OK, enough with the kittens, already (I love the way Americans use “enough … already”, although I know it doesn’t sound the same in a British accent!)  No more boring you until I can report that both are suitably affectionate … which may be a very long time!  

The current book continues to progress, albeit at a very slow pace.  I’m going up to Scotland for a few days this week, and had hoped to have finished the draft before I went, but given that I’m only half way through Chapter 8, it doesn’t look as if that’s going to happen.  Keeping yourself too busy to think is all very well as a way of dealing with an emotional crisis, but it does have its limitations when you’ve a deadline to meet.  I’ve now filled my days with so many distractions it’s proving almost impossible to write!  

I’ve just had my best friend (she whose nose I broke last summer) staying for the weekend, which was the best of distractions, in spite of being a chapter of accidents.  She arrived limping after falling and hurting her knee, and I promptly responded by spending all of the next day with my head down the loo, victim of a truly horrible gastric bug whose details I will spare you.  Fortunately it just lasted 24 hours, and I was better in time to take Mungo to the vet with an ear infection.  However, we still managed to have a good time, and my toes are now beautiful, courtesy of a wonderful pedicure which is supposed to be the start of a new, better me.  I’ve been through a pale nail phase (champagne or crème brulée colours of choice) but I’m told this has to stop.  My new toes are tipped with Cherries in the Snow (“remember, this is the real you”) and I have to say they do look rather lovely and, yes, I do feel better for having a bit of colour back in my life.

Not only that, but she gave me a whole new plot for my next book over breakfast in Little Betty’s this morning (see what a good friend she is???)  I’m normally very dismissive of her ideas, but I had to concede the potential in this one.  I had to spoil it, though, by bleating on about emotional conflict, and was told briskly that it was my job to worry about that.  Which I will have to, I suppose – but before I do that I must write out what we decided this morning before I forget … another distraction!  Wonder if I will ever get back to Chapter 8?