Where's my spam?

Ever since Deborah started, my work down here has taken on a new routine. Instead of doing absolutely everything myself, I now spend most of my time thinking up things for her to do, then telling her to do them. The rest of the time I spend swearing at my email account for giving me spam while keeping back the good emails.

At least it was, until today. Today Deborah is off and I've got nobody to tell what to do. What is more, my email has gone topsy turvy and will now give me all the good emails, but not the spam.

This should not be a problem.

But out of old habit, I keep clicking on 'send and receive', scanning the progress box jealously for spam emails. Old habits, and all that.

Otherwise, things are going pretty well. Deborah is getting better and better at doing everything I get paid to do. It's my ultimate goal to render myself competely surplus to requirements, then give myself a fat redundancy deal. If only...

My freelance is taking off again, since Boss in London has agreed that I can write for the Mail and Guardian down here. They pay next to nothing, but I have always been a fan of Guardian (the M&G is an arm's length subsidiary) editorial policy which is basically to let their writers get on with it. I've never had more than, say, 5 changes in any one piece I've written for the G. It's great for my feelings of self-worth. I now feel about 1 rand 50 per word more valuable than I did a week ago.

In about 3.5 weeks I'm off to Europe. I'm looking forward to all of it, especially since it's the coldest and rainiest winter in Cape Town for [enter arbitrary digit here] years. Even if I have to swim through the streets of London, dodging Al-Qaeda sleeper cells as I go, at least the water should be warmer than the icy rivulets threatening to sweep me off the slopes of Table Mountain. London floods would be a seaside holiday in comparison.

This is in South Africa, not Switzerland. Sersiously.