Sighted at our front gate this morning. Pretending that it's quite okay for him to be nibbling on the shrubs, given the cuteness factor.

Labels: Australian life, my everyday life

Watched the Golden Globes telecast tonight, along with half a billion others. How they know how many are watching? Nobody's ever asked me what I watch.

GG's is my favourite awards show, I think, if only because it's the first of the year. By the time the Academy Awards come around, the winners are a given. Plus, TV is included. And no performances, which I can do without. Well, apart, from the occasional comic presenter who decides to go off-script. Some get it right -- Ricky Gervais, beer in hand -- and some don't. But then I guess Sasha Baron Cohen always goes for the cringe rather than the laugh.

No palaver, just the awards and the frocks and OMG-handsome in dinner suits (I am quite the fan of sophisticated dressers) and most of the A-listers looked as though they might be enjoying themselves. Well, sure, they're actors. This has not escaped my attention. But they're at tables with Moet and table-hopping like mad. I imagine who you're seen talking to matters as much who you talk to.

High points:

* Anna Paquin winning for True Blood. (She's Sookie Stackhouse, right?)

* The standing ovation for Heath Ledger's supporting actor win (big lump in throat, still)

* Multiple wins for Slumdog Millionaire, including best movie

* Kate Winslet winning twice, despite her unfortunate second speech

* Not a Mickey Rourke fan but admire a genuine comeback and man loves his dogs (always earns bonus points)

* The Irish-accented erm -- or is that airrm? -- as featured in Colin Farrell's speech. And his suit. Man looked almost as good as he sounded.

* Sandra Bullock, funny without trying

* White is the new black. Eva Mendez, Kate Beckinsale and Sandra Bullock looked amazing as did Selma Hayek and Penelope Cruz in off-white

* Cameron Diaz looked amazing in pink

Movies I now want to see: Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Happy-Go-Lucky, and (of course) Slumdog Millionaire, which Anne Gracie had already insisted I must see.

The question I was left pondering: who decides who sits closest to the stage and who gets the seats way up the back? Because, damn, they must have some egos to tread eggshells around.

Labels: Award Shows, Colin Farrell, Golden Globes, my everyday life, TV

I have just taken down the Christmas tree. That was about ten minutes work, when it took maybe ten times that to put it up and decorate it just so. A bit like the Christmas gifts. Hours spent wrapping ever so carefully and tying with pretty ribbon and bows...which is all ripped off in a matter of seconds. And this year I didn't even take a photo!

Always feel a bit sad about taking down the tree--it's like the end of a special time, and back to the ordinary everyday. Although the way the years are flying lately it'll be Christmas again before I turn around and sneeze. And now I have the coffee table back (where the tree sat this year) for useful things. Like coffee. One of my gifts this year was various accoutrements for the coffee machine I got for my birthday last year. A grinder, steamer jug, milk frother and some lovely, lovely beans. I swear I'd be addicted to the aroma of freshly ground, even if I didn't love the coffee itself!

Am also back at work, and after a break between Christmas and New Year I am all invigorated (perhaps that's the caffeine, hmm.) Most unusual for me. Usually when I've taken time off, I find it very hard to get started again. Especially when it's 40 degrees outside -- that's centrigrade, we're talking 100 F hot -- and others in my house are in holiday mode.

But yesterday, pages, good pages, and I think this is because I love this heroine. Chessie is fun, an optimist with a smart mouth who loves winding up the poor hero. My concern at this point is that I'm having so much fun with Chessie, she might be overpowering the hero on the page and we can't have that. Not in Desire. So, today's goal is to ensure that Justin remains on his game.

Also, am teaching at the moment. My first on-line workshop, with the very awesome Anne Gracie, and that is both an enjoyable and an inspiring and motivating experience.

And reading? Better late than never, I've hopped into a Christmas read. The Christmas Getaways anthology by Anne Stuart, Tina Leonard and Marion Lennox. Love that the three novellas are closely linked, with the same suspense plotline and linked characters running through the three. Have finished Anne's story; loved it. Anyone else read this one?

Labels: Anne Stuart, Christmas, Christmas Getaways, Marion Lennox, my everyday life, Tina Leonard

Happy New Year!!!

