The Black Evil One and the Henchcat love when I move the hens. They reckon that I just have to slip up and leave the cover off, and they’ll eat like queens for weeks.

I have been neglecting everything else in favour of the novel. The hens were living in a moonscape; the tomatoes need to be tied up; I managed to treat the trees for curly leaf, but thinning the fruit? If the trees want their fruit thinned, they’ll just have to do it themselves.

Today, the plan is to spend the morning catching up on the ever increasing to do list.

I’ve moved the hens, but still have to change the sand in the tray of their roost and put clean straw in their nest boxes.

And then catch the flibberty things to dust them with mite powder.

I’ve tidied up around the house a bit, but the grandkids that are staying with me for the weekend are going to help me wash the windows inside and out.

Tomatoes, I will get to you, promise.

Meanwhile, the PRH is going to mow the lawn (nearly 2 acres of it), but first, he tells me, he needs to cut some fillets so he can stack the wood for my new raised garden beds. Fillets, he says, are bits of scrap wood that go between planks to hold them off one another so the air can circulate to let the timber dry. Who knew?

The title of this piece is the first line from a chapter in Farewell to Kindness. Yes, okay, that’s where my mind is.

Up to page 337 of 506 on the plot line review, and page 97 on the third draft edit. Wait for me, novel. I’m coming!