Bloody hell, great title for a novel. I suspect I might use that someday. But don't talk to me about teeth. Double groan ... Lord H & I had our regular tooth doctor appointment today, and this time I have to have four fillings done and they're worried about my bleeding gums. This after having no fillings last time and perfect gums. I am doing nothing differently!!! They think it might be to do with the HRT I'm on - even though I've only been on it five minutes and, really m'dears, one's boobs are no bigger than they were before. Sadly. Good to know that in the future, when I'm a hundred-and-bleeding-twenty, I shall be able to have a baby (God forbid!) but won't be able to converse with it as I shall have no teeth. Bloody big sigh, eh ...

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Word counts. Can’t live with ‘em…I’ve always had a bit of a problem with the old word counts, rarely managing a short story at the designated 3,000 words, and now it looks as though my latest novel is going to be somewhere in the region of 200,000.

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As part of the Allan Cunningham Project we are following in the footsteps of our tenacious Botanist. Our first adventure outside of the Sydney metropolitan area took place some time ago. We visited the Glenroy Camping Ground, just a little way from Hartley, west of Katoomba in the Blue Mountains.

Glenroy was the site of a military station set up to guard the original western road later known as the Old Bathurst Road. I assume the soldiers, guarding the road, were protecting the colonial invaders from the local Gundungurra tribe who's territory extended from the Blue Mountains at Hartley and Lithgow through the Burragorang.

Many of the early colonial explorers and scientists passed through this area. Allan Cunningham set up camp at Glenroy several times. The first time was in 1817 when he was part of John Oxley's exploration party headed west to trace the course of the Lachlan River, a journey full of privation through bogs and scrub that ruined the health and shortened the life of all involved.

After we parked our car, we tried to walk down to the Coxs River but the whole area was fenced off with barbed wire fences, locked gates and signs saying private property. One sign said "Danger". We couldn't get close enough to read it, however the black bull lazing in the sun nearby gave us a hint.

There was a bridge across the river but we couldn't risk walking on to it as it had no shoulder. The fence of the bridge butted right up on the two lane tarmac road. To make matters more difficult and more dangerous, very large semi-trailers were speeding across the bridge, going backward and forward. In the short time we were at the camping ground we would have seen at least 10 trucks barrelling along. We assumed there must have been some serious roadworks going on, further up the road.

John was inspired to write a little ditty after our lack luster attempt to walk in the steps of our protagonist.

GLENROY
by John Challenor

Glenroy, what a failure
There were semi trailer after semi trailer

We went down to see the river
But because of the trucks we couldn't deliver

There was another hurdle that confronted us too
A barbed wire fence we couldn't get through

And even if we did, there was a bull in our face
and being tired and hot we definitely would have lost that race.

We took photos of the Memorial which celebrated the first church service west of the Blue Mountains, on April 20, 1815, attended by no less than Governor Macquarie himself. The land, the memorial stands on, was donated to the public and is the only piece of land that is easily accessible. Nearby, within the accessible area,were the stumps of two recently felled trees. As the searing Australian sunshine beat down on our heads, it seemed a shame that the trees would no longer give the traveller shade as they read the memorial plaque and contemplated the past. We sensibly retreated to our air conditioned car.

A sign, on the locked gate, supplied a telephone number (02 6355 2186) for enquiries. It was the phone number for the Glenroy Cottages described as "a magnificent historical rural property overlooking the Coxs River in Hartley, where you can enjoy warm and friendly hospitality in country style cottages with luxurious interiors in a bush setting overlooking tranquil river pools".

We hope to return to Glenroy another time when we will be able to call the owners of the property and request permission to take some photos and walk down to the river. We may even have a "wild" swim in the spirit of Roger Deakin, the writer and environmentalist, who wrote the wonderful book "Waterlog", about a journey across Britain taking a swim in every rock pool, river, mountain tarn and open-air swimming pool encountered on the way.

I've read, up the hill from the road, there are some ruins of the military station that once guarded the road and there is a grave stone, marking a colonial burial ground. We will be better prepared next time.

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Was delighted to find that my interview with Chroma Journal is now online under the 19 December 2007 heading - the first one at the top at the moment. My, how normal I look, and how mad I sound. So no changes there then ... And thank you so much to Liam and Eric from Chroma for arranging it. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience ... (please click on full post to read interview)

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The subject of favourite books/films/best of the year things has come up a number of times recently so I thought I'd list mine here.

Here goes...


Book of the Year for Adults: Something Beginning With, Sarah Salway.

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Rustling through a box of books in my parents’ house, I came across an old friend, a small slim volume with a distinctive modernist black and white cover. I remember how I found it in a sale at university and opening it up in the middle and the text jumping out at me: for it was so familiar and yet I had never read it before. It was Beckett, it was Python, it was modern, it was FUNNY. And yet it was written before all these things and I’d never heard of it before.

The book was Princess Ivona by Polish writer, Witold Gombrowicz, acknowledged as one of the masters of European literature. The publisher was “Calder and Boyars.”

When I spoke to Catheryn Kilgarriff, Marion Boyars’ daughter, I asked her more about the incredible history of her publishing house and she talked candidly about her flamboyant mother, the struggle she faced from the mountain of debt left after her mother’s death and why she spent most of this year’s Frankfurt Book Festival hiding in the toilets!

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The list is in two parts. Part one is here.

Keep scrolling.

No, I mean, really keep scrolling.

A bit more.

Just a leetle bit more.

Whoa. Yep. There it is. The Gentle Axe. Picked out by a gentleman of evident good taste, by the name of Tom Nolan. Thank you, Mr Nolan.

Still time to get it delivered in time for Christmas, though according to Amazon UK there's only one left in stock.

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Ye gods, but I have worked like a dog today. A dog with a particularly difficult owner and no chance of a bone. My noble attempts to get the minutes done this morning were thwarted by the Professor worrying about bids and deadlines, and by the Registry wanting me to collate online documents into neat packages so they could worry about them in smaller chunks. Which I did whilst staring blearily at the computer screen and wishing my reading glasses were here already. Honestly, I think I'm going to invest in some matchsticks to keep my eyes open. And functioning ...

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A couple of revelations this week. Firstly, someone I met yesterday asked me what I did and for the first time I said, with no hesitation, "I'm a writer". Not "Well, I used to be a journalist, but now, well, um, I write fiction, I'm trying to... um". Just straight: "I am a writer". Felt very good.

Second, I have been beating myself up for the past six months about not being able to write "full-length" short stories, i.e. anything over 1000 words (4 pages or so). Ever since my book deal in June, I have felt blocked on this front and I was despairing. However, I have been writing flash stories, under 500 words, loads of them. I've written at least 30 in the last 6 months........

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Love the cold mornings and boy hasn't it been cold these past days. Managed to do some Xmas shopping again today so nearly ready. Have been trying to write a flash for Porspero's 60th birthday and the challenge. Almost finished but will not be as wicked as Y'vonne's which is great.