This is going to be a bits and pieces blog, today. I hope you can cope with the “collage effect”, but that’s how my brain’s working these days.

Re the “book”: An agent has asked to read the whole manuscript. They liked the sample I sent them; said my “writing was strong” and they’d “warmed to the main character”. I’m trying to remain cool, calm and collected but the hamster on the excitement wheel in my head, is pedalling away like a mad fool. Fingers and toes crossed for a positive outcome next year. If she agrees to represent me, I can get on with writing the rest of the saga while she does the job of finding me a publisher. (oh please, oh please, oh please…)

Re recent activity: Two days ago I spent a morning with a friend on the back of a motor-trike touring the Barossa Valley, dressed up like bandits and alternating between sheer joy and sheer terror. It was her idea of a birthday party and I was the sole guest for the ride. We finished the morning by having lunch with our husbands at Jacob’s Creek Winery: gourmet pizza and chocolate petit fours, mmmmm. It wasn’t the first time I’d been a passenger on a bike. (I have fond memories of a Harley ride in California in the 70s, but that’s another story for another day.) However, being perched up high on a seat, above the rider and open to the wind, is a different ballgame to riding pillion, safely tucked away. My arms are still throbbing in unexpected places. I think they were strained by all the grim hanging-on in fear of my life. hahaaaaahahaaaa. It was fantastic!

I realised, again, how blessed I am to live in such a beautiful part of the world, with time to have fun, good fresh food to share with friends and the opportunity to delight in being alive. Having time for fun and joy is a luxury most of us in the Western world take for granted. We don’t have to spend all our waking hours walking to and from the nearest water supply, or trying to eke out an existence picking through a city’s rubbish heaps. As part of our Christmas giving this year, we’re contributing to a TEAR fund to provide a well for a village. There are a number of agencies that have similar schemes. Why not check them out?

Re the Big C: the CT scans were all clear. It seems the cancer may be confined to one small, though painful, spot in my left ribs. However, this has the specialist slightly bemused as returning breast cancer doesn’t usually act so shy and self-restrained. (I didn’t tell him my teeth-baring-fist-waving-pants-hitching challenge had probably scared it into submission, but I thought it.) I’m having a lung biopsy next Thursday; they will draw off some of the fluid that’s nestling in the bottom part of my left lung. This will, hopefully, provide a definitive answer re what sort of cancer we’re dealing with. Then I’ll have a few (I repeat, a FEW) doses of radiotherapy and then it’ll be back to “normality” for as many years as possible. This is all good news.

There’s one more week until Christmas but I reckon, with the week I’ve just had, Santa came early to my house. I hope he’s as kind to you.