Sheds, shelves, four tomatoes and a countdown
There is a particular feeling you get when something you’ve been waiting on for months finally, actually, physically exists. It’s a bit like finishing a first draft. You stand there looking at it, slightly stunned, half expecting someone to come along and tell you it was all a clerical error.
The sheds are built. The container has been delivered. I have walked around both of them several times, touched the walls, and they have not vanished. I’m calling it forward progress.
And it’s not just empty space, either. A good chunk of the furniture has migrated out of the house and into its new homes. Jo’s sewing room is starting to look like a sewing room instead of a theory. The Smut Hut (yes, that is its official name, no, I will not be taking feedback) is filling up, and there may even, possibly, be books on the shelves. I say “may” because I’m not going to jinx it by counting. Anyone who has ever unpacked a book collection knows the shelves are never finished. They are simply waiting for the next box you forgot you had.
The house, meanwhile, has started doing that echoing thing rooms do when you take things out of them. It’s very unsettling. I keep walking into the lounge and wondering who moved the walls.
* * *
Of course, the moment one job finishes, the yard clears its throat.
There is lawn to mow. There are edges to trim. There are catios to clean out, which, if you’ve never had the pleasure, is exactly as glamorous as it sounds. The cats, I should add, have been extremely supportive of this process from a safe distance, offering helpful commentary and absolutely no labour.
The grass has also taken all this rain as a personal invitation and is growing at a rate I can only describe as aggressive. I’m fairly sure I heard it.
Although, in fairness to the grass, it has been earning its keep.
We started the season with twelve ducklings. Twelve. Little fluffy wind-up toys, the lot of them. And then nature did what nature does, which is to remind you that it is not, in fact, a Disney film. Between the male ducks (who are, and I say this with love, absolute villains) and the ravens (who are villains without the love), our twelve has been whittled down to one.
One. A single, butter-fat little darling who now has not one, not two, but three mothers. Three. This duckling is the most supervised creature in the state of Tasmania. It cannot take a step without a committee forming. It is round, it is smug, and it has absolutely no idea how lucky it is.
The chicks have fared much better. We had eleven, and we still have seven, which by the standards of this year counts as a resounding triumph. And I’m fairly sure the long grass is part of the reason why. All that unmown, unruly, slightly embarrassing growth has turned into a jungle of hiding places for very small birds who would rather not be eaten.
Which leaves me in a bit of a moral pickle about the mowing. The lawn needs doing. The babies need cover. I suspect I’ll be mowing in strategic patches for a while, leaving little islands of wilderness about the place, and telling anyone who asks that it’s a deliberate rewilding initiative.
It is not. It’s ducklings.
* * *
Then there’s the other half of my brain, the professional half, which is currently sitting in a corner with its head in its hands.
I have a lot of moving and shaking to do with Xero and Square. I’d love to tell you what that involves. I’d love to know myself. I’m told it’s all very straightforward. I’m told there are tutorials. I have watched some of the tutorials. I have nodded along like I understood them. I did not understand them.
I can plot a nine-book crime series, juggle six pen names and keep track of an entire hockey league’s worth of relationships, but put a reconciliation screen in front of me and I turn into a Victorian ghost wandering the halls, confused by all these modern contraptions. If anyone out there speaks fluent small-business accounting software, I will pay you in books and baked goods.
* * *
The garden, at least, is a small win. A very small win. Four, count them, four tomato plants are in the ground. I’m inordinately proud of them. They don’t look like much yet, but neither did the sheds, and look how that turned out.
I also have carrots waiting to go in, just as soon as it stops raining. Which it will do. Eventually. Probably. This is Tasmania. I’m not making any promises on behalf of the weather.
* * *
And then, because apparently I don’t believe in doing one thing at a time, there’s the calendar.
In six days I fly up to Brisbane to drive home with Jo. That’s a long way in a car with someone, and luckily she’s someone I’d happily drive a long way with, snacks and terrible playlists included.
Then, twenty-three days after that, we set off for Canada on the research trip. Hockey, cold, notebooks, more hockey. I am trying to stay calm about this. I am not staying calm about this.
Preparations are underway, and they are not glamorous. They involve compression socks, because I’ve been reliably informed that sitting on a plane for the better part of a day does unspeakable things to your ankles. They also involve fleecy underwear. Well. Not underwear. Fleecy trousers. But I said fleecy underwear first, and now it’s out there, and I’ve decided to live with it. Somewhere between a Tasmanian winter and a Canadian one is a level of cold my wardrobe has never been asked to consider, and I intend to meet it dressed like a very determined marshmallow.
I have, in the spirit of preparedness, been diligently watching the Edmonton weather. I’ve been reliably told Edmonton will be the cold point of the trip, so naturally I check it daily, the way other people check their horoscopes or their bank balance, and with about the same sense of dread. Here, some days are happily sitting at a lovely twenty-five degrees. Over there it has been doing variations on minus three. They had a foot and a half of snow the other night. A foot and a half. And it’s not even winter yet. It’s still technically autumn. Edmonton is apparently just warming up. Or cooling down. Whichever is worse.
I’ve stood in my garden in a t-shirt, looking at my four tomatoes, scrolling through photos of people digging their cars out of snowbanks, and wondered what exactly I’ve signed up for. Then I bought more fleece.
And then there are the books. Before we go, I need to get some printed, real physical copies I can tuck into my luggage between the fleece and the socks, because the plan (the hope, the slightly giddy daydream) is to take them along and maybe do a giveaway or two with readers at the games. There’s something about the idea of handing a hockey book to a hockey fan in an actual hockey arena that makes my heart do a little celly. So if you’re going to be in the stands, keep an eye out for a woman in compression socks looking hopeful and clutching paperbacks. That’ll be me.
Which means adding “talk nicely to the printer” to a list that already includes the lawn, the catios, the carrots and the accounting software. Nobody panic. Least of all me.
So, to recap: sheds up, container in, books maybe on shelves, yard rebelling, cats supervising, one very spoiled duckling, seven brave chicks, accounting software winning, four tomatoes thriving, carrots on standby, books to print, compression socks acquired (or about to be), fleecy trousers definitely, Brisbane in six days, Canada in a month.
Forward progress. Allegedly.
I’ll let you know how the tomatoes go.
— Suzy
