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| 30th July 2010 |
| Another long week of job searching. I dropped into a place on Monday to see about training. I thought if I can open up options by getting my SIA badge for security work. Well it can’t hurt can it? They took my name, address and phone number then dismissed me like a child, or at least that is how it felt. I still haven’t heard back from them though. How long it will I have no idea, let’s hope not too long.
My little lemon tree continues to fight for life. Almost all the mature leaves h [>>>] |
| Posted by BillyYoung 18:55:40 30.07.2010; Comments: 0 Add Comment |
| 23rd August 2010 |
| As I signed on this week I got pulled for an unexpected interview with the same lady that wanted to sanction me. I pulled my mobile phone and set it to record the interview to protect myself if she decided to be nasty again. At first she try to say that I couldn’t record the interview, but I refused to stop recording. She left me to sit for a bit then returned with a manager to take notes. After this I was allowed to record the interview and everything went very smoothly, none of the nastines [>>>] |
| Posted by BillyYoung 18:54:44 23.07.2010; Comments: 0 Add Comment |
| 16th July 2010 |
| My little lemon tree continues to struggle. Even after repotting it seems to be stressed, and losing leaves. It’s stressed, I’m stressed try to figure out how to save it. Researching on the net has just thrown up the same advice of letting the soil dry out before giving it a good soaking. All of this I am doing, yet no sign that it is recovering, and the soil is still damp from watering earlier in the week. What to do? Hopefully it will recover, only time will tell. How long I have little id [>>>] |
| Posted by BillyYoung 19:01:16 16.07.2010; Comments: 0 Add Comment |
| 9th July 2010 |
| Got a letter of reply from the Jobcentre two days ago. I still have to write a reply to it as though they touch on my complaint they didn’t seem to read it very well and tried to fob me off. I’m not sure though if continuing with it would be worth the effort, yet at the same time if they think they can get away with treating people like something they would avoid stepping in, you know what I mean. At they same time will it cause my family problems, after all they could get antsy with me and [>>>] |
| Posted by BillyYoung 18:13:38 09.07.2010; Comments: 0 Add Comment |
| 2nd July 2010 |
| I have had a summer cold this week sapping my energy. Nothing worse. It hasn’t stopped me from the daily job hunt with little in the way of success. I expect that when I head to the jobcentre on Monday to get more than the normal hassle after handing in my complaint, not much I can do though. And things look like they are going to get even tougher for those of us struggling to find work with the government announcing more measures to punish those who are deemed not to be doing enough to look f [>>>] |
| Posted by BillyYoung 19:00:21 02.07.2010; Comments: 0 Add Comment |
| 25th June 2010 |
| It has been one of those weeks, you know the kind I mean. It started out bad on Monday. I had a Back To Work interview at the jobcentre. Well I had the interviewer from the dark side. It began by her telling me that I wasn’t telling the truth, after I explained what I had been doing to look for work. I don’t keep one of those diaries they want you to keep, I see it as an invasion of my privacy and breach of my human rights, after all they only advise you to keep one; you don’t have too. [>>>] |
| Posted by BillyYoung 18:26:45 25.06.2010; Comments: 0 Add Comment |
| 18th June 2010 |
| Where has the week gone? Having little to do would make you think that time would drag but it rarely does. Is that just a sign of me getting older? I don’t think so. I think it is more to do with the brain being half asleep because of the lack of activity. The job front hasn’t changed, still nothing seems to be moving. The news was talking of the increase in the numbers of jobless, which reminds me I have another one of those back to work interviews at the Jobcentre on Monday. Why they bothe [>>>] |
| Posted by BillyYoung 18:04:40 18.06.2010; Comments: 0 Add Comment |
| 11th June 2010 |
| As the world cup starts I’ve been playing my own games this week. More precisely Civ 4 and indulging my megalomaniac side. Other than a couple of poems I haven’t written anything or start the great edit of my new story. I will have to get down to it soon but there is no harm having a break before starting.
