Hello dear reader, just in case you missed last week's blog, a reminder that spouse and I are going on our travels to Australia and after that I hope to settle down to writing a new romcom, so I will not be writing my weekly blog for some months to come. Once the book is written and there is space in my head again, I will be coming back to blogging and don't worry, in the meantime I will be keeping a few notes!! I am still on Twitter @PatriciaComb1 and on my Facebook Author Page, PatriciaCombWriter, so I may see you there. Take care of yourselves and sending all good wishes to you.

Good morning dear reader and welcome to another Sunday at Chez Comb. Autumn is well and truly under way and I have been busy making elderberry liqueur and freezing the last of our fruits from the garden. Looking forward to sampling the elderberry at Christmas, the 2017 brew was amazing, but a little goes a long way and if you every try your hand at making it my dear reader, proceed with caution - small glasses are the order of the day!

   Whilst I have been busy inside, spouse has been very busy outside, distributing the last of our soil heap around the garden and sowing grass seed with great abandon for the Yorkshireman that he is - grass seed is not cheap and he has got through bags and bags of the stuff - no wonder he needed to lie down in a darkened room after that. 

   Prior to sowing the seed, all the new soil had to be flattened and as we did not have a heavy roller to hand, spouse had to do it himself. I've got to tell you dear reader, that was the best bit. Have you ever seen those Olympic long distance speed walkers? They seem to have developed this really weird way of walking, a sort of sinuous wiggling of the hips and arms as they they fast-pace it in a race. Hold that picture in your mind - spouse wasn't fast-pacing it, but he was doing that walk as he carefully paced it up and down his rows of new soil, anxious to flatten out every last little clod.

   And then our friend Clayton arrived to discuss cutting our high and very overgrown hedges at the front of the house. After looking these over  and discussing the ins and outs of all that, we came round the back and into the garden. Both of us stood transfixed at the sight of spouse labouring up and down the garden, arms pumping vigorously and hips a-swaying, one foot placed carefully in front of another as he stomped up and down.

    Clayton looked at me with a very bemused expression on his face.'The lads's taken up a new hobby has he?' 

   'Only temporarily,' I assured him. 'He's getting the ground ready for sowing the grass seed.'

   Clayton looked relieved at this. 'That's alright then,' he said. 'Only, you never quite know with your husband. Not being rude like, he's a grand lad, but - you just never know ... he gets up to some funny stunts sometimes.'

   Well, what could I say to that dear reader? Nothing really, as Clayton was quite right. So I coughed loudly to attract spouse's attention and he came across to join us. Now we haven't seen Clayton for quite some time and a lot has changed in our garden since he last saw it. After admiring our new pond, spouse dragged him off to inspect his new mega-shed. I know I've said it before dear reader, but really - men and sheds!!! My eyes were rolling in my head as they enthused with each other over the new shed - the building itself, the insulation and boarding covering the walls, the fittings. And then discussions about the electrical wood cutting equipment and various other chunks of machinery began.  Oh my, my - I gave up and left them too it. There's only so much shed talk a gal can take.  Those two however, revelled in it and spent a very happy time talking shed talk together, Clayton eventually taking his departure regretfully. I think I could lock the pair of them in there and throw away the key and they probably wouldn't even notice.

   Well my dear reader, as I mentioned last week we have been celebrating our wedding anniversary this week and we took ourselves off on a road trip to an antiques centre, that also had a garden centre, gift shop and restaurant attached. It was a new venue to us and some distance away and so Grizelda Google satnav was employed as we neared journey's end. I have to report dear reader, that spouse's brief love affair with Grizelda is at an end. Not only did she not take us where we wanted to go, (in spite of the correct postcode for the place) but also she directed us on a very picturesque tour of the back lanes criss-crossing a chunk of prime East Yorkshire farmland. We had passed our destination on the main road in and spouse was sure that was the place, but I was not. We will draw a veil over the scathing comments I came in for later as I urged him to follow Grizelda.

   When we ended up back on the main road, spouse followed his own internal satnav and drove us to our destination. Grizelda was not pleased that we was ignoring her instructions and became quite strident in tone and repeated her instructions loudly. Spouse told her roundly that she was an idiot and she should jolly well shut up and then he got so cross with her he switched her off.  We got on a lot better after that and spouse got us to our destination without further ado. I somehow don't think he will be relying on Grizelda very much in the future.

   Well dear reader, it's time for me to go. And go for quite some time to come I'm sorry to say. We are going off on an extended trip to Australia soon, so for once in my life I'm going to have to get my act together and get organised for it. When we return I really need to get on with a new book. A friend pointed out to me last week that I'm never in my kennel these days, I'm always reporting on the non-writing activities in my life and it's quite true - they seem to be overtaking the writing activities.  So regretfully, my weekly blogs will have to be put on hold for a while and a book get written instead. If you're on Twitter I'll catch you there, if not it's going to be some time in 2019 before I will be able to start blogging again.

   I'm sorry to stop for now dear reader, as I love the comments and interaction with you all, but much to his astonishment, I'm taking spouse's advice, which is to devote my energies properly to a book. I know, I can't believe I'm listening to him either - I think the summer sunshine has affected me. At any rate, get on with things I must and I hope it won't be too long before we meet again. In the meantime, take care of yourselves and enjoy every day as it comes around. I'll leave you with one thought to ponder - spouse and I let loose in Australia ... a bit like Crocodile Dundee in reverse. Not sure he'll ever master 'g'day' in an Aussie accent though. Wonder how it sounds in broad Yorkshire?