Apple-Orgies

Highly contrite. I appear to have been ignoring the blog for some few months. No real excuse I'm afraid, I have simply been doing other things.

Okay, let's catch up a bit with the happenings, and lack of such, over the past half year or so.
Of most note, in a purely personal manner: My book at last, if it has not been put to bed, has taken a well earned rest with my agents in the States. Might even be placed on shelves before the decades end. Much heartache and nose picking went into that I'm afraid.

We have suffered through our normal cool season. A lovely time of year if the %@&!*#$ villagers here did not set fire to every blade of grass, leaf, twig, plastic bottle, rock, dead dog, cat, rat and old tyre in the region. All of which smoke is kept nicely close to the ground by our atmospheric inversion layer caused by the surrounding mountains. Dry racking coughs and teary eyes become the norm for a couple of months. This year was far better than any of the previous four. There was only one day when I was unable to breathe without pain or see without a constant wipe from an Optrex-soaked rag. (This may be the only city in the world where you occasionally see people walking around wearing diving masks during the season! Pity the scuba bottles weigh so much, or I'm sure they would be brought into use too.)

The pretty lady above joined our household in March. She shares her cage with her partner, who is believed to be a boy, and two pairs of brilliant rose-orange love birds. She is the only tame one amongst the group, and is very picky about whose attention she is willing to accept.