Was at the garden centre today. The wife wants some plants for the front garden. I’m not really a flower person though I must admit that they do look good. We got Bizzy Lizzies and [>>>] |
| Posted by BillyYoung 18:21:07 11.06.2010; Comments: 0 Add Comment |
| 4th June 2010 |
| It has been a really nice week. The sun has been shining and I finished the first draft of my next book. Well it will be if I can get the money to publish it but before that I have a lot of editing, proof reading and all the usual to get through. Mind there is no rush as it will be some time before I can go forward with publishing. That’s all down to have no job for so long. The big cloud in an otherwise good time. Adding to it all is the jobcentre because I have been unemployed for six months [>>>] |
| Posted by BillyYoung 16:58:15 04.06.2010; Comments: 0 Add Comment |
| 28th May 2010 |
| This week has slid past so quickly, far faster than I would have liked. Though I have worked on my book all week I still haven’t finished. As you can imagine I’m feeling a little let down that I haven’t got the first draft out of the way. It’s my own fault as I have been reworking that poem from last week. I posted it on AW forum and received some good feedback that helped me to develop it, I put the most recent edition on my GoodReads “Billy’s writing” so you ca have a look if you [>>>] |
| Posted by BillyYoung 17:36:01 28.05.2010; Comments: 0 Add Comment |
| 21st May 2010 |
| Summer has seemingly arrived and winter can now be forgotten. The past few days have seen some great sunshine and with it the grass is growing like wildfire. Though my plants seem to be taking longer to shoot up, still they are doing not too badly. My potatoes have finally started to break through, which brought my wife a smile knowing that in the autumn that she’ll have some home grown taties for the pot.
I’m making great progress now with Banshee 2. I can see the end within the next w [>>>] |
| Posted by BillyYoung 18:46:56 21.05.2010; Comments: 0 Add Comment |
| 14th May 2010 |
| Well there we have it, the Tories and Liberals have formed the new government. Did you see the joint speech that that both leaders gave on Wednesday. Not something I ever expected to see in my life but life is filled with surprises. I only hope that they can do a good job together and not hammer those of us that are stuck at the bottom of the social system. Being Scottish I fear the return to the days of Thatcher when we saw Scotland suffering to save jobs in England. I know it wasn’t only Sco [>>>] |
| Posted by BillyYoung 18:08:15 14.05.2010; Comments: 0 Add Comment |
| 7th May 2010 |
| Did you vote yesterday? I did yet I wonder was it worth it. With a hung parliament well hope that it will bring about change, though it is hard to see how it will. Labour and the Tories are now getting support from Nick Clegg in the hope of getting the overall majority. He of course will make the best deal for his party and so forget many of the promises made to the voters. Sound to me that little has changed and that we will all end up on the losing side.
Another week of fruitless searchin [>>>] |
| Posted by BillyYoung 19:16:33 07.05.2010; Comments: 0 Add Comment |
| 30th April 2010 |
| Editing has continued all week though it has been slow at times. I am making headway, adding in the things that I need to get the story moving again. I still have another seven chapters to work through before I catch up to where I left to rework what I had. When I say rework I really mean is that I added in things to the story, bring some characters in earlier, that sort of thing and at the same time feeding the main plot. Even chapters that I thought I was happy with have seen the hand of the e [>>>] |
| Posted by BillyYoung 19:18:25 30.04.2010; Comments: 0 Add Comment |
| 23rd April 2010 |
| Work on Banshee has stalled in its forward push to finish it. So to find the track I had a restless night trying to find sleep earlier in the week. I was tracing backwards from the end that I envision and attempting to connect it to what I already have. As I lay awake I could see that I needed to edit what I have already written and so for the past few evenings I have been doing just that, adding more to the tale. Building up the storyline as well as building the characters more. I also hope tha [>>>] |
| Posted by BillyYoung 18:44:53 23.04.2010; Comments: 0 Add Comment |
| 16th April 2010 |
Planted more seeds this week out in tubs. The seedlings I started aren’t doing well in doors so I decided just to plant more veggies but outside and see how they do there. The weather has been good, plenty of sun and with it has been almost like summer, even though the nights are a lot cooler. I just hope the warm spell last to give the seeds a chance. While I wait to see how they come along my fruit trees I planted last month have really began to make headway, showing real promise. Of co [>>>] |
| Posted by BillyYoung 19:22:15 16.04.2010; Comments: 0 Add Comment |
| 10th April 2010 |
| A day late in posting my blog and the only reason I have is that I simply forgot. I was so into Banshee 2 and a conversation between Susie, a reporter and a neighbour of one of the banshee’s latest victims that everything else seemed to slide to the side in my head. I am now ready to go onto the next chapter tonight and as usual need to think over where I’m taking the main character and when will I bring them together to face the evil that resides in the cottage in the woods. Should Munroe h [>>>] |
| Posted by BillyYoung 17:46:57 10.04.2010; Comments: 0 Add Comment |
| 2nd April 2010 |
| Winter returned to Scotland this week with a vengeance. Luckily it didn’t last and the snow melted away quickly. But the frost has been nasty for us gardeners. I’m glad I have my seedlings indoors away from the cold. I don’t have a large garden so I use tubs to grow some onions, carrots, parsnips and few other vegs as well as some herbs. Unfortunately the herbs haven’t done very well the past few years. My parsley did quite well last year and has started coming back this year. It’s in [>>>] |
| Posted by BillyYoung 19:13:14 02.04.2010; Comments: 0 Add Comment |
| 26th March 2010 |
| I see there is more trouble for our political leaders in Westminster. Three former cabinet members getting three grand a day for pushing through legislation that benefits rich mega corporations. Of course the opposition is claiming that it would never happen under them. Only thing is that it did happen under them as I remember. Back in the eighties and nineties there was the arms dealer scandal, when Conservative cabinet members were involved in taking cash for contracts to furnish weapons to th [>>>] |
| Posted by BillyYoung 18:15:50 26.03.2010; Comments: 0 Add Comment |
| 19th March 2010 |
| I forgot to mention the great review that I got from LLBookReview.com for Bublos. I meant to mention it in my last past but it slipped my mind when writing it. It is always a good feeling when someone seems to have enjoyed what you have written. I remember the first review I got for Teddy the Bear, it wasn’t very good to say the least, which was a real knock. Though without the bad ones how would we appreciate the good ones?
