Aah, that's better.

What a difference a couple of weeks away from the keyboard makes.  No routine, no expectations.  Love it.  I suspect I began to go sane for a while.

I printed out my first paper copy of Number Three just before Christmas, but didn't start editing it until two days ago.  That's not to say I wasn't thinking about writing though, because it seems I do my best reflective thinking whenever I remove the imperative to actually sit down and write.  (Creating a distance allows for greater critical objectivity?)  So, between sleeping off Christmas day lunch and Boxing day lunch, wandering down to the beach for a swim or two, catching up with friends and the like, I've been doing a fair bit of thinking about what I want out of Number Three, and have scribbled a few notes down on scraps of paper, book covers, the back of miscellaneous hands, edges of wine labels - whatever was lying around at the time.  Now to try and put some of those ideas into practice.

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Upon discovering how intently I was talking to myself this morning, I told myself I was going banonkers - more banonkers.  Now there's a neologism: Banonkers - the state of having gone bananas and bonkers at the same time.   Except, in checking it out, I discover it isn't a neologism, but that Google has over 2,600 references to it.  Which means that a lot of people have gone banonkers before me.

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During the break, we woke up one morning to find this fellow in our backyard. He was a black-nosed wallaby, I think, and about 40" or a metre from head-to-foot, though considerably taller when he was pushing himself up with that tail and those feet.  Quite curious at first, he got very bouncy very fast when he couldn't find his way out again.  About 45 kmh fast and about 6' bouncy, I'd say.

Also discovered this fellow on New Year's Day, all washed-up and dried out on one of our local beaches.  I think the New Year celebrations may have been too much for Percy the puffer fish, but at least he died with a grin on his face.