My hopes of finishing my romance novel, Mirrabooka Magic, by Christmas were completely derailed by the arrival of Tilly – an 18-month-old rescue dog. She’s an Australian cattle-dog cross, and the ‘cross’ part is anyone’s guess. It’s lucky she’s cute, because it’s taken a lot of time and energy to settle her into our household. She gets very anxious when I leave her, and that anxiety manifests itself in house-destructing tendencies, which has been a challenge. Of course, it’s not her fault that I went crazy and bought a house too, and then had to transport her, the cat, and all my belongings 300 miles to a remote coastal village – but that’s a whole other story.

So is the time I went out to dinner and left Tilly in the house, then came home to find she had jumped up on the kitchen bench, got the lid off a container of cooking oil, eaten it all and then been sick on the brand-new rug in the living room. Twice! When I’ve recovered from the trauma, that and other Tilly exploits may become a new blog post. Now that life is settling down, I’m back to making progress on the romance, so stay tuned for more news about that. In the meantime, here is a picture of my gorgeous bundle of trouble, because she’s just so damn CUTE!