Banshee 2 is coming along nicely. I’m moving onto chapter 11 a [>>>] |
| Posted by BillyYoung 20:00:06 19.03.2010; Comments: 0 Add Comment |
| 12 th March 2010 |
| Another week of struggling to get my computer back up and running. Most of that was waiting on the postman delivering the parts. As it turned out my PSU was part of the problem, delivering only power on one of the power looms. My mother board had also blown, which I was able to prove once I had a new PSU. The processor was fine though now I have a more modern one. I finally got my system up and running yesterday and was never so glad, even if it did mean the dreaded reinstall of Windows. Now I c [>>>] |
| Posted by BillyYoung 19:00:09 12.03.2010; Comments: 0 Add Comment |
| 5th March 2010 |
| A nightmare of a week, my computer suddenly stopped working, and I have no idea what is wrong. My guess is that the processor is fried. I know the PSU is working fine as the light on the back is coming on, also it isn’t that old. So that leaves the processor, or the motherboard. I’ve been forced to put a new one on the never, never, what a pain. Now I have to wait for it to arrive, which has left me unable to get at my files. As I said a real pain. I’m using my wife’s laptop to do my blo [>>>] |
| Posted by BillyYoung 16:25:31 05.03.2010; Comments: 0 Add Comment |
| 26th February 2010 |
| It has been a busy week, one of those unexpectedly busy ones. You know where everything just seems to in a hundred different ways at once. I knew it would be kind of full as my daughter turn thirteen this week, I had to sign on and I had my interview, which I think went well. But then other thing fell out of the blue to add everything that was planned. By the time thing began to settle down I felt like my head was on backwards.
It doesn’t help that I changed ISPs this week. This has entai [>>>] |
| Posted by BillyYoung 18:24:22 26.02.2010; Comments: 2 Add Comment |
| 19th February 2010 |
| finished reading The Stand by Steven King last night. A great read. I found myself doing something I haven’t done in a long time, sitting in bed reading until in the morning to finish it. Have you ever found yourself doing the? I think it’s the sign of a really good book. A gripping read as some would call it. I know it is a bit old now and does at times show its age. Yet I have read many books older, such as The Day of the Triffids, which are older with great joy whilst losing myself within [>>>] |
| Posted by BillyYoung 19:14:06 19.02.2010; Comments: 2 Add Comment |
| 12th February 2010 |
| Another fruitless week of job hunting. I haven’t seen the jobcentre this bad though it does remind of how the boards used to look back in the mid eighties. And the news is that we are supposed to be out of the recession. I wish it would show in the number of jobs available. Mind I did get a phone call at the start of the week asking me to an interview on the 23rd of this month. It’s for a new store that is opening up soon in the town. As you can guess I’m keeping my fingers crossed for tha [>>>] |
| Posted by BillyYoung 18:33:49 12.02.2010; Comments: 0 Add Comment |
| 5th February 2010 |
| You may have noticed that last week I put the wrong date for the title. Why? Well I don’t have a reason, just somewhere in the week I must have lost a couple of days. How did I not change it? Simply because I believe if you make a mistake you have to live with it. It isn’t like it’s a real big issue that would bring the world down. It does show one of the consequences of unemployment, losing track of time. Another thing which is strange is that you feel tired even though you struggle to fi [>>>] |
| Posted by BillyYoung 17:53:23 05.02.2010; Comments: 0 Add Comment |
| 27th January 2010 |
| It’s almost the end of my January sale on my E-books. There is still time to use the codes if you want one of my books. Just check one of my previous posts for them.
