If I was ever in any doubt, we now have proof that Mothball wombat is an animal of extreme intelligence and initiative.

As I mentioned last month she was a bit miffed at first that we built our extension over her hole in the bank behind my study. (A bit miffed means she chewed up the washing line. We now have a new washing line)

But then she realised: not only does the extension mean she now has a verandah over her hole, it also means that her hole no longer fills up with water whenever it rains - a side effect of Mothball's lack of any engineering talent whatsoever.

It's a myth that all wombats are great engineers. Either we have really dumb ones in this end of the valley, or most wombats are pretty clueless about dirt and building. Nearly every hole that's been dug here in the last thirty years has collapsed. Most wombats actually live in old holes - 10, 20, 100, 1,000 years old maybe, dug by the very few wombats who can manage one of those lovely long twisting tunnels that actually works.

They do renovations pretty often though, digging out collapsed tunnels and enlarging others. And they START dozens of holes: usually in the nice soft spot in the middle of the lawn or the rose garden. They like dust baths too: Mothball is particularly fond of the dust in my car shed, and has a lovely dust bath there most nights, which means my car is an interesting shade of dust as the dirt flies everywhere. Mothball is a very energetic bather.

Anyway, back to Mothball's hole behind my study: now that her hole is protected from the weather she's moved back into it. She dug out about three wheelbarrowloads of dirt outside my study door the first night and more after that. Mothball too is doing extensions.

It sounds like a happy ending: we get a new bedroom and Mothball gets a veranda. BUT:

Actually our extensions aren't finished. There's still another wall to go up - right in front of Mothball's hole (well, we thought she wasn't using it any more!).

Either we have to engineer a wombat hole extension in OUR extensions, or Mothball has to move.

Human versus wombat: will tell you who wins next month!

Books

Ooof... have almost finished writing ‘Golden Valley’: won't be out till next year though, so don't hold your breath. I THINK it works, but am always unsure about every book till it comes out and people say what they think of it.

So the most recent book is still ‘Ride the Wild Wind’, the stories about the history of horse and humans; and it's still selling wheelbarrowsful each week. (Not the same wheelbarrows filled with the fresh dirt from Mothball’s hole.) And ‘Blood Moon’, of course, the sequel to ‘In the Blood’, but I have no idea how that's doing because I haven't got round to asking. (I only really find out how books have done when I get the royalty statements six months later: even if a book's reprinted at once you don't know if 1,000 were reprinted or a million. No, I take that back. If it were a million I reckon the publishers would tell me. Or maybe not. You can never tell with publishers... )

But ‘The White Ship’ will be out this month. The cover is stunning, and the book: well, I desperately hope it works. It's one of those books which has wriggled into my heart and the story has been yelling at me to tell it for years. I hope I’ve done it justice. I think i have- it's one of those stories where I can't quite belive it was me that wroite it, and if i start reading it again I can't stop. But we'll see.

The White Ship is probably my 100th book (haven't really counted yet!). It came to me years ago, on an island up on the Great Barrier Reef at sunset, that moment when the sea was dark and the sky still red and on the horizon I was sure I could see sails, black against the sky.

I walked down to the beach every day after that, and each night it was there, just at the moment of sunset: the silhouette of an ancient sailing ship, poised between the day and the night.

So… ‘The White Ship’ was born. It's really two stories that come together.

One is the story of a sea captain at the time of the Saint Bartholomew Day’s massacre (when Catherine de Medici had the French Protestants murdered) who fills his ship with children and vows to keep sailing until he finds a world that is free from religious persecution.

The second story is about a girl on an island off the coast of Australia who sees the ship on the horizon each sunset, as I did. The White Ship has been sailing for four hundred years, but is tugged off its endless course when a boy on board hears the girl’s cries for help.

Phredde

And ‘Phredde and the Demon Duck of Doom’ has just been renamed ‘Phredde and the Leopardskin Librarian’, because Demon Duck of Doom sounds too much like the last Phredde book – ‘Phredde and the Temple of Gloom, or A Story to eat with a Mandarin’.

