I'm hoping this will be a photo...

It looks like a load of meaningless code to me, but hopefully it will magically transform into a photo when I publish this post. It's Polly the Puppy, by the way.

Robin asked how things were up the eucalypt... Frenzied is the answer. I worked five days last week. I don't think I have done that since Cricket Boy was born. This is always a busy time for me, with lots of clients wanting things ready to print for Christmas or early next year, but this year has been bananas. I could work three or four days this week too, but I don't think it's fair on Princess or Polly so I'm trying to squeeze everything into the few hours I have.

Also, my mother-in-law's aunt died - the last of her generation, so we've had to comfort Grandma. Plus the kids getting into Christmas performance mode, Cricket Boy's birthday coming up this weekend and one of my friends has just split with her partner - initially amicably, but now he's just tossed her out, so needing to offer support there, too, and practical help. So...yup...frenzied.

Over to you...

My last post about the weather (exciting topic, eh!) got a bit pretentiously writerly, I thought. That's because I was trying to write it without any visual description whatsoever. Did anybody even notice?!

So now...can you do it? Tell me about the weather where you are without using your eyes!

How's the weather with you?

It's spring here. The air is thick with the smell of freshly cut grass and cicadas hum to one another across the garden. In the middle of the day my skin is clammy with sweat and when I lick my lips they taste of salt. The puppy and the kids pant, slurping water, or crunching ice blocks. You can almost hear the rustle of new growth, of the earth relaxing under the gentle sun. In a few months it will become brutal, blasting everything brittle with dryness. But for now it caresses us, slipping its warmth under our goosebumps, coaxing us outside with its tender touch.

We have puppy!

It was a struggle getting her up the eucalypt, but we managed in the end.

She's a nine-week old cavoodle (they used to be called mongrels, but now they're getting all fancy); a Cavalier King Charles spaniel/poodle cross. In the shop she was 100% Cavalier, loving and smoochy and very mellow, but then we took her home and she turned poodle on us, dashing around the garden in a frenzy, playing with the kids. I like that she has both natures in her, it will keep us on our toes. As will the pee and the poo all over the laundry floor. I've got pads out, but Madam prefers to choose her own spot - a different one every time, although she does pee on one side of the laundry and poo on the other, so I suppose it's a system.

Her name is Polly, chosen by Cricket Boy.

Reading superstitions

As a child I think I may have had mild obsessive-compulsive disorder. If I took a drink, whether it be from a tap or a cup, I had to have an even number of mouthfuls, and preferably in multiples of two and then four etc.. Two, four, eight...and if I accidentally took that ninth swallow, I was up for sixteen, and then after that... well, it was a stretch for the bladder. I also could not stop reading on page or chapter 13 - or multiples of 13. That meant some late nights if I was reading a book with long chapters.

I'm over the water thing now (tg!) and over the multiples of 13 thing - but I still cannot stop reading on chapter 13, or any chapter before or after. So I still have to decide whether or not to stop at the end of chapter 11 or if I forge on to the end of chapter 14.

OK, so now you know I'm a complete freak, do you have any weird reading or writing superstitions or habits?

Cricket Boy Clean Bowled

Along with the rest of his team. Once again they ran into a team infinitely better than themselves. Seems to happen every week actually.