Well, it got off to a wonderful start at 2.30 a.m this morning when the fire alarm started to intermittently squeak.  Not a shrill and continuous alarm, but a squeak followed by another in between two to four minutes. We both got up to check the house and I also felt the walls for hot spots, just in case, although there was no smell of smoke. It stopped for about ten minutes and then restarted and I got up at that point. I can’t sleep through that in the first place and in the second, it this was a real problem, I don’t want the only clothes on my back to be my pjs. Anyhow, looking up the problem on the web indicated that maybe there was a problem with a battery. Now my dh had said they were run off the mains, but it said there was always a battery back up in case of a power outage, which made sense. It also said that if they were low they would start squeaking in the middle of the night when the house was coldest. Again, made a lot of sense as the dh turns down the heating. I turned it up a few notches and there is now silence. Yay!

Too late to be able to sleep, though and I won’t be able to nap later as I am waiting for the delivery of Chalice of Shadows paperbacks. They are coming from Amazon, which unlike Ingram’s, does not consider it needs to pay customs duty so there will be a charge. The delivery person also has a problem actually relinquishing parcels, preferring to creep up to the front door with a ‘You were out’ hanger ready in his hand to whip over the door handle and run back to his van. No knock and no ring of the bell. I have watched him doing it a few times now. If he can manage to do this on three consecutive days, then I will have to go to the airport and pick them up for myself as the customs will still have to be paid. No, I have no idea what motivates anyone to behave like this and can only assume this is how he gets his jollies. Anyhow, no nap for me as I must listen out of the van, whether it comes or not.

Being sleep deprived, I can’t see that I will be writing today. Not with a brain of mush. However, I do have to edit Staff of Shadows, the next in the Shadow series that I finished before xmas. It needs a thorough going over before I turn it in to my publishers. This will take a few days as it comes in at around the 100k mark. Also in the pipeline is the production of Darkspire Reaches as an audio book and I see I have several new chapters that I need to listen to and approve. This latter will be out this year, which is exciting.

Now to tank up on coffee and hope today has finished with its nastiness.