Rainy Days

Once again, the rain has come to Townsville.  This is a good and a bad thing.

The downside is that we've had so much rain that it's started coming inside.  It wells up through little cracks between the walls and the floor, just at the most inconvenient spots.  One spot, under my desk, was just where I kept the old cardboard box filled with little scraps of paper on which were written ideas for blogs and stories, lists of goals and dreams and half-formed characters.  I was going to use all of those one day.  The other spot was just where I stored the backup machine for my computer.   Thank you, rainwater.  Spot on as always.

But I love the cosiness of rainy days at home.  Sitting, staring at the water coming down.  Daydreaming of times past in distant rainy cities.  Hanging out with my Christmas presents.  I got an amazing haul of presents this year - didn't you?  My sister gave us the jigsaw puzzle in the photo, which Lily and I have been working on for a couple of days.  I got a beautiful grey handmade shoulder bag from Kirsten.  A special writing pen from Hayden, and a new coffee cup with a lid for keeping the coffee warmer for longer as it sits at my bedside.  And so many other beautiful things.  

My parents gave me a voucher for their favourite independent bookshop in Brisbane.  A book voucher is highly prized in my family; we're agreed that choosing the book is at least half the fun.  Last Friday Hayden and I stopped in and found that it's a factual, learned sort of bookshop with beautiful books on design, gardening, foreign languages and all sorts of academical stuff.  And it's also got the best little section on writing.   I chose this book, Bird by Bird, and I highly recommend it to anyone who's looking for some gentle, funny and helpful advice on writing.  Whether or not you take it is, of course, up to you.