Category: Blog

The jungle drums did their thing today when my children’s school took the decision to close early, due to adverse weather conditions. Parents rang parents and somehow we all found out what was happening.

The school bus wouldn’t brave it, so I drove to school to collect them. The roads were fine, if a little slushy in places, and the snowfall stopped just as I arrived at school. A lot of other parents seemed as bemused as me that the school had closed when, in fact, it was generally just rather wet – a weather condition we’re very used to in Devon these days.

As I am working from home, the closure didn’t cause me any major problems, aside from trying to encourage the children to do something other than play on electronic gadgets (I failed, one’s on a tablet and the other is on a Wii, although cakes were made in the course of the afternoon, so that’s a positive as far as I’m concerned).

I do feel for those parents who have office jobs, who had to call in favours, organise lifts or leave work early. Luckily everyone seems willing to help – I have an extra two children in my house at the moment, and offered to bring others home if necessary.

In the meantime, the snow has given me some great material to work with, as one of my social media clients is a luxury hotel that looks even more enticing with a dusting of snow. The hotel’s Marketing Assistant ran outside to take some photos, I posted an album on Facebook and it’s getting great responses. It’s great when it works like that.

I don’t know if other freelance writers have the same work standards as me, although I expect many do. I imagine most of us make sure that we do the very best for clients. After all, we are only as good as our last piece of work (here’s one of mine – 'Taking Control' Installer Magazine).

I try hard to give the best possible service, often over and above what I could probably get away with. I would not be happy with a second rate feature article, for example. If I have to use the same information in a variety of trade magazines I work to ensure that each feature has an original thrust to it, so the editors don’t feel short-changed by duplicate articles in rival mags.

I also make sure that every ‘voice’ I use is unique. This is particularly relevant when working in social media – I have three fairly different social media accounts I work on for one of my clients and I love stepping into character when I switch between the accounts – from ‘Lord of the Manor’ to holiday-junkie, and soon to be Survival Skills expert (watch this space)!

One of my key assets is the speed at which I work. I can’t help myself… I believe I owe it to a client to get work done as quickly as possible – but, of course, also accurately.

It still gives me a kick to see what I’ve written in print – my name is never seen, but I know it’s my work, and that’s enough. Having said that, bless Farming Editor Peter Hall at the Western Morning News for publishing an article I wrote about the Embryo Vets School with my name attached. A journo for a day!

When I first started writing about the renewables sector I was faced with a raft of new technology and whole new group of acronyms – GSHP, CoP, FiT, RHI, DECC, PV – what did it all mean? I attended a number of training courses to help me learn more, and if I’d taken the practical instead of just joining in the theory then who know, maybe today I would be plumbing in an air source heat pump rather than writing about it. Though to be honest, that’s an extremely unlikely scenario.
I write for numerous trade magazines, about individual technologies, integrated systems and case studies, and supplying comment from time to time. I love writing for the heating and plumbing guys – the editors are really friendly and you never feel you’re having to beg to have an article included. The local press are also interested and I’ve contributed to the Big Green Guide published by the Western Morning News on a number of occasions.
I find the whole energy sector fascinating. Finding out about how locked in we are to oil and gas was a real eye-opener for me. I live in a rural area with no mains gas. We inherited a large LPG tank which was supplying a three bar gas radiator and nothing else, and which now supplies our cooker and a gas heater. We put in central heating that runs on oil. Now our property is completely at the mercy of oil and LPG gas prices which have shot up so much in the last few years that it makes me breathless!
The main issue with renewables for space heating as I see it is their relevance to the vast numbers of leaky old properties – like mine – that will never be able to be insulated to a level where a lower flow temperature will suffice unless we can afford to ‘rip it out and start again’, in essence. Solar PV and solar thermal are possible additions, but when you’re in a listed building….
It’s also interesting to watch the Government huffing and puffing, promising this, promising that and never quite hitting the mark. The solar PV debacle was an example of lack of forethought and also an incredible inability to make a judgement call. For space heating we’re all waiting for the Renewable Heat Incentive (domestic version as the commercial one has already started, albeit with a trickle rather than a stream of approved installations), and this has been put off so many times now that some of us have lost the will to live – well, almost.
Sometimes the subjects I write about are not things that have any relevance to or impact on my life. I loved writing a series of scripts for Leeds Uni on Maths in Computing, but to be frank, I’m not sure that I will ever be able to use the information for anything practical unless I decide to build a robot. But energy has a lot of relevance and I genuinely do enjoy seeing what’s going on – all too many of us don’t have a clue!

At the moment we’re experiencing a bit of a heatwave and I’ve lost count of the number of clients who have said “It must be nice being at home in the sun.”
Unfortunately I’m sitting inside at my desk gazing from time to time out of a fairly grimy window into my garden where I spy sunshine and greenery and Bob the dog spark out on the driveway – probably snoring, knowing Bob.
I do have friends who are able to sit on a deckchair balancing a laptop on their knees with a glass of Pimms in their left hand, typing a fantastic press release about borage production in the West Country with their right hand, unless they’re left-handed, of course.
If I take my laptop outside in the sun I am unable to see the screen clearly, even with sunglasses on. And then there are the noisy birds. Blimey they’re noisy in Devon. I followed a loud chirrup yesterday only to find it was being made by the tiniest wren in my garden.
I’m afraid, for me, the best method is to work inside where at least it’s cool and relatively quiet, unless Perseus the cat decides he’s hungry. His meow is louder than the wren’s chirrup, and about 100 times more irritating.
As I type, an online training course on plasterboard has arrived. This is proof positive that the life of a freelance writer is all glamour, surely?
It may just be time to move away from the laptop and take a cuppa outside for a five minute break.