I'm not one for resolutions, but I am one for starting out a new year the way I wish to continue. Thus I have spent the first 2 days of 2009 with my family, catching up on the important home stuff, and planning my calendar/schedule for the year. One of the things I have written in as a weekly task is my blog, which I'm afraid has been sadly neglected many times during 2008. I considered dropping it because nothing worse than a boring/nothing happening blog. Then decided, no, I like having somewhere to talk about nothing in particular (self-indulgent, much) and so for the time being I shall continue. Starting now with my first of many lists for this year.

My Best of 2008 (and by best, I mean most entertaining/enjoyable/meaningful to me.)

Best book: Sugar Daddy, by Lisa Kleypas

Best movie: Juno

Best TV: no new series grabbed me, my best TV was via the World Movies channel

Best moment: #2 son turning 21 after many doubts along the way; also seeing our horse race in 4 Group 1 finals

Best writing moment: release of Diamonds Down Under series

Best event: Harlequin party, San Francisco

Best location: The Sand Bar, Honolulu, en route to RWA in San Francisco with friends

Best shopping experience: the outlet malls, see above

Best purchase: love my leather jacket AND my red laptop bag

Best thing I did for myself: upgrade to business class for the return trip (otherwise the excess luggage charges would have bankrupted me!)

Labels: best of 2008, my everyday life

1. When a popular musical comes to your country theatre for a strictly limited season, book early.
2. Entertainment with mass appeal knows exactly how to target its audience.
3. Playing to the cliches works; they are cliches because they're truths.
4. Universal truths carry powerful emotional resonance, even when those truths are hot flushes, night sweats, forgetfulness, slow thinking, sagging bits, wrinkles, and mothers' little helpers.
5. There is nothing wrong with using archetypes as shorthand to establish character.
6. A theatre full of middle aged women creates considerable warmth.
7. Laughing at yourself is good.
8. Laughing at yourself along with several hundred other women is even better.
9. Some men are very brave...they laughed, too.
10. At the end of the day, it's attitude that counts. We should never forget that we're all smart, sexy women no matter our age, size, shape or perceived status.

Labels: girlfriends, live theatre, Menopause the Musical, my everyday life

An old favourite from Black Books but I laugh every time I watch/hear it and, kid you not, I needed the laugh. (BTW, tried doing the proper upload and keep getting error message, haven't time to spend fiddling, have a vaccuum cleaner to replace . Question, rhetorical: why do electrical appliances always die right when you need them yesterday???)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU4S2BIqoHY

Labels: my everyday life, writing process, YouTube

Have been watching the spring racing carnival (racing = horse racing; carnival = Melbourne.) Two things that tickled me. The first is, during betting updates, the references to "top-flight" money. Example: the racing desk crosses to smickly dressed bookmaker for an update and bookmaker says, "all the top-flight money is for Cinderella Deal." Who knew some money was better than the rest?

Second thing that caught my eye is a set of racing colours or silks. Owners have their own registered design, a combination of colours and patterns, worn by the jockey. Some use a logo. Some are quite plain. The owners of a mare named Absolutelyfabulous decided on distinctive. Their colours are designed to look like a tuxedo or dinner suit. Wish I had a picture, but I don't, so take a look at this picture and imagine with black sleeves and sides, white down the centre front. And a black bow tie at the neck. I kid you not.

If you owned a racehorse, what colours would you put your jockey in?

Labels: Australian life, my everyday life

My first five or six years as a romance author I managed to avoid local promotion. No big book signings for me. I was happy retaining the status quo, remaining who I was in my local community, a small town where I was born and educated, and which I returned to after I married a local (not quite boy-next-door, but almost.)

Bronwyn Jameson wasn't a secret identity -- I told anyone who asked. Friends, neighbours and the nosy knew I'd become a romance-writing hermit. I rejected several approaches by local media who heard on the grapevine, mostly because they wanted to come and take pictures at my writing desk, which would involve much tidying and cleaning. No thanks.

In 2006 I took a deep breath, swallowed some nerves, and agreed to a national radio interview. Might be fun, I thought, to see the inside workings of a radio studio. Fodder for a future story even. Plus, special bonus, no cleaning was involved AND I scored a trip to Sydney. (I may be a country girl, but I do enjoy an occasional foray to the big city.)

So, there I was, all ready for a lovely chat with a lovely radio man. Except the morning I was booked happened to be the morning that two miners who'd been trapped underground for five days were found alive. Who wanted a puff piece on a romance author when hard news was breaking?

Waste of time, I thought, never again.

A year later I must have been caught at a weak moment because I agreed to my first local newspaper article. In the newspaper office, not in my home. I found the cutting during my recent clean-up. They ran this photo full page colour on the front page of the magazine section. I am saving it as proof that I was a cover girl, once. LOL.

Labels: Bronwyn Jameson, my everyday life, promotion

The title of this post is superfluous. Once you read the post you will realise this, but I had to call it something. Didn't want to say, More About The Garden, lest you get the wrong idea. I am not the gardener in my family. I weed and water when I have to, fill the holes when things die (as they do) and enjoy sitting and admiring the view from the verandah. But anyway, this is about the garden. Again. And the irises.

I was pretty damn excited when the first iris came out. So excited I took photos. This was impressive. And blue according to my mother, the expert, who dug up the bulbs from her garden and planted them in mine because she was selling her house and one day she would want to dig some up and replant in her new garden.

(I would call them mauve or lilac, but what do I know?)

Anyway, more have since bloomed in a range of colours. White and blush (to steal from Steel Magnolias) and apricot and deep purple. My mother has given me little plastic stakes with the colour written on them in texta--waterproof, I hope--and I have to stake them so she will know which colour she is digging up when the time comes for digging up. My mother is very organised and forward-thinking.

I was thinking she could probably dig them all if she wants. Because as lovely as they are, I've decided that they aren't really me or my garden. They're a bit like city sophisticates slumming it in the sticks. I'm more emotionally invested in my rosemary and lavender and hardy groundcovers--the seaside daisies and convolvulus with their pretty little flowers that don't wilt at the first sign of a heatwave and which survive drought and frost and rampaging dogs.

They're hardy beasts. Fighters. Survivors. I was going to say they're me, but those descriptions aren't me. They are my gardening style, however, because of those very qualities.

How about you? Are you a gardener? If so, what is your style?

Labels: gardening, my everyday life

For those who don't have spring flowers to enjoy at the moment--I have irises, in mauve and deep purple, pure white, the tenderest pink, and a rich apricot--then here is your own spring flower garden to enjoy without even leaving your computer. Click and enjoy. I'm off to water, since it hasn't rained again. :-(

Labels: Australian life, my everyday life

As a season, spring distracts me more than any other. In winter, it's perfect to sit inside all warm and cosy in front of the computer. In summer, same deal but with air-conditioning. Our autumns come with dust and wind; but spring brings green and sunshine and a sense of regeneration. A perfect fertile time for the imagination, for story-building, for thoughts of romance: all true. But it takes mighty willpower to spend these perfect days at a computer, lost in someone else's world when this one -- the real world -- is at its best.

In spring I'm drawn to walk, to garden, to do anything that is an excuse to be outdoors. There is also the distraction of spring sport events. Our football finals for example, both Australian Football and rugby league, take place late in September. See what I mean?

Then there is the horse-racing. Have I mentioned that I am a complete fangirl of beautiful glossy athletic horses? And spring brings out Australia's best, all leading up to our Melbourne Cup on the first Tuesday in November.

Spring also means birth, and although we aren't expecting any foals this year we do have plenty of lambs. We have one more than we might have done this week. A pair of wedge-tail eagles took up residence on our property a couple of years back. Magnificent birds, but their stocks took a dive last week (much like all stocks, but that's another story) when they decided on lamb for dinner. Not a small newborn but a guy this size ====+=>>>>>

Luckily my husband noticed and rescued the poor traumatized fellow who, fingers crossed, will pull through. (Don't you love a happy ending? And a hero who is all cool and capable?)

Another spring distraction that is no fun at all is the angry buzz of cropdusting planes. They are spraying for aphids and heliothis in neighbours' canola crops, some days three of them working together. A sure way to shatter the spring ambience.

Labels: Australian life, farm, my everyday life

People say I favour my mother. I guess there is a *slight* resemblance.

Labels: family, my everyday life

Never thought I'd say this, but I spent a good deal of time in August and September cleaning. Not just run-of-the mill cleaning but preparation-for-a-party cleaning, which involved every room of the house, cupboards, pantries, fridges. Because you never know where a guest may stumble in search of a bathroom or a cup of coffee or barbecue tongs, and once I started the job snowballed. Like, cleaning the carpets showed up every mark on the walls and cleaning out one cupboard showed up its neighbour. For me this scale of cleaning (okay, I admit, ANY cleaning!) is such a rare occurrence that son #3 took photos. Notice that I am not posting them here. Don't want anyone to get the wrong idea; things are now back to normal.

Party preparations extended far beyond cleaning. There were invitations to be made and addressed. A memory book of photos and milestones, of big occasions and simple moments, to be put together. A menu divised, drinks ordered, entertainment booked. This was #2 son's 21st birthday; a big occasion for a child we agreed was lucky to make 21. We decided on the theme "Forever Young" and the guests included some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Wiggles, B1 and B2, Snow White and Prince Charming, Woody from Toy Story and assorted other young things.

Party was a big success and we've only recently finished the leftovers. Drinks will take a little longer. (Over-cater...who me?) The good news is, not more spring-cleaning until next spring...or next party.

Labels: my everyday life

My husband trains and races horses. Not professionally, but as a hobby and sanity-saver. Last year, after some encouragement, he bought a beautiful filly at the yearling sales...and lay awake for weeks worrying about her and the expense. At Christmas, his gift to me was part-ownership...and a brush to keep her well-groomed and spiffy.

This year she raced, quite successfully, which involved many trips to racetracks far and wide and even some lovely afternoons spent in owners' marquees. Great fun, and another reason I had less time to keep up with my blog.

Right now Jenna is enjoying a spell; just as well as I have a book to write and she is a huge distraction.

Labels: my everyday life

Phew. Excellent. I hate cobwebs, mostly because of the possibility of lurking spiders. Shudder. As far as bone-chilling moments go, walking into a cobweb in a darkened garden is right up there at the top of my list. I know you all see me as calm, serene, together (cough), but believe me when I say that occurrence reduces me to a quivering, shaking, screaming (there must be spiders, I can FEEL them, get them OFF me!!!)

But this post is not about spiders, although it is about another of my pet fears. Dentists. I have a new dentist. She came highly recommended and all the recommends were spot on; she is lovely. Yet as I sat trembling in her chair, trying to explain in a thickened, quavering voice, my illogical fear (no real reason, no traumatic childhood events, just the sound of a drill sends me into nightmarish cold sweating terror), this made no difference. She might as well have been wearing a Freddy Kreuger mask and claws.

Anyway, this is one of those many reasons I haven't felt like blogging. First there was the post-conference lurgy, a rotten heavy headcold that would not go away. Only good thing about that; I curled up with a few good books (more to come). Then, the toothache. At first a dull not-quite-an-ache that I tried to ignore because, well, acknowledging it meant dentist. If I kept busy with physical work -- gardening, cleaning, more to come -- then I could forget it was there. Sitting at the computer, not so easy to ignore.

Eventually it got so I couldn't ignore the tooth. Lovely new dentist looked, tapped, prodded, xrayed, hmmed worryingly -- but nicely and non-judgmentally, which goes to show what a lovely dentist she is -- and then she gave me the bad news. One tooth is past redemption but she couldn't pull it out. Off to day surgery for that one. Its neighbour is worth saving but it was off to the endodontist with that one.

First visit yesterday went as well as anything involving the words root and canal can go. Endodontist has an awesome view of the Sydney skyline. She also dispensed plenty of medication, necessary she said, as she hmmed worryingly. Two hours later she decided that she couldn't turn a three-visit treatment into two visits, which she'd hoped she might do seeing as I have a 5 hr drive each way. 6 hrs, I discovered, when you leave Sydney in peak hour.

Today my tooth is no longer hurting and I am not rueing the long drive and the ouchy needles and the almost-as-ouchy bill.

So, what is your pet fear? What makes you, illogically and irrationally, lose it?

Labels: fears, my everyday life