back, sort of

Current work: had planned to work on revisions, but I'm not quite up to it
Listening to: Bach violin concerti
Reading: Nicola Cornick – Confessions of a Duchess and Scandals of an Innocent (both very enjoyable and just what I needed to take me out of things)

Apologies for my continued absence (and for worrying people). Apart from sorting out things for the funeral, I’ve also been laid low by another lurgy. I hadn’t stopped coughing from the one I had more than a month ago, so whether this is just a worsening of that one or another one on top of it, I have no idea. My GP says I have croup and am clearly brewing something as, despite judicious use of paracetamol, I still have a temperature. I hurt all over (from coughing), my throat feels as if someone’s scrubbed it with wire wool, and the cough means I’m getting sleep in chunks of an hour or two before a coughing fit wakes me up. I’m just hoping that the antibiotics will sort it before Wednesday, because I absolutely cannot cough my way through church. I have a eulogy to deliver, and it’s very, very, VERY important to me.

Tomorrow is rushing round sorting things out: aka car service, dropping cards in to the florist for laminating and attaching to wreath, taking a pile of parcels to the post office, and doing my Christmas shopping (now my royalty cheque has finally arrived with my agent and I can flex my credit card, knowing that I will be solvent again before the bill comes in. One downside of being self-employed is that your income stream is neither regular nor predictable).

And then, on the work front, Wednesday is the Harlequin ‘Open House’ party. I am going to do my best to show my face and sound cheerful. It isn’t fair to readers who enjoy the annual bash to go in being all mopey, even though Wednesday will cut me to the bone. And if you want to mosey along, here’s the link to the publicity about it and there will be links there to the parties. Lots of authors (including me) are offering books as prizes, and the hosties are usually great.

Thank you to everyone who’s emailed me privately with good wishes, or left me messages here or on FB, or sent cards. It’s really appreciated. (And apologies to those I've worried by not replying - unintentional, just am not my usual organised self right now.) I guess as I’ve lost my father gradually over the last couple of years, I’ve had time to do much of my grieving already. But it’s the little things that make me cry now. The odd phrase, a snatch of music… ‘The look of a room on returning thence.’ I couldn’t read that Hardy poem in my eulogy. It’d break me, and I want to do my father proud and not cry my way through it. My aim is to make everyone remember the good bits, and to make them laugh through their tears: because that’s what he would want.