In which I ask the small and very select readership of this blog a question, and promise a poll, technology permitting.
I have a confession to make, and it’s not a surprising one to anyone who’s met me. There are a great many things living in my head, and almost none of them pay rent.
They don’t do the dishes either. They leave the lights on at three in the morning, they bring friends over without asking, and every so often one of them stands in the middle of the room and demands to be written about. I’ve been a terrible landlord for years. I’ve just let them all stay.
So it occurs to me that the sensible thing (and I’m aware “sensible” is a stretch around here) would be to ask you which of them you’d actually like to hear from.
I know there aren’t many of you. I can probably picture most of your faces. But that’s rather the charm of it, isn’t it? This is less a blog and more a long conversation over the back fence, and it seems only polite to ask the people on the other side of the fence what they’d like to talk about.
The candidates
Here, in no particular order, are the tenants currently jostling for a room of their own on Stationhouse Notebook.
- The farmstead. Progress reports from our semi-rural patch and the market garden we’re slowly coaxing out of it. The llamas. The Highland bull and the sheep who is hopelessly, embarrassingly in love with him. The geese, who believe they own the place, and who may well be right. What grew, what didn’t, and what the possums got first.
- The cats. I’m qualified to speak on this one in the way that a person who has never once won an argument with a cat is qualified. There are a lot of them. They all have opinions. Some of them have left home and walked twenty-five kilometres back again, which tells you something about either their loyalty or the quality of the biscuits.
- The writing, and the six people in my head. I write under a handful of names, and each of them is, frankly, her own woman. One writes hockey boys with marshmallow centres. One writes soldiers and their secrets. One writes fae courts. One writes murder in a little Tasmanian town. They don’t always get along, and they absolutely all want the good chair. I could introduce you to them properly, one at a time, and tell you how the books actually get made.
- Semi-rural life in Tasmania. Living in an old police station in the shadow of the Western Tiers. The weather, which deserves its own blog. The neighbours, the roads, the wildlife on the roads, and what it’s actually like out here once the tourist brochures go home.
- Our wobbly journey towards sustainability. Not the glossy, everything-made-of-bamboo version. The real one, with the mistakes left in. What we’re trying, what’s working, and what we’ve had to quietly abandon behind the shed.
- The Halloween shenanigans. I want to be clear that I’m not calling this “decorating”. Decorating implies restraint, a colour scheme, and a person who knows when to stop. What happens here every October is shenanigans, pure and simple. This year there’s a theme, and the theme is water. Everybody is a skeleton. There’s a skeleton paddling a canoe, a skeleton having a shower, a skeleton lounging in a pool, and more where they came from. I’m prepared to document every one of them, and every questionable decision that got them there.
- Something else entirely. Hockey, perhaps (you’ve been warned). The mobile bookshop. Books I’ve loved. Whatever you’re curious about. If there’s something you’ve always wanted to ask me, here’s your chance.
Or, the cheat’s answer
Of course, you might say “all of it, please, just mix it up,” which is what I’d say in your shoes and is also, if I’m honest, what’s going to happen anyway. Nothing in my life stays in its own lane. A post about the vegetable garden will turn into a post about a cat sitting in the vegetable garden, which will turn into a scene in a book. That’s just how the house works.
But I’d still love to know what makes you lean in. What’s the bit you’d come back for?
About this poll
I’d like to put this to a proper vote. I say “I’d like to” because control of technological matters is not, regrettably, one of the things living rent-free in my head. It’s more of a short-term guest that keeps losing its key.
So, if I can work out how to do it, there’ll be a poll right here. If I can’t, there won’t be, and you’ll have to tell me in the comments like it’s 2009. Either way works for me. I just want to hear from you.
Pick one, pick several, or tell me I’ve missed the obvious. I’m all ears. And so, I suspect, are the cats.
From the Stationhouse, with the kettle on x
