news in brief

It's pretty hard to get your head round sometimes, for the people I try to explain it to, but also for me.

I get to live in a bungalow with a lovely man. Lovely, very tall. Like an Ent. I have a pet snail, called Stan, who's currently on the roof of his tank, upside down and weeing. We have a big TV and lots of DVDS and I get to sit in the doorstep to smoke so I don't get rained on. Also we might get a dog. Brilliant.

I don't have a job, nor am I studying. There was a cock up with my finances and, oh, lots of things, so I'm going back in September. As for the job - I got bored of doing the work of three people for the pay of one and getting treated about as well as a half, so I left. Then I got ill. It all starts to sound like an opportunity for the world's smallest violin, I know, but it's not. Because of all the things I have, because of the house and the boy and the snail and, well, because I was given a tax rebate the size of Surrey just as I got ill so I don't have to go back to work until I'm ready.

So, once you get your head round it, it's actually pretty damn good. The only thing that I have yet to figure out is why, with all this spare time on my hands, I'm still not writing that novel I keep thinking about.