Today was not the productive marketing blitz I had planned. I had a list. I had intentions. I had a book that is about to launch into the world and approximately one million things I should be doing to make sure people actually know it exists before it arrives.
I am going to be honest with you.
I did not do those things.
I watched lawn mowing videos on the internet. I cannot explain this to you. I cannot explain it to myself. There is something deeply, specifically soothing about watching someone mow a lawn in neat stripes and I refuse to apologise for it.
BUT. And this is a significant but.
Today also brought Brian and Sandra.
Brian and Sandra are a new addition to my life and I am very glad about that. They are in their seventies, they are delightful, and they came out to the property today with their ferrets to help deal with the rabbit situation. We have a lot of wild rabbits here. A lot. They are chaotic and destructive and an absolute pain in the bum, and I say that with the full awareness that they are also quite cute, which makes the whole thing morally complicated in a very Tasmanian way.
Brian and Sandra, however, have no such complications. They know exactly what they’re about.
The ferrets did their thing. Brian and Sandra did their thing. I stood around feeling mildly useful.
Here is the part that made my whole day: they are both in their seventies, and every few minutes one of them would lunge for a rabbit with a very confident “I’ve got it, I’ve got it—” and the other one would also lunge for the same rabbit with equal confidence, and then they would both release it at exactly the same time. The same rabbit. Multiple times. The rabbit, for its part, seemed genuinely baffled by its own continued freedom.
They caught four. The other six were released back to continue their campaign of horticultural destruction, presumably wiser for the experience. The four that were caught go home with Brian and Sandra, get skinned, and end up as meals for elderly people in their community who need them. There is something quietly wonderful about that. A whole little ecosystem of care, running entirely outside of anything official or organised, just because two people in their seventies decided to be useful with a pair of ferrets and a Saturday afternoon.
I loved them immediately.
On the actual author front — baby steps, but steps. I set up a BookFunnel account today and released Almost Yours Again as an ARC. It is out there in the hands of early readers, which is terrifying and necessary and probably the most genuinely useful thing I did all day, lawn mowing videos notwithstanding.
Tomorrow I am getting my act together. Deloraine Market in the morning — because some things are non-negotiable and a good market is one of them — and then I am sitting down and whipping the websites into something resembling a functional shape. The garden also needs attention and I have been saying that for longer than I care to admit.
Oh. And I’ve lost my garlic.
I had it yesterday. I was literally filling the garden bed in preparation for planting it, and now it has vanished completely. I have looked in the sensible places. I have looked in the completely illogical places. The garlic is gone and I do not know what to do with myself or, apparently, with a bulb of garlic.
I have given this some thought and I believe the solution is to staple them to my forehead when I find them. Is this practical? No. Will it cause problems? Almost certainly. Will I lose them again? Absolutely not, and that is the whole point.
Baby steps.
But tomorrow, slightly bigger ones. With garlic attached to my face.
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