I’m updating the theme behind the site. Please excuse the mess while I fix a few things!
Edited to add: I need to either reduce the size of the book cover images in the left sidebar, or get rid of them altogether. Hmmm….
I’ll decide tomorrow. It’s late and I’m heading for my bed just now.
Two computers, a sewing machine, some knitting… this is the current state of my desk, as I juggle numerous tasks. (Actually, there’s another laptop – my new one – just behind the old one.)
Now that the uni marking is all done, I’m doing some Christmas sewing and knitting, finalising the sampler for the Australian Romantic Suspense website, catching up with ‘paper’work, finishing setting up the new computers, and working on copyedits for Dead Heat.
There will be a proper blog post sometime soon… and maybe even a new cover to share 🙂
But in the meantime, I know my regular readers are wondering how our newest family member is settling in. I think the following photos will answer that question quite eloquently:
Things Skye likes about this place:
We hadn’t planned to get another dog so soon. Tansy is lonely without her sister, but we were going to wait a little, see how we all settle.
But you know how it goes…. the father of a colleague of Gordon’s breeds Border Collies. We’d resisted getting one of his puppies a month or two back, because we still had two then, and didn’t know how a little puppy would go, especially with Jaffa and her seizures. But today at work, the friend told Gordon that his Dad has a 7 month-old dog, who was being held for someone else, who unfortunately now can’t take her…
The ‘I’ll bring in some photos’ quickly became ‘I’ll bring in the dog for a trial visit so you can see how she gets on with you all”…
.. and so Skye came home with Gordon tonight for a ‘visit’:
Skye is on the left, cuddling up to Gordon, somewhat overwhelmed by all the new things.
Tomorrow, I’m heading ‘down the hill’ to Bellingen for the Girls’ Afternoon In at Bellingen Library, with fellow authors Karly Lane, Suzanne Brandyn, and Kerri Williams, and organised by the lovely Sharon Luthman of Clarence Regional Library. I’m really looking forward to it – should be a great afternoon of laughs and fun, meeting new readers, plus it’s all in a good cause – a gold coin donation is requested with all proceeds going to the Cancer Council-Girls Night In, fund-raising campaign.
If you’re in the Coffs/Bellingen/Dorrigo area, do come along! (But it will help out the organisers if you book in advance – ph 6655 1744.) The afternoon starts at 2pm, and it’s in the Bellingen Library, right in the main street of Bello. Why not make a day of it in Bellingen – shopping, bookshops, lunch in a Bello cafe – who can resist??
(Warning – you may need tissues for this post.)
Our beloved Jaffa, The Princess Dog, has advanced bladder cancer, and in the past week or so her quality of life has diminished. Tomorrow morning, our vet will come to visit, and assist her to the place where food o’clock comes lots of times a day (and always before tummy-rumble o’clock), where there’s always someone to snuggle up with, and where she’s allowed to eat all the bunny poo and ‘roo poo that she wants.
Today the sun shone in a blue sky, the weather was warm, and the birds chattered in the trees – a perfect spring day. We had a gentle day together, Tansy and Jaffa and I, with several strolls in the bush,
lots of pats, a few treats, and snoozling in the sunroom:
Gordon came home early, and he and Jaffa had a walk in the bush while Tansy and I had cuddles, and then all four of us sat for a while outside on the grass near the dam, as the sun cast its last golden light through the trees.
Jaffa then kept me company, right beside my computer chair (she likes to arrange herself around the wheels), to supervise some work (and get some more pats):
and then it was food o’clock, and a special treat of some fish may have found its way to both dogs:
She’s snoozling again now (there’s been a lot more of that, this past week) and tomorrow there’ll be some more treats… and a tearful goodbye. (I’m writing and posting this now because tomorrow will be hard.)
We know we’re making the right decision, but oh, we will miss our beautiful girl.
