numerous, various forms of failure from the England men’s national side, have left me without much faith that the sides I care about will enjoy glory. It seems the more I dare hope, the more epic the failure, and the more it hurts. I am therefore remaining incredibly wary, even though Liverpool have opened up a 13-point lead at the top of the Premier League table. Some might suggest I am being far too pessimistic, but with 28 of 38 games played, and though Arsenal – our nearest challengers – having a game in hand but struggling to score goals of late, I still cannot shake the feeling that there might be a sting in the tale.

Ultimately this is a ridiculous thought process, but as I said, I’ve witnessed many false dawns. Nothing is over till it’s over.

Wild Nocturnal Rides

The other night I had not one, but two, rather surreal and crazy dreams. The first was directly inspired by scenes I am writing for the third and final part of the Chon’ith Saga. It involved planning for war, evacuating non-combatants, and loitering enemy ships, albeit these ships were more akin to modern, ocean-surfing warships, rather than the space-borne vessels of my story. I had barely come to terms with everything going on here, when I found myself in another dream, one which felt like an episode of Inside No 9. I was with a group of people who at an office/hotel, gathering for some sort of conference. In the course of this, it turned out we had all been involved in the beheading of a woman, whose spirit had returned to exact revenge.

In the second dream, there were some fraught sprints down stairwells, and some desperate pleas to live. It was very strange.

Under the Weather

I’ve been through a spell where I had a cold coming on, though due to preemptively drugging up, I managed to stave off the worst of it. I did however feel extremely tired, which was also partly down to a rather busy spell at work. In some ways, it’s good to be busy, and I have been trying to be more ‘on it’ at work, despite still carrying a sense of… well, weariness. Much of this is aimed at some of the elements of my employer that I cannot change, such as laborious store deliveries, and the feeling that we’re fighting bigger branches of our own company.

I managed to see off the malaise by sleeping, which seemed to do the trick. I needed to be alert, for the busy days at work continued, with designs and quotes flying all over the place. In many ways, this is good. This is what we need. It is however, a bit exhausting, not least of all when you find yourself alone in the showroom, tackling one thing after another.

Radio ‘Kats!

I’ve done a radio interview! It relates to The Awakening, and I am very proud of it! You can check it out here.

Stress!

I love my daughter, without reservation or hesitation, but there are times when she sorely tries the patience of her mother and father! She is doing a graphics course at school, and this involves lugging a big folder around with her coursework in it. Twice, she has left it laying around, at some shops near her school. Twice! Fortunately, it has twice been found and handed in somewhere safe, but if it were to go completely missing, it would be very bad. I don’t know what I need to do to impress upon her the importance of paying attention! I could also do without lengthy trips across town to retrieve the folder.

A Day of Indulgence

It was my wife’s birthday a few days ago, and among the various stuff we did, one theme was common across the day: food. We had a McDonald’s breakfast, my parents brought pizza with them for lunch, and in the evening, we had a Chinese takeaway. The net result of all this was to be left feeling extremely full, and very lethargic!

It was a good day, and a day that also yielded quite possibly the best ever picture of our cat, Castiel:

Busy Weekends

It was fair to say that the past weekend was very busy, at least by some of the previous standards. This is both a blessing and a curse, for on the one hand, it means the potential for money (I have a number of quotes on the boil, I just need some of them to boil over, so to speak), but on the other hand, it means being pulled in several directions at once, and facing the irritation of not being able to have lunch at a reasonable hour. Then there’s the further annoyance of uncontrolled spawn, running around the showroom, and I haven’t mentioned the frustration of last-minute visitors, who fail to understand that we are not paid to stay late.

This sense of annoyance continued into the Monday. I was lone-trading, and after a quiet morning, in which I was able to get things done, there came a steady stream of people, in and out of the door. Typically, these people overlapped, so I could not find even five minutes to make a drink, and of course, I could not serve two sets of customers at once! It infuriates me when the fates play such unwelcome games.

Book Broadcasts

The Awakening has featured on air, not once, but twice! You’ll have to dig for this one, but if you go to this link, and go to the Drive Time show on the 4th of March, you’ll find me being interviewed, at around the two-hour mark! You’ll also find a shout-out at Entropy Rising, via their podcast, which you can find here.

Other than all of that, I dare say it’s been a quieter Muse spell. As always, stay tuned for another Muse in two weeks! Until then…

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