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Jackie's May message continued . . . Help!!!!! I'm getting a whole host of mail with no return addresses!!! (If anyone knows Bridget Mattingly or Katherine Nicholson of Adelaide in particular, please ask them to send me their address!) I receive anywhere from 5- 50 letters a day ( 34 to answer in today's mail)- my fingers are just about falling off as it is...which means I don't keep all the letters I answer (there wouldn't be room for us in the house if i did) and I don't kjeep a note of addresses either- there's just no way I could keep up with it! Which means that even if I have read your story and adored it, I may well have received six stories by someone called Emma over the past month...and I won't be able to remember the surname of all of them...and certainly not the addresses! So if you've written to me and you are under 18- (I try to answer the mail from adults too, but sometimes it's just impossible) and I haven't answered- please write again!!!!! With an adddress and surname!!!!!!! (It's best to put the address on the letter too, as the envelopes are thrown out when the letters are placed in the tottering 'answer' pile.) What else...clear sky so the batteries are charging, just cold enough to keep the fires going, the valley having those totally still blue and sunlight autumn days, and the autumn leaves are just sitting on the trees, till a shiver of wind sends them slowly down. The sort of days when it's very hard to leave the valley, but I accidentally accepted three invitations this month, instead of one, all of which will be fun (Bendigo for a conference at La trobe, Sydney Writers Festival, and Bega)...but I wish I could ask the valley just to stay still while I'm away, so I don't miss any of it. (Large hunks of winter, on the other hand, I can happily do without). Have just finished Phredde and the Temple of Gloom-another adventure about a Phaery named Phredde (and Pru and Bruce) containing:
6,782 fairies (Sorry! Phaeries!) It'll be out in November... am also planting more bok choi, as just about the only veg that'll grow here in winter; plus another twenty or so types of fruit trees, many of which will die in the frosts but some won't..and as none of them are suposed to tolerate ANY frost it'll be interesting to see what lives and what doesn't..and which frost damage preventiion techniques work best. Also the avocadoes are ripe,...and the limes...and the oranges fading from dark green to light green, and the starwberry guavas ripe too, and the pomegranates (made grenadine syrup with about half of them..the rosellas are tucking into the rest- got their beaks into it outside my study window as I write this)...and life is pretty good actually. Wouldn't mind another 500 years like this at all.
All best wishes,
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