COPY EDITS...FINISHED!

Hi Everyone! First to reassure you that despite my wild eyes, bad hair and strange babbling in Friday's vlog, I am, in fact, fine. You don't actually have to send me coffee! The first chunk of any kind of editