96 hours to publication!
Yup.
Ninety six hours – if you live in the southern hemisphere. Twenty four hours longer if you’re in the wonderful summery northern hemisphere.
Yup.
Ninety six hours – if you live in the southern hemisphere. Twenty four hours longer if you’re in the wonderful summery northern hemisphere.
A day away, wandering the stone buildings and history of Oatlands. A freezing day, a winter’s day, but a grand day out nevertheless.
Oatlands is one of Tasmania’s oldest settlements and was named after an English town of the same name by Governor Macquarie in 1821, becoming a military base for convict management. The convicts were assigned to nearby farming properties, and also run in chain gangs to erect the beautiful Georgian public buildings and private homes, along with the construction of roads and bridges in the area.
We ostensibly went for lunch, having spied a little cafe on our puppy-viewing expedition the week before. I found the name Feisty Hen to be intriguing, even more so because the cafe is secreted down a quiet little lane, with a view out its multi-paned windows to a small empty stone cottage and the rear garden of a stately Georgian home.
A pair of alpacas were only separated from us by a double row of espaliered fruit trees and a rosemary hedge.
The food was perfect for a freezing day – piping hot minestrone with fresh bread and butter, warmed mandarin syrup cake with cream and of course, hot drinks. Enough to warm the cockles so that we could wander…
I lusted after the wonderful garden ornamentation, after the honey-coloured stone, after the many formal hedges and Georgian features.
Curiously, we were walking down the wide main street and ran into our son who was heading to a lodge on one of the sheep properties for a Men’s Weekend whilst his baby son and wife headed for the Big Smoke for a Mums’ and Babies’ weekend.
It’s a small world…
This post is a longer one than normal. Rather like a newsletter, if you like.
So pull up a chair, make a cuppa and grab that piece of chocolate cake.
Let’s go!
Passage’s launch approaches fast.
I’m in a kind of hiatus currently. In between edits of Passage and moving on to a collaborative novel between myself and highly popular and successful hybrid author, Simon Turney. But more about that shortly.
As summer continues to bake our garden, it becomes more difficult to find anything to talk about. One can bemoan the cost of the water with which we irrigate the garden on a heavy daily basis. One can whinge about the dry thunderstorms and the humidity immediately after. Or whine about the longing for an autumnal-styled day so one can work happily in the garden.
Apparently maunder is another word for meander, meaning a leisurely walk.
I recently maundered through a friend’s garden. It’s an exuberant garden, high-spirited and vivacious with colour.
Fifteen blog posts…
http://pruebatten.com/2016/05/15/fight-and-win/
http://pruebatten.com/2016/05/26/poo-n-stuff/
http://pruebatten.com/2016/05/30/where-else-in-the-world/
http://pruebatten.com/2016/06/05/licence-to-party/
http://pruebatten.com/2016/06/25/breathing-the-sea/
http://pruebatten.com/2016/07/23/name-calling/
http://pruebatten.com/2016/10/31/a-time-of-firsts/
http://pruebatten.com/2017/04/21/voter-backlash/
http://pruebatten.com/2017/05/22/counselling-the-council/
http://pruebatten.com/2017/05/30/inconvenient-truths/
http://pruebatten.com/2017/06/18/floating-my-boat/
http://pruebatten.com/2017/06/14/transparent-as-mud/
http://pruebatten.com/2017/06/18/floating-my-boat/
http://pruebatten.com/2017/08/05/four-twenty-blackbirds/
http://pruebatten.com/2017/09/14/art-spin-doctoring/
… countless hours of time, a few thousands of words, days spent in tactical talks with the powerhouse of the anti-fish farm movement, weeks spent on the phone raising a fighting fund in the early days, hours spent doing leaflet drops. Even sitting with politicians, talking, talking, talking…
And for what?