Phredde and the Leopardskin Librarian’ will be out in October - there's always a Phredde book about then, and I'm just beginning to plan the next one, which will be the sixth. (But we're running out of fruit, so any suggestions about what fruit to name the next one after will be grateully appreciated. If your whole class can agree on a piece of fruit and we choose it, I'll dedicate the book to you!)

Travel

This month I'll be giving talks at Nowra and Ulladulla, including one that's open to everyone at the Nowra Library (I think) on the night of Wednesday 15 May, and then to Charters Towers at the end of the month.

And also to the dentist again for yet another go at drilling a post into my jaw, to replace the tooth the dentist accidentally knocked out a couple of years ago and then.… but the least said about that the better. Just please cross your fingers for me that this works, because I'd really love to be able to bite into an apple again and give a talk without worrying that my temporary front tooth is going to fall out. (It has on a few occasions in the past two years; large reward offered to anyone who sees it and catches it!)

Help!!!!!!!

Sometimes when I answer letters the person I write to writes back again... and doesn't put their address on the letter!

I don't keep the letters I get or copies of the ones I answer: as I get many thousands of letters a year our house would be full of paper after about six months (we have to get rid of a large box of mail every week, sometimes a lot more).

So if I have written to you and you have written back and not received a reply, it may be because you didn't put your address on the letter.

And if Georgina Igoe is reading this: I don't have your address either!

Pen Friends

Haylee Tunks of 22 Cheswick Crescent, Hobart, tasmania 7030 would like any pen friends who like Jackie French books. She also loves wombats, (yay!) the bush and horseriding.

In the garden

The tree dahlias are out! Great shaggy purple things, about 6 metres high. They'll last till the first really big frost- another week or two of them would be stunning!

The cumquats are ripe- see below, and the limes just ripening, and we're picking the first of the new season's avocadoes and about three ripe kiwi fruit a week- most won't ripen for another month at least yet. the parrots are chewing into the pomegranates, but they look so lovely that I'm as happy to have parrots on the tree as pomegranates, and anyway it keeps them away from the lady Williamns and Sturmer Pippin and French crab apples that won't ripen for another month or two.

Just a few quinces left now and the medlars are fat and brown: I'll make jelly from them after the first frost, when they start to soften. Also ripe feijoas, which are great stewed with apple: look a bit dog turdish if you eat them fresh, but they're okay with your eyes closed.

And in the veg garden once again the cauliflowers that we let the caterpillars eat are just as big as the ones we dusted with diatomaceous earth to kill the caterpillars. As long as they are REALLY well fed the poor things will just grow more leaves: but they have to be REALLY well fed for this to work.

have also been pulling out plant 'failures' ie new plants that I grew to see how they did, and if they were actually as good as their advertising. (Too often newly imported plants are sold without being trialed in enough different areas in Australia to see how they do).

The pink arum lilies are a good example: they're white here in winter, not pink at all, and only pink for a short time before they die down in summer. Salvia 'weswue' that was supposed to be stunning had almost colourless petals that soon died to a messy looking brown; the so called purple elderberry that was supposed to have purple leaves doesn't even have a hint of purple, and the red kiwi fruit is dull old green. Am hauling out the new viola that was supposed to bloom all year round too: it's been in for three years and hasn't had a single flower yet!

Some companies are much worse than others at this, but I have a horrible feeling they'll sue me if I name them. But the lesson in all of this is: beware of all advertising, even in the world of gardening. It may not be a con (though it can be, like the supposedly genetically engineered mosquito repelling geranium: wasn't a geranium, wasn't genetically engineered and certainly did not keep mozzies out of the garden!)

But often plants are trialed in only one spot, and if your garden is hotter or colder or dryer or shadier, the plant may just not perform in the same way: the colours may vary, it may not flower as much, or it may just lay down it's little petals and say goodbye.