Another Tuesday

Tuesday:

I meant to get out to the park, I really did. But the weather turned a bit gloomy in the afternoon so I knuckled down and worked at home in my comfy armchair and got some really good editing done. My goal is to get that finished by the end of this week, which coincides with the kids' end of school term. I'm scribbling changes on a hard copy print-out, so I'll still need to type them up, but that is easier than the thinking creative work I've been doing. It's nearly done, and polished, and a reasonable approximation of as good as it's going to get! It's been a long process, even not counting 40 years of practice. Over a year of writing, then a long break due to life happening, then about a year of rewriting and editing and polishing.

Then the scary bit, looking for a publisher.

I spent some time this morning dealing with issues about our planned swimming pool. It's those damn trees. The council decided one big tree right in the middle of the backyard has to stay, there is also a protected zone around it so that is most of the backyard blocked. They sent a suggested revised plan with the pool squashed down one side. The rest of the yard would remain wild scrub, I guess; full of lizards (nice) and spiders (not nice), under the tree constantly dropping leaves and branches (Australian gum trees like to drop branches with no warning, and although they are evergreen (ever-grey more like) they drop leaves all year round), not great for a pool. Or a pretty garden or lawn or seating around a bird bath. We had to get a big gum tree lopped at our old place in Canberra because it dropped a big branch on our neighbour's roof and broke some tiles. It is not a particularly nice tree either, it's not the one I thought we were going to have to keep. So I've been in conversation with our pool people, I told them about the bushfire protection rule which seems to allow us to remove the tree anyway because it is close to the house and we are in a bushfire-prone area. They haven't confirmed yet. It's a bit of a worry, but I guess we'll work with whatever we have, even if it ends up being a little plunge-pool in one corner. That would be sad though. I feel like we have a completely unusable back yard at the moment. None of us have been out there for ten months except to plan the pool! The kids need a backyard they can play in.