I’ve been trying so hard to fit everything in and it hasn’t worked. But now I’ve finally finished all the amendments to my book’s PDF and life can perhaps get back to normal. It’s been a very intense period, wanting to get the checking done, eager to get the whole thing off your hands and nearer to publication. At least when you’re writing you are the one in the driving seat. Currently someone else is pulling the strings! On opening up the PDF my first thoughts were that it’s surprising what you don’t notice when you’re reading a document with double line spacing. Now, looking at something which is to all intents and purposes an electronic book (or how your book will eventually look), it opens your eyes to things and you wonder how you missed them in the first place! However, that’s all behind me now. All done and dusted – phew! what hard work , but I wouldn’t give it up for the world. I love writing!
On the home front, this weekend has been a bit of a mouse-fest. This wet summer has meant the field behind the house is teaming with wildlife and the cats are capitalising on it. The poor old hawk hovering over the long grass doesn’t appear to be faring too well, though. He’s probably quite dismayed at the number of cats sitting on my neighbour’s fence which appears to be a favourite feline vantage point for surveying potential victims.
I don’t mind dead bodies, I can cope with that – it’s the live ones I’m not very happy about and worse than that, the ones which are brought in secretly and actually live in the house until my feline charges realise they are there. Max is the worst culprit. He’ll bring in a catch and abandon it straight away, wandering off to find his food bowl in the kitchen. The mouse/vole/shrew will either scuttle to safety (preferably somewhere dark and out of sight) or just sit there totally perplexed. If we are there then we can repatriate it. However, if we’re not, we end up with both an unknown and unwanted lodger. Days later I’ll find Max poking a paw in some corner or sitting in one place for a long time concentrating his feline gaze under an item of furniture. The poor thing normally surfaces quite quickly and I can despatch it back to the field. Its freedom is probably only going to be short lived though as one of the other cats is bound to catch it! Not much of a life if you’re a mouse!
JO LAMBERT 