I’m going onto the fourth chapter on Banshee 2. I may change the plot a little just to add more action but that’s only a thought, which is still half formed. So I’ll need to think about it. Should I kill of one of the characters sooner? Will it help the storyline? Maybe. As I said I’ll need to think it over some more. [>>>] |
| Posted by BillyYoung 19:02:51 29.01.2010; Comments: 0 Add Comment |
| 22nd January 2010 |
| Another slow week, yet when I look back it seems to have only just been a couple of days. It’s funny how time just flies past as you get older but I can remember when I was younger how time always appeared to drag. Now I wonder where it vanishes to. I suppose that’s what we get for all those times when we were kids and wished it would hurry up and be that special day we all waited for, Christmas, birthdays, holidays or whatever. Now you want it to slow down so you have more time to do all th [>>>] |
| Posted by BillyYoung 19:35:15 22.01.2010; Comments: 0 Add Comment |
| 15th January 2010 |
| I've been writing this week again, working on Banshee 2. It has been slow but I am getting there. There will be the usual work once the first draft is done, as you would expect and then more rewrites to improve it.
There’s still plenty of ice around yet, which is making it difficult when going to the shops. You would have thought our spell of rain that we got would have cleared it all but no. More rain is on the way off of the Atlantic, meaning it will be a bit warmer so it shouldn [>>>] |
| Posted by BillyYoung 19:30:37 15.01.2010; Comments: 0 Add Comment |
| 8th January 2010 |
| Hasn’t it been a cold beginning to the new decade and they’re saying it’s to last for a bit yet. It makes you glad for central heating yet still there’s a chill in the air that doesn’t seem to be shifted by the radiators. I think it has to be something to do with the concrete floor of our house. The carpet just isn’t enough in this extreme cold snap to insulate our feet against the cold. And you know what you feel like when your feet are icy. Makes you glad though to not be in a cold [>>>] |
| Posted by BillyYoung 18:48:50 08.01.2010; Comments: 0 Add Comment |
| 1st January 2010 |
| Happy New Year, I hope that it has started well for you all and that the coming year bring you great happiness. Mine started quietly with just me and the family staying up for the bells. Boring I know but as the saying goes, family is everything. As the old year came to the end we all look back on how the year has been. Or at least that is how we writers would like to think of it but really few of us do. There are times in our lives when we do yet for the most part we look forward with a hope th [>>>] |
| Posted by BillyYoung 18:04:19 01.01.2010; Comments: 0 Add Comment |
| 25th December 2009 |
| Merry Christmas everyone, I hope you all are having a great day. I’m glad to say I’m the grateful owner of a new pair of slippers, which I really did need. The old ones were starting to talk to me and were really keeping my feet very warm in this cold snap we all find ourselves in. My daughter has done the usual made noise all day but my son has disappeared upstairs with his new games machine (Xbox 360), when I say new it was second hand yet I don’t think he really cares as it was what he [>>>] |
| Posted by BillyYoung 17:18:01 25.12.2009; Comments: 0 Add Comment |
| 18th December 2009 |
| One week to Christmas and as always there’s the last minute gift to get or the card that you forgot to send. My wife got the present when she was at the doctors today but the card came this afternoon so we’ll need to send it tomorrow. Strange how the post has gotten later over the years, isn’t it. It’s worse, of course, at this time of year though. It’s easy to say that everything is down to the posties not pulling out their finger enough but isn’t it? Yet we don’t really know what [>>>] |
| Posted by BillyYoung 18:14:39 18.12.2009; Comments: 0 Add Comment |
| 11th December 2009 |
| The hunt for a job has come to a standstill as Christmas approaches. Not really a surprise as the job market is very quiet at this time year and it won’t improve until after the New Year. In fact it will be the end of January before I’m likely to see it pick up again. Of course I still have to continue the search even though I know there isn’t much of a chance of finding anything.
I have now made my books available in E-book format through Smashwords.com. I have thought about it for a [>>>] |
| Posted by BillyYoung 19:03:28 11.12.2009; Comments: 0 Add Comment |
| 4th December 2009 |
| By mid-week I gave up trying to beat the block that has held me locked in an iron grip and decided to lose myself in Spellforce 2. It wasn’t my first choice as I checked out some other games but found they weren’t to my taste so quickly shelved them. Between each I sat staring again at the computer hoping the Muses would visit something on me. Nothing stirred in my mind so in the end I decided that Spellforce 2 with its mixture of strategy and roll playing would be a good way to let the ice [>>>] |
| Posted by BillyYoung 15:58:15 05.12.2009; Comments: 1 Add Comment |