KNOCKED KNEES

I notice that the Tour Guides agency are looking for people to do walking tours of several miles. Normally I would be interested - and I am sure they will be inundated by un(der)employed guides - but at the moment I feel I can hardly walk around the block. Tendons on my right knee became inflamed after I was doing quite a bit of driving earlier in the summer and I have not been walking properly since. It makes sleeping at night difficult at times and walking slow, so I will give these tours a miss, although I quite enjoyed the walks I did last winter in Brixton and for Walking Tour Weekend.
Maybe alcohol is the problem. I have always thought of myself as a steady drinker rather than a heavy boozer but I do enjoy a martini or manhattan occassionally and rarely leave a bottle of wine unfinished if it is opened - although I only open one to share, not for myself. I have just spent a coupleof hundred pounds on drinks, including a couple of cases of wine and hope the money is not wasted, but maybe I should cut it down or out altogether until the knee clears up. Watch this space...

WINTER WORK

I am ending up with more work in November after the clocks go back (tomorrow) than in October. Tourism down fifteen per cent this summer, probably more in the coach business which is more vulnerable to nervousness and fluctuations, mainly because of weak US dollar (worth less than Canadian for first time in ages, if ever) caused by Iraq war mainly.
People look for bargains in the winter and I have a Canadian group for theatre in a week from now followed by a winter tour pre-Christmas. Saw on the itnerary that we would be going to National Gallery on theatre tour so thought I could use some of my new research - but sadly it is only to meet guide for walking tour. One day..
No sign of London guiding work yet so will take intermediate two weeks off to go to Sussex and write the guide book, which will be quite similar to (but not a rip of off) new book on Britain A Miscellany of Britain by Tom O'Meara, good value in hardback at £7:99. In truth, there are plenty of books like this but hope mine will stand out. All I have to do is write it now.

THE GUIDE BOOK

This was the original title for the book that ended up as Walk This Way, my less than best-selling volume on guiding. It was fun writing the book and the result, apart from the misprints, was something I was proud of, although sales were limited (still available through Amazon but not bookshops).
I have decided to revive the title for my next project, a new version of The Souvenir Guide Book, which has sold reasonably steadily over the last few years and is just about the only piece of writing I have made some real money from. There seems to be a market for what I call 'bog books', ie books that can be left in the loo and browsed through when waiting for the plop of a number two - buffets rather than three course meals to use a metaphor from the other end of the process.
It is half term at the moment so Julia is here (watching telly, what a surprise). At least she is off the computer so I can enter this post, look at emails and start organising the rewrite. Actually will probably start next week. That post season lethargy creeping in, but I will be back in action soon. Honest. No really...

END OF SEASON LETHARGY

Why is it that you always feel more tired when you are not doing anything than when you are busy? I should be off the blocks at the end of the season sitting down to write the blockbuster I feel sure is in me, well a book that might make a few pennies, even pounds, but I am struck with lethargy. I am up in the mornings, at seven instead of six (well sevenish, seven is when the alarm goes, I make it our of bed by Thought for the Day at a quarter to eight). I am not spending time in the pub, never watch telly or read novels during the day and do not take afternoon naps. I have a weakness for Radio Four and matinees, when you can get a cheaper theatre or cinema ticket, and have no trouble filling up the day, but I am not actually doing anything constructive, apart from going to a few talks and tours at the National Gallery - I think that, as a London guide, I really should be able to do a tour of our major art gallery, although I am not likely to be offered one.

Tourism is fifteen per cent down from the USA, mainly because of the weak dollar, and there is little work around although I have got a winter tour at the end of November, so I am technically between jobs rather than unemployed (see last posting). It just takes me a while to get into winter mode when I sit at the computer for most of the day and do some proper writing rather than blog doodling. Half term is my excuse (daughter Julia arrives next week and I do not want to get too wrapped up in anything while she is around) as is the need to look after this old house after I have been away all summer. I have spent a few hours doing an autumn clean - I always think that the low sun at this time of year exposes a million faults. Housework can be curiously comforting when you have been living out of a suitcase for months on end.

Still I did summon up the energy to email some agents and got a coupleof expressions of interest. But it friday night now so that will have to wait until Monday. Talk about procrastination. Still, at least the house looks nice...

RESTING/ UNEMPLOYED?

PLEASE NOTE: new email address lerner70@btinternet.com Would be glad to hear from you.

The season is finally over a week or two before the clocks go back and, although the alarm went off at six as usual this morning (so I could take my brother to Waterloo for his train and before the congestion charge kicks in) unemployment beckons. If there is just one booking in the diary then you can truthfully say you are 'between engagements' (commercial not romantic) or, as the acting profession, has it ' resting', although this does imply a degree of desperation.
You should not feel desperate with a season's taking in the bank but self-employment breeds a degree of financial anxiety that is unknown to those in the salaried world. The monthly payments to the bank, telephone, pensions and ex (biggest of all) keep coming and you do a little mental arithmetic to see if there is enough int he bank before the next job comes. You become anxious about ratings - will they be good enough to merit a couple of winter tours? - and about the deafening silence from the agency you work for. Did they hear about the fact that the signals failed on the Victoria line on the day of that one mid-season job they gave you and which you accepted it even though you didn't really want to do it,on the basis that you never turn down work in case they stop asking, so that, for the first time since qualifying in 1980, you were late for a job, which is a crime so unspeakably hideous that I hate to admit it even in a blog which hardly anyone but me reads? And despite the fact that I spent a good portion of the fee I got on a taxi to King's Cross which ended up being slower than the tube train I was stuck on..
A winter job does look look more worthwhile at times like this: getting up early to deliver Christmas cards (or sorting them at night), standing up all day in a suit and tie serving Chrsitmas shoppers or bragain hunters in the sales, even helping my old friend Owen in his van job.
Then I remember living in Devon and looking for a job in the close season and being told "You'll be lucky" when I mentioned that I would hope for a modest £100 a week for a winter job (admittedly fifteen years ago) when I could earn £100 a day from guiding. Then I thought that would be better not to panic and to stick with my profession and its admittedly uncertain rewards, while trying to write that book which I had always intended to. (Walk This Way is still available from Amazon by the way.)
Which reminds me, another book is waiting to be read. Which means self-motivation and discipline, all those things I thought I was good at...