We're back...

An update! Really? Yes!

The winter sun has now well and truly established itself over the Northern Riverse, we hope, and the land is slowly drying out. No more mud? Let's wait and see. Maybe I will actually be able to mow the lawns soon (which would imply buying another ride-on mower first, but that's another story)... 

For now, we enjoy the warm rays of sunshine during the day. At night we still have to light a fire, as it's actually quite cold. (It's not actually freezing, mind). During the dark hours of the evening, some of us are looking for warmth and comfort, as Tess' cat, Shadow, felt she needed to prove while Tess was working on an art project, and a fire was roaring upstairs. Shadow, the ever faithful feline, felt she needed to be with 'mama'...

Niki's been out and about a bit this week, once to Byron to teach and, today, to Brisbane to attend a Cambridge meeting, and be monitored herself (normally she monitors others). Tess and Yarrow are with us for two weeks - we've decided that we're not changing over every week anymore, but every fortnight and it seems to be working out well for everybody. It gives everybody an opportunity to settle in a house, where before once somebody had settled we unsettled ourselves again by changing over. There seems to be much more peace and quiet now, which is good.

Yesterday, Samson was ridden by Fiona, the lady whom Niki is taking lessons from. He seemed to enjoy it. Perhaps, perhaps we might retrain him and perhaps perhaps I might find the confidence to ride him again. We'll see. I might also just simply sell him, as planned. No takers yet, though.

On the work front, we are in the final stages of negotiation with our new Chinese publisher, Qingdao Publishing Group, over a series of over one hundred (up to two hundred, in fact) graded readers (not to be written all at the same time, but over a few years). We'll be collaborating on that with our UK-co author Joanne. They are keen, as are we, so now it's just sorting out the finicky details. I'm also going to be writing three books in a new series for Garnet Education in the UK, called Moving into .... (the title to be followed by things like tourism and hospitality, health care, and financial services, and things like that). In a team of three (two people from the UK and myself) we are setting up the series which will, in the end, have approximately 10-15 titles: so, if it alls goes well that should keep me going for a while. Aside from those two projects, I still do a lot of work for one of my Dutch publishers, Malmberg. Niki will be involved in the New English Readers series and, at the moment, is writing a teacher development unit on 'Motivating teenagers' for Cambridge ESOL, which she is enjoying a lot.

Another opportunity presented itself earlier this week. It culminated in me yesterday becoming the sole owner of Supasongs, the music website I set up a few years ago with two partners. The site hasn't worked very well so far, for known and unknown reasons, and recently, for legal reasons, quite a but of the database had to be taken offline (we weren't doing anything illegal, but one of the music writers/producers withdrew). However, the main problem was there were too many captains on the ship. Despite valiant and moderately successful attempts in the first two years, nobody led it anywhere after that. The opportunity arose and I will now take it on as one of my publishing projects. I will over time be able to do with it whatever is needed (or, if that doesn't work out, let it go altogether). The audio-video production partnership Simeon, Phil and I had (FracasEnglish, that link will soon stop working) will also be closed down. Depending on what comes my way, I will do any audio/video production under the banner of Southern Cross Connexxions or (because the Connexxions brand will be slowly faded out as well) Eflwriters.

A nice side effect may ensue from this, because Phil (the partner with whom I wrote and composed a lot of the music for Supasongs) and I have agreed to sit down and see whether we can perform some of my music together - as I've had a request to come and perform it in the area. Even if that doesn't happen, it will be nice to do some music again. Maybe this will be one we'll be doing (a song Peter and I recorded)...