I uploaded a short article a week or so back, but neglected to mention it on the blog. I had a 500-word limit for an article for the local Writers’ Centre on writing romance – you can find it here.

Comments and discussion are, as always, welcome!

The lovely colours of these old buildings against the clear blue sky caught my eye when we were walking down King Street in Newtown – one of Sydney’s inner suburbs. At street level, everything was busy, with traffic roaring past and  more modern shop displays and cafes, but one level up the grace of a bygone age is still visible.

I’ve upgraded the WordPress software behind this blog to version 2.5, and I need to change the theme that determines the layout and stylesheets. So, if you’re looking here over the next day or so, you might find it keeps changing appearance – my CSS skills are fairly basic, so it may take me a little bit to get it the way I want!

…are apt to go awry, to paraphrase Robbie Burns.

Instead of heading off on our planned two-week trip to the outback last weekend, I’ve been in Sydney, seeing a neurosurgeon, and having assorted procedures and scans. I have an aneurism, pressing on my optic nerve, and sometime in the next couple of weeks I’ll be in hospital in Sydney for a couple of days getting that treated, to hopefully reduce the pressure on my optic nerve, and to reduce the chance that it might rupture and do very nasty (and possibly fatal) things to my brain.

On the bright side:

• I’m really, really lucky that they found it and can do something about it – often they’re not found until the autopsy after they’ve burst!
• Now I know why my right eye’s been blurry and funny the past few months – it wasn’t a wrong contact lens prescription, or old age creeping up, after all
• Everything’s research for an author, right? Angiograms, MRIs, hospital experiences, interesting medical people – I’m sure I’ll be able to put some of this in a book one day
• Apart from some tiredness due to increased blood pressure meds, I feel fine
• I’m not supposed to over-exert myself at the moment, so I have a legitimate, guilt-free reason not to get on the treadmill

DH and I had some good times in Sydney, in between all the medical stuff – including a lovely evening strolling along Glebe Point Road, near where we used to live, past all the cafes, restaurants and bookshops, and having a delicious dinner at an Indian restaurant we used to go to.

The photoshoot that my publisher had organised for late May was rescheduled earlier, so we did that on Wednesday, and had great fun. My publisher came along, and the photographer – Lorrie Graham – was fantastic, very friendly and down to earth, so the whole experience was relaxed, as well as interesting, hearing about her amazing experiences as a leading photojournalist.

Between medical stuff, I had a weekend in Canberra with my folks, and my mother had all her daughters together for Mothers’ Day, so that made her day. The next day I had coffee with my good friend Valerie Parv, and  then lunch with Valerie, one of my sisters, and Canberra writer and Golden Heart finalist Tracey O’Hara.

And, of course, there was shopping Sydney and Canberra are both much, much larger than my home town, with heaps of variety! My suitcase was somewhat heavier coming back than it was flying down, but I had the excuse of needing some clothes for the photoshoot. Really.

We’ll probably find out on Monday when the surgery will take place, and in what hospital in Sydney. The procedure (inserting a stent and coils into the blood vessel, via the artery up from the groin) will take about 5 hours, and all going well I’ll only be in hospital for a couple of days, then I’ll be able to fly home to take it a little easy for about two weeks. So I should be fit and fine to go to San Francisco in July, and I’m looking forward to it!