Hiatus in creative activity

Big Sigh...

The days of me relying on my employer to keep me busy were cut short at the end of last year.  This doesn't mean I'm not busy.  When I saw it coming I got on the phone and rang a bunch of people I knew might have something for me to do and announced that I was worried.  Not one of them had anything for me. 

Shortly after that the phone started ringing... people I have painted or plastered for before (none of whom had any connection with the people I had called) or people who had got my name from someone else started calling.

"Would you have time to do a skimcoat for me?", "We're doing up another room, are you at all free", "that job I was hoping you would be able to do, can you do it on the twentieth?"

Obviously I do a good job. 

Now I have two houses to paint, a gibstopping job (which I might get to paint too) and a couple of tiny things to get through.  Work till the end of March at least...  The problem is the headaches, trying to work out if I can do all of this in time suitable to the people who want it done, organising in advance, talking people through their choice of colours.  Don't get me wrong, I like making people's houses look nice, but when the work floods in and you get a bottle-neck (three-jobs-that-should-take-a-fortnight-each-to-be-done-preferably-by-the-end-of-the-month) my heart rate increases semipermanently by twenty percent, my head aches, and I find I can't relax at all unless I'm up a ladder with a bush or a trowel in my hand.  Can't but very nice to live with huh? That's why I quite liked having an employer.

so... the prospects of my producing a poem each Sunday, or getting my hand near a piano look dim for the near future - at least until I can calm myself down.

Maybe I should announce to the world at large that I want a nice, quiet, desk job... perhaps the phone will start ringing a different tune if I do...