Sometimes...

A magic wand! That's what I need. Or more properly a belief that the future will be less crazy than the last four years.

To be jobless is demeaning. Trying to create work by setting up and running a Language School and Writer's Retreat is dispiriting when the P.R. and adverts attract lots of queries but few bookings. (Four this year so far.) The idiot neighbour's daily harassment is wearing, especially as he's taken to creeping along the boundary hedge and suddenly leaping up with deafening hyena-like laughter or shouts every ten minutes.

And it is so depressing to note that I have not been able to afford to plant anything like the number of hazel, almond and fruit trees which would bring me in enough money to buy more trees and pay some bills.

Thank God for the Writers' Choice co-operative and my three colleagues egging me on. If we can get all our books launched in October, work hard at the PR, maybe there will be a small income, and I will be able to say that the chaos of the last four years is over and my fifth year home in N.Z. will finally be one where I can stop worrying about where the money will come from for this week's food and afford to buy some new underclothes. At last!