Tousle Me Gently Dog.

 Milly the Cavoodle pads into the family room. I reach down to pat her.
'Milly feels soft.'
'Hmmm,' agrees husband. 'Soft and tousled.'
Dog snuffles to daughter and leaps onto her lap. 'Milly actually smells good. What did you wash her with?'
Husband/father shrugs and offers a 'durrr' face. 'Shampoo.'
'Thought we were out of dog shampoo,' says daughter.
Husband wiggles eyebrows.
In the shower this morning, I reached for the shampoo. The Tousle Me Gently bottle is empty. Apparently it works on dog's too!

A Break From Editing

I took a break from editing today and visited Inverleigh Primary School. What a gorgeous group of kids. Bright, enthusiastic, funny and a complete delight to work with. We worked on ideas, how to develop an idea into a story and how to make the starts sparkle. Thank you to the staff and students for the opportunity.
As always, there were lots of laughs. I showed the younger students an overseas edition of My Gran's Different and asked them to guess where it was published. One child suggested the country could be South Snot. Close - but no cigar...the answer I was looking for was South Korea.  Made us all laugh though!
Now it's back to editing - we're still playing around with titles. Stayed tuned!

Dalai Llama

Two dear friends and I trundled off on Saturday to listen to His Holiness, the Dalai Lama speak at the Melbourne Convention Centre. It is  his last public speaking tour, making the event even more special.
Apart from his message - love, compassion, and truth - his impassioned speech about the importance of teachers and teaching, not just in schools, but in all areas of life, struck a real chord with me.I've spent the last couple of days, between editing, thinking about people who have shared their skill and knowledge with me and taught me so much. School teachers (Mrs Phillips, Miss Woodburn, Mr Samuel) lecturers (Frank Nolan)  family (Bruce, Court, Papa, Gran, Annie, Jan) and friends (Doobs, Kath, Kaye, KT, Corinne, Mab, AK, Glenn, Greg) So many generous people who have shared so much with me. So much to be grateful for.