I woke up this morning feeling a little worse for wear. I could blame my queasiness on whatever is in the stuff I’m using to clean the rust off the old farm machinery that we’d piled up under a tree in the garden but the consumption of wine minus food at last night’s little soiree is the more likely culprit. I really should have learnt by now that having friends over for an aperitif or three means pulling an all-nighter. Next time I’m ordering pizzas.
Having been banned from anything ‘The Book’ for a couple of weeks or at least until the edits are done, I started a jigsaw puzzle to keep my fingers occupied in the evenings. They itch for the keyboard, I miss writing. But hot off the proverbial press, Sally sent the first draft back last night with words of praise and ‘could be even better with more work’. Actually it needs more words too as I’ve only written 33,000 so far and I need to go over the 50,000 mark. But whilst the opus has been in the safe hands of my editor, I have scribbled notes in my little black book as soon as they come into my head. Still hasn’t got a title though.
I’m back out in the garden. Well, less to do with the actual greenery at the moment and more to do with cleaning, painting and rebuilding. As I mentioned, I’ve collected up all the ancient, rusted (and very rustic) bits of metal that were once used for ploughing and that sort of stuff. My idea is that once they all look sparkly again, Denis and I can artfully place them above our renovated ‘corner’ plot. Yup, we have another teeny bit of private property that I have yet to show you. Our little piece of this village is between two roads so at the point where both meet is a wall and it belongs to us. And a little piece of the concrete below it. Suffice to say, it’s been a bit neglected as it’s on the wrong side of the fence so to speak but not anymore. What once looked like a rather ugly stone wall with breeze-blocks pretending to be flowerpots on the top, now looks like a mini fortress or will once we have repainted and replanted. Everyone seems thrilled that we’ve finally done something to the space as it is one of the first things you notice when you come into Rouffiac from the North end, even the ex-Mayor stopped by to ooh at it. I think I might stick Santa up there for Christmas.
The weather continues to be weird, the rose bushes are full of colour again and its October. At this rate I might have to unpack my summer suitcase. And whilst we are basking in 20plus degree Autumn here, Callum tells me that Sydney is cold and wet heading into Summer down there. He’s heading off himself next week, down to South Australia for his next adventure and hopefully job. In my usual ‘I worry’ Mum way, I asked him if his campervan had a first aid kit. Sort of was the answer but no, he didn’t have any anti-snake venom potions or crocodile repellent. Apparently such things aren’t stocked in the city as there aren’t any man-eating reptiles but there are a lot of deadly spiders. Now he tells me.
“Don’t knock the weather. If it didn’t change once in a while, nine out of ten people couldn’t start a conversation.” (Kim Hubbard)
Widow plus woofs 