The Girdle of Melian

hankful Thursday Blog Hop, hosted by Brian ! I found out about this from Mimi ! The first thing I'm thankful for is that I got to have this experience last month: Opening a box of my just-published book, Druid's Moon ! Other things to be thankful for (first and foremost, healthy family and friends and pets!): Cosy autumn weather A story idea for NaNoWriMo The caring and friendly blogging community! What are you thankful for today?

oats! One of my favourite lines from The Wind in the Willows is the one Water Rat says to the Mole: "Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats." In the 1980s, the Thames Television animated series (featuring Peter Sallis as Ratty!) featured, among its prop designers, a certain John Squire , who later went on to become the guitarist in The Stone Roses and an accomplished artist. According to IMDB , he later recalled, "I was only making props like miniature plates and chairs. That was the first job I ever had, apart from Tesco." So here we have a number of photos of the Port of Founex village...and Mountie the dog , last seen at the end of June! Mile marker! Well, kilometres Upward view of a fig tree Peeking in at someone's cars Canicule is a heat wave. The elixir they serve includes ginger, lemon, sugar, and ice. I didn't try it because I had... ...a Big

ast of the summertime photos! Setting up the bonfire for Swiss National Day! Lake Geneva/Lac Leman Paddle steamer still running after 100 years Ducklings! Swiss cola Ah, this is the life I have a colouring book of old cars that I picked up somewhere decades ago. I love it! Plus, it's useful for research... Typing up Larksong at the beach My Luddite NaNo count for Larksong , way back when So much still left untyped! I've gotten it down to one notebook now, wish me luck! In other news, I found an old to do list from 2009 ! Some of the items are still valid; I've annotated it: sell fireplace [nowadays we actually use our electric fireplace, but this could easily refer to other items around the house (humidifier, anyone?) that we once needed and no longer do] start scrapbook [well, I've finished all the scrapbooks that were ever in progress, but I still need to keep up with printing photos in albums and actually labelling them...] print research in gmail

ig fun! But first,  A Round of Words in 80 Days update! My last proper ROW80 post was in March ! Here it is, with updates in italics: Keep up with blogging and thelitforum (plus the reading, knitting, baking, etc.!):  I'm keeping up! I know I owe some comments! I've been having a great time on my book blog tour, thank you so much to everyone who hosted and/or commented! Check all "writing to do" and type up all notes on paper and collate all story ideas and ideas from dreams, and all story drafts and research and Save to Scrivener notes in my emails, ideally into my lovely new Kate Davies journal... Organize all Scrivener files:  Er, this is moving very slowly, but I'm happy to report that it is moving. My gmail labels are getting more organized by the day! Figure out what to do with the orts, such as the CampNaNoWriMo2015 story The Heathen in the Hold, and others, including items such as this post-apocalyptic story idea I wrote in 2010, based on a dream, the ide