When plan B is better than plan A

39. Monday 2 March 2026

This might not look as inaccessible for a car as it was. It's also only the first third of the section of road that floods and it's flood water from the river rather than "just" the rain

Today didn’t go to plan, but it worked out well for my editing. Last night, I’d packed a bag of non-editing activities as I expected to be out all day from 07:00 in Galashiels and Peebles (car service, MOT and errands). I set off as planned, wondering if the road would be too flooded for me to drive through it, it having rained and been windy all night and ongoing. I got through the first floods, noticing that the river was exceptionally high and the water deeper than I’d ever been through it at that part of the road. I reached the main flood area and stopped the car. I was fairly sure my car would be too low to get through water that deep. I waited a short time and watched a four-wheel-drive truck come through. The driver stopped when I lowered my window and I asked if he thought my car would get through.  He gave an unequivocal no. I’d also sent a photo to a local friend, Tommy, to ask if he thought it’d be okay. He later replied no. I reversed back down the road for a few hundred metres, having decided that a multipoint turn to avoid the flooded roadside was the less preferable option. I wondered if my foiled trip were some kind of analogy for my editing progress. Perhaps not, but driving through some fairly deep waves of river and rain water put me in a melodramatic frame of mind.

By 07:45 I was at my desk, adventure over, and had started work. I’m now hoping it won’t be groundhog day a week today when I’m booked in for another MOT and service.

Over the weekend, my friend and writing buddy Narissa sent me Word comments, having read version 3 draft of my novel. I had no idea she was reading it then (I’d assumed she’d be reading it in a few weeks as I know she’s been busy). Her comments were far more useful and interesting than I could have imagined. She wrote about inconsistencies, highlighted certain comments as seeming to her to be clues, sections she found particularly amusing or interesting or misplaced. She also wrote a few expectations based on how she was reading certain sections. Feedback is always useful, but those real-time comments are invaluable.

We won’t get a chance to speak about what she’s read until Wednesday, but today I continued this latest edit (which is more of another read-through with minor corrections than the big edit I assumed it would be). I also made quite a few alterations based on Narissa’s observations. A positive work day, a not so positive car day.

In other news, I’m preparing another sourdough starter ahead of Kyla’s stay on Thursday … gah, did I really do nothing else?! I read a bit more of Busman’s Honeymoon by Dorothy L. Sayers, which I haven’t connected with as much as I hoped. I’ve done very little else. Other than being distracted by the news, which is hideous in and around the Middle East.