Jen Black's Blog, page 16

Clandestine relative

 

Perla is getting brighter (and hungrier) by the day. My elderly Spanish rescue enjoys her walks, her meals and is beginning to enjoy cuddles. Scratching behind the ears was allowed from day one, but I was obviously a stranger and cuddles were a step too far. It is good to see her relaxing into our home and oh so tentatively leaning against me, or coming to find me when she wakes on a morning.

As for my new book - I have edited on the screen several times, edited a print out and now have the last two chapters to do on a computer voice read through. It is true what they say - I am still finding errors. I am still convinced that as I correct one mistake, formatting creates another further down the page.

I am aiming for publication in March, sometime around the 16th. An announcement will come soon!

As a Christmas present I got  My Heritage done via Ancestry. The result says all my results are 60% English, 20% Scottish, Welsh or Irish and 16% Italian and 5% East European. Maybe the Italian connection explains the Italian violin my grandfather took as payment for a drink one night back in the 1800s! Perhaps I have a clandestine Italian grandfather though I rather doubt it.
I constantly get notes from My Heritage claiming they have discovered  somebody with whom I share "0.5% shared DNA (34.5‎ cM) suggests the following estimated relationships:

3rd - 5th cousin"I cannot even work out how far from me a 3rd cousin would be, never mind a 5th cousin.

Seriously windy

 According to my Fitbit, my step count has suddenly jumped by 17k and a week with Perla has not gone by yet. Just think of all the calories that has used! Not to mention how much fitter I will be in a week or two! I am sleeping better, and the only downside is that I seem to have little time for the The Elsdon Affair. 

That is not a bad thing because I need a little space before I do the final check and then publish. I am thinking of the first week in March as a deadline.

Today was seriously windy, which meant that Perla's coat was constantly blown away from her rump - and hiding most of her in the photograph! On a couple of occasions I got blown sideways for a few steps. I am only present in shadow form, but I liked the colours in this picture, so decided to use it. Consider it as an abstract!

New Distraction

 Stayed awake until 5am on Thursday night. All because Homeward Bound Animal Transport  delivered Perla to me. 

She came under the auspices of Save a Spanish Spot and had a long, long journey : Salamanca to Alicante to meet with HB and complete formalities, then north through France, the Tunnel and England to Newcastle, with stop offs on the way to deliver the other eight dogs to various parts of the country. She must have found it stressful, for she slept most of Friday with two short walks for doggy relief. Today she seems brighter and we've already been out for a longer walk this morning.

So Perla is my new distraction. My new hobby, you might say. A pointer/Dalmatian cross, she has been in an outdoor sanctuary all of her eleven years, so many things are strange to her. We are slowly getting to know each other and she is very different to Tim. Playing with toys doesn't seem to ever have been on her radar, but I am looking forward to seeing her interact with other dogs, which I could not do  with Tim. After the age of five he was aggressive to other dogs. Perla has already found the place where she might be able to sniff noses through the fence with Twiglet, Julia's dog in one of our neighbouring gardens.

Sporty things

Kitchen now painted, and the most dreaded corner of all -

the cupboard under the stairs. 

Otherwise known as the repository of junk and anything we cannot find a home for elsewhere. In other words, things we no longer need, or even have never needed! Those things that highlight our lack of decision making, too.

I am now looking at the rest of the house with the remainder of the paint in mind. Which room needs doing and is there enough paint left to complete it? Will it match the curtains? Tricky balance!

I've watched a lot of people doing sporty things on snow and ice this week. To the point of the groans oh, not curling again! It is not just curling (though I fear I think it is a poseurs sport and boring in the extreme) but too much of anything can bring on the groans. DH likes the luge and sliding, but even he got to the point of oh no, not more.... whereas I got very little of the men's figure skating and feel short changed, though that could have something to do with Yuzuru Hanyu's 4th position. If only he had ignored the quad axel and gone for other jumps, he would have won for the third time.

The pic illustrates how good it can be to go out for a mean and sit beside the water admiring the big boats moored alongside....

Sunhat, Australian style

 Over the last two days I have  done as I threatened. 

Paint has been sploshed over the utility room, which badly needed it as it was where Tim and I used to come barrelling in from all the wet, muddy weather and toss all our coats and wellies - not that he had wellies - aside. A nice shade called nutmeg white.

I have already painted around the corner into the kitchen, because kitchens are always grungy places. So are showers and bathrooms. Anywhere that water can get into always seems to produce grunge. A giver of life but not always the kind of life you want.

Is anyone else on a Spring Clean kick?

The Spring Cleaning Urge

 The Spring Cleaning Urge has struck.

I look at my little writing room, see all the files, folders, notebooks and think I could possibly ditch the lot and never miss them. I'm one of those people who loves notebooks, and I have several, brand new and untouched, that I bought a long time ago. One day, I tell myself, I will use them. 

The thing is, when I take down one I have used and scan through the pages, a lot of what I thought was new and useful has now become old hat, or to put it another way, I have absorbed whatever it was and it is now second nature. I no longer need to refer to notebooks about it. 

