Zookeeping as Work-Avoidance Behaviour

I’ve taken a few days off, ostensibly to finally FINALLY get the Spring issue of Mallorn, the Journal of the Tolkien Society (which I edit), off my desk and into production.
Mallorn comes out twice a year – Spring and Autumn – and the one I am working on is the fifth issue that’s come out on my watch. Along with my doughty Production Editor, we’ve turned it into a magazine we can all be proud of, one that’s produced to professional standards (and which has been picked – twice – by SFX as its Fanzine of the Month.)

The problem is that I’m now more than a month after the Spring issue copy deadline and I’m still editing copy – and less and less inclined to do so. It seems I’d rather do anything than sit down to do it. So, today, rather than edit Mallorn, I …

- took Heidi the dog, Fred the cat, and Beelzebun Demon Bunny of DOOM to the vet. The dog and the rabbit for regular vaccinations, and the cat for a check-up following a long spell with an upper repiratory tract infection that makes him sound like an ill-used accordion;


- cleaned out Squirtemius Benson Wilberforce III, the axolotl, whose tank gets pretty scummed up with algae;

- took Heidi the dog for a long walk through the woods and down to the beach;

- cleaned out the three hutches inhabited by our ten guinea-pigs, and our two chicken coops inhabited by our ten chickens.
The main fish-tank didn’t need cleaning – and the snake vivarium and the hamster cage are Mrs Crox’s department.


Tonight, I’ve promised myself a Mallorn work-in. After all that healthful outdoorsy zookeeping, a comfy sit in front of the computer will be good for my elf health.