In limbo

Here I am, waiting for feedback from two writer friends on the second draft of my new novel. I have cleared the boring admin tasks in my in-tray, tidied my desk, dusted my study, cleaned several windows inside and out (what?), and am half way through washing the kitchen floor - a job that Dave usually does when we are expecting visitors.  I am halfway through it because Dave and his dirty feet came home when I was in the middle of the job. He's out today and I have an empty house and rain is threatened so I will finish the job and then perhaps do some sewing, or I might clear out some of my mother's old papers that have been sitting in a suitcase under the bed since she died, nine years ago. Actually I think that latter job is a step too far. Ooh, just remembered, Liz is coming later - that will be nice!

Since I've been in limbo, the weather has been kind enough for me to get back on the slackline after two years off it. I mowed a strip in the lawn around it so my bare feet don't get so cold and wet. My record of steps on it before the break was 13. I got up to six this week.

Here is an old photo for those of you who don't know about me and my slackline. It's low slung, because it's the balance I'm interested in, not the height. Anyway - come on - I'm in my late sixties, what do you expect?

I've also just read Midwinter Break by Bernard MacLaverty, a book you could describe as pianissimo. I enjoyed it, but not so much that I would recommend it to all my friends, as I have been doing with Kent Haruf's Our Souls at Night. And I am just a tidgy bit put out that MacLaverty has two quotes in his novel that I also have in mine - and I wrote mine before I read his. 

But the best news is that improvising on my sax has become good fun, and it continues to improve, so that Mel, my teacher, was delighted with my progress last lesson.