Well hello, reader! I do apologise for the delay in adding another blog post but it has been a busy four days. Today things are back to normal and I’m catching up with chores, emails, promotion etc. so I thought I should let you know what’s been happening in my world. Lots.
Good Friday
We had cooking and preparation to do for two parties over the weekend. Then at midday we went to our lovely little church for the three hour Easter Vigil service. Both Mum and I read aloud as we followed six characters in the Easter story. I read a Gospel reading about Pontius Pilate and a Psalm for the story of Caiaphas and Mum read two closing prayers. It was a solemn, quiet, meditative service and it was lovely to be part of it.
At around 5pm I took a carload of things over to Lucas’s farm for the party the next day. We examined everything in detail, footprints, bags, dino eggs, dino dig, volcanoes, bone bowling, pin the tooth in the T-rex’s mouth etc. and he was so excited he kept jumping up and down. I’d made chocolate-chip cupcakes with vanilla frosting and chocolate dinosaurs on them, so I took those over then.
Easter Saturday
Up early and off to the supermarket for bread and last minutes things I’d forgotten, then made dinosaur shaped sandwiches in peanut butter and cheese.
Today was the day of the three birds. Whilst I was in the shower Chloe (the cat) brought me in a little present, a finch, we call them white-eyes. It was perfect, but dead. I couldn’t bring myself to put it in the rubbish so I buried it deep in the garden and said a little prayer. When I came home from the supermarket I found Chloe had brought me another little bird, exactly the same, but with less feathers and a little open head surgery. This one I did put in the rubbish. When I came back into my room after making the sandwiches, I found another little bird, this one had had open chest surgery so it went in the bin too. I can’t be angry with her, she’s doing what comes naturally and if she’d bought me mice I’d have been thrilled. She doesn’t know that mice is good, birds are bad. I didn’t see her again until about 11.30 that night when she came in my bedroom window and ever since she has been very frightened, which is unlike her. She is recovering now, but someone, or something, gave her a scare.
At around midday I went to Lucas’s and we had a sixth birthday party. Yes, it went splendidly, the kids loved every moment and the games were all as I hoped they would be. They loved the dino dig (digging in individual sand pits for fossils, gold coins, painted bones and rock crystals etc) so much we did it twice. Sitting on the balloons to pop them and get the gummy dinosaurs inside was a huge hit, as was pin the tooth on the T-rex. Lots of yummy food and a bouncy castle and dino egg goodie bags to take home….very happy kids.
Easter Sunday
Up for church at 8am and it was a lovely service, great sermon, lots of glorious hymns and we were given a wee easter egg as we left.
Home to more cooking, sweetcorn fritters and marinated chicken and meatballs and more dino sandwiches. The most fantastic creation was the alien landscape with a tray painted with green and brown icing, spaceships made from chocolate chip muffins, edible rocks and meringues with red food colouring swirled through them and chocolate dinosaurs.
I had brought all the games home and saved bags and dino eggs etc for party mark II. My niece and her husband were down from Auckland with their two gorgeous boys and Ben had turned 7 on Monday. And another niece came with her two gorgeous little girls. We played lots of games and dug in the sand and sat on balloons and put things in their bags and ate yummy food. A very good time was had by all and they each got a dino egg goodie bag.
Yesterday I watched the final round of the Masters golf (go Bubba!! Not something I thought I would ever say) and ate an Easter egg and put away weeks of craft materials and toys etc.
Book news: I got asked for a Kindlegraph. Someone wanted me to send them an electronic inscription for their copy of ‘The Secret Keeper”. How cool is that? First time I have ever ‘inscribed’ one of my own books to a reader.
I have a four star review for “in Vino Veritas” on Smashwords which is lovely…”Thank you, Julie Thomas. This book is fun. It’s fast-paced, has great characters, the love story is done very nicely, and there’s enough technical input about the wine and wine-growing to make it sound authentic.” It goes on a bit more but modesty forbids me. Books sales almost passed 35,000.
Music news. A couple of extremely talented young men have released Cds lately. They are musical theatre performers, but they are so much more and their musical skills cross many genres. They are Ramin Karimloo and John Owen Jones. They both have extraordinarily beautiful voices that are capable of bringing tears to your eyes. Check ’em out, you won’t be disappointed.
Here’s Ramin talking about his new CD. It has a mixture of a couple of musical theatre, some rock and some brand new. The single “Coming Home” is exquisite.
So parties are over and it is time to focus back on writing, much to do. New things in the wind, watch this space!
thomasbrowne 