New Beginnings and Other Stuff

I resigned as Equipment Officer for my Brigade this week.  It is affecting my health.  It is not the fires or caring for the station and vehicles, though you would expect it to be those.  No, it is the bloody meetings!  Jeezuz!

This is the card I got from our darling 1st Lieutenant. So nice to know I am appreciated.   

A fellow dog lover, as you can see.  :D  The crochet reference is because I crochet during the meetings, which he says rather reminds him of the ladies who would knit while sitting in the front row audience of the guillotine during the French Revolution.  Sometimes, the meetings feel almost as deadly!  Crocheting gives my fingers something to do when I get upset and makes the long pointless hours of conflict seem to be more useful.  Seemed.  Ha!  No longer!      

I'll still be going to fires and a member of the brigade, but as a non-officer I don't have to go to meetings, and I am having a rest from doing their social media too.  I would not say I regret the last two years, because it has taught me so much, given me wonderful new friends, and shown me new aspects of my own courage and ability, so it is all good.  Change is good too, as is letting go of that which is not serving your best interests.       

With my mind and time not taken up with brigade matters and stresses, hopefully I can find mental space to start writing the next novel. Novel number 12!  Who'da thunk it!  Next will be a sequel to Chicken Soup for Satan.  I think.  Am rather tempted to write another Freya novel, since I have so much fun writing her stories and I think I need some light writing, because Land of Giants took it out of me a lot.  I put so much into that book and it shows, but it was hard too.  We'll see.  I would love to be back in the world of Satan Smith and his lovely dog, Ghost, too.  I've missed them, especially Ghost.  The characters of my books, especially the animal ones, become so real to me because when I write them I can really see them and know their moods and likes and dislikes and funny ways, and miss their presence just as if they were one of my own pets.  Sometimes I want to own a White Shepherd just so I can have Ghost with me again, but of course she or he wouldn't be him anyway.  I'll just have to write him another story.    

My sister PJ's photo of the original art on her wall, together with the print book.

Let's see, what else?  My chookies made me giggle a lot this week when they discovered our pile of jarrah sawdust and took to dismantling it with great gusto.

Nobody knows how to enjoy life like a chicken!  Please ignore Nanny Ogg's vulture-like appearance.  She is currently molting, apparently only on her head and neck!  It is growing back in fairly quickly, thank goodness.  She was genuinely bald at first, with nothing but grey pins all over her head and neck.  Yikes!

Niamh's afghan is still growing and getting close to finished. Not sure how many more rows,  Perhaps six or seven, but the rows take quite a while to get around now.  There is something so cosy about snuggling under something you are still making.

This has been my view a lot this week.   I took four pics to take in all of the the tree, and google made them into a panorama for me.  

  

My tummy has been a lot better but i haven't felt up to much work around the place yet.  What I have been able to do is drag a chair around the autumnal driveway, following the sunny spots and playing my lyre.  This is the Singing Jarrah who lives right by our cottage.  I have been practicing my tree song ready to record it, and this tree loves me to sing and play near it, in fact it enjoys being near all of our daily interactions. I hadn't expected that when I went to talk to it.  Most trees are very communal and interested in other living beings and even humans, especially trees who live in close proximity to us.  As you can see, this one is very close to the cottage indeed!

What else?  Oh yes, I said I'd show you an 'after' shot of the tv/bookshelf area.  This is it now.  Much neater, and now we can get to the books behind by just rolling the cabinet out.  

Not the most spectacular sunset for colour, but it was so very gentle and pretty and hopeful. 

As the sun sets on one thing, it rises on another.  I have plans for new ways to be useful to my community.  More on that soon.