I did ditch some A4 plastic file folders last week. I also threw a few books into the bin. Another armful I took to our local  household refuse collection point because I recently discovered a bin for Books, Media ad DVDs. The newest books I knew I would never read again I took to the library for addition to their stocks if they deemed them worthy. So one way an another, I have whittled down my shelves and made space in my room. I even discovered the plastic washing basket (which I hunted for when we came back from Australia and couldn't find)  it was so packed ad overflowing with the books I did not wish to keep that I could not see the basket itself.

Next thing you know I'll be sploshing paint around.

Blown out of place

 There's an 80-mile-an-hour wind shaking the windows this morning, but I cannot see any damage to us or any of our immediate neighbours.

I saw one blackbird cowering under our garden shrubbery hoping for some peanuts so my first task was to put some out for him. The trouble is they get so territorial about it. Probably the same blackbird chased two females away from the spot yesterday and some years ago two males fought - one broke the other's leg. He didn't last more than a couple of days even though I tried to keep him fed.

 A few things blown out of their usual place, but nothing disastrous. So it might be a quiet day indoors or me, which wouldn't be a bad thing. I still have the last two chapters to finish! and lots of other work to do. Researching key words, smartening up the book descriptions, checking over the washing basket. Riveting stuff, but so necessary.

The days we sailed

 When I look back at pics of the splendid days we sailed out on Paul and Kathleen's boat, I wonder how I managed to get my knees so sunburnt! (I was not wearing long trousers all the time!) It doesn't look good weather at all - but then I remember that the temperature was probably around 25 degrees and because Sydney harbour has sheltered little bays all around it, there was very little wind. If you Scroll down you'll see a sunnier pic  - and five minutes later I scrambled back under the canopy because a rain cloud burst over us. Happily it only lasted five minutes.

Covid test number 4 due today. So far we have been clear, but we are socially distancing - as we have done all the time this virus ha been at large.

 We've missed the odd dinner (not that the dinners were odd!) with friends and neighbours and we have not been into Newcastle for close on two years but really that is the only change we have made to our lifestyle. We didn't venture into Sydney centre this year for the same reasons, which was a pity. We saw much more of the outskirts this time and it is a very pretty city with some beautiful trees offering shade along the streets.

I am happy to report that I finally plucked up the courage to try another themed layout for my blog and this time all seems to have worked well. People with phones, please check it out and let me know if it is OK. 

https://jenblackauthor.blogspot.com

Pinged

Adapting to colder temperatures now.

Frantically Housecleaning to remove a month's dust,

the washing mountain has diminished and

we've been pinged.

We were tested for Covid before  we were allowed on the plane leaving England. Once we landed in Australia we had to show our vaccination certificates and take a test on day 2 and day 6. Day 2 in particular involved us in a 3 and a half hour car queue which took up the entire morning as Australians rushed to be tested after being told that Covid infections were escalating. Day 6 was much quicker. 

All our tests showed that we were clear. Coming home, we showed our certificates and got on the plane. 14 hours to Dubai, 9 hours in the airport, and 7 hours to Newcastle. Seating capacity on both planes 853+550 or say 1400 people. In the airport we social distanced and it was in no way crowded. Yet someone in that number has tested positive for Covid and we were pinged. I assume all 1400 would get the same instructions.

Picked up lateral flow tests courtesy/free via the NHS, did the first one last night and we are still clear. Whoever manufactures these tests is probably a millionaire by now. We have to do 6 more tests this week to be sure.

Pic shows some of the houses around one of the smaller bays of Sydney harbour.

Mountains of washing

 Working my way through the mountain of washing/ironing every holiday entails, and at the same time, reminiscing - the pic today is of Port Macquarie beaches. It is the largest town in the area and it was stonking hot that day, which made walking around quite a challenge.

There are two long breakwater/harbour walls and it seems as if everyone has made their mark on them. Back in 2012 we inscribed a small Black family shield, but either it has been painted over or  more likely we simply couldn't remember where we had put it! Either way, we never found it!

 

I suspect we'd be accused of vandalising the town if we did this in Whitby, but Australians are much more relaxed about such things. Sometimes the lack of formality can seem a bit too loose, but it is basically a country for young people and they love the no ties, no business suits, very few high heels and in fact, very few dresses - everyone wears shorts and what I call flip-flops but they call thongs. My eyebrows lifted the day Paul told me he always wears thongs, but we soon understood each other's linguistic problems. 

OTOH, I saw many, many dress shops in Mosman and they all sold very elegant dresses that I would have been happy to own if I had the figure I had when I was 20!

My current story has reached 51k, and now I have to decide how to finish. Another 20-25k should do it. I hoped to tie it off while I was away, but there were so many diversions it didn't happen. Building jigsaws with the kids, for one. That evoked a forgotten skill. As always, I'm torn about revealing the plotline of my story. Part of me says I should tell people and part of me wants to hug it to myself and keep it secret - not a good move if I want to sell any copies.