Days 11, 12, 13
Once we moved north and west, the weather cleared. The seas became calm, the skies blue. All a bit boring really.
I’ve spent the last three days eating, drinking, going to shows, having spa treatments, watching movies, sitting around the pool. In general, being totally pampered. I’m lacking sleep because there’s so much to do that I’m running from one thing to another, trying to fit as much in as I can before we dock tomorrow morning.
I’ll need a holiday to recover.

I'm home again and have found some things I'm having trouble getting used to again:

• I have to cook my own meals
• They aren't five course meals or presented a la carte
• I have to clean up after myself
• If I make a mess, it doesn't disappear when I leave the room for a couple of hours
• If I want a drink, no one will make it for me
• I go outside and there's no ocean
• I sit down and find myself rocking in time with the waves
• I no longer have a large library to work in. I'm back to my cluttered office

Other things I've found comforting:

• The bed doesn't move. When I lie down, I stay still
• My shower is large enough to turn around in without bumping my elbows
• I'm not in close quarters with 2000 other people

Now I have normal-speed internet again, I can post some photos. They're in date order so you can follow me around New Zealand and back again.

It was just a bare patch of hard-packed earth with a light dusting of fine gravel over it, my shoes crunching when I walked, the sound rippling across the hot ground. Overhead the cobalt sky faded to a soft baby blue at the horizon. The caw of invisible crows pierced the canopy of a nearby camphor-laurel tree and floated to me on the crisp spring breeze. I stared at that patch of ground and in my head I heard again the crack of bat on ball, the bark of a dog, delighted cries of children playing barefoot and dusty.

Every year Dad would pack my three sisters and me up for the four hour drive to Brisbane. The windows of the car would be down and the dusty wind whipped my hair across my face, stinging my cheeks and making my eyes water. The four hour trip often took longer than that. I suffered from travel sickness and we had to stop every half hour for me to get out and walk around until my stomach settled. No one minded the frequent stops – they had all experienced the alternative.


Our holiday never began straight away. I always needed the rest of the day sitting in one spot so my stomach would stop churning. The second day of the holiday we'd all walk down to the park. We stayed with my aunt and uncle and their family, so there was a tribe of us. We'd haul picnic baskets, blankets, bats and balls down the hill toward the river and set up under one of the huge jacaranda trees dotted over the lawn. By the end of the summer, the grass was patchy, the hard-packed dirt showing through.

Off to one side of the round picnic area, regulars had tamped out a rectangular patch of gravelly dirt as a cricket pitch. 

As I stood there, staring at the bare dirt in front of me, those days came rushing back. I felt again, the hot summer sun baking the back of my neck, the glare of the light glinting of the river, the smell of fresh-cut grass and newly dropped dog poo. The air is again scented with the innocent sweat of children, and the sounds of them chasing dogs and balls then flopping onto the blankets to suck thirstily at water bottles.

I've been on holiday and out of phone/internet contact so I haven't seen any reviews for Ordinary People until today. I haven't unpacked or anything yet, but I'm online. What does that tell you about my priorities?

Sandra @ my Fiction Nook wrote a lovely review. I'm so glad she got the humour in the story. She said it was 'cute and snarky fun' and had her 'giggling more often than not'. She got it that the romance had to stay a slow burn because of James's job and his connection to Vinnie's case. Check out her complete review at the link above. 

Other reviews float words like 'quirky', 'adorable', 'sweetly eccentric'. Find them on Goodreads. 

I've also been on holiday. Aboard ship there's no phone connection, pay-per-minute internet, and too many things to do. We sailed from Brisbane up the Queensland coast to Airlie Beach, Yorkeys Knob and Port Douglas, and saw some fantastic things.

Now I need to sleep for a few hours before getting back to real life.  

I'll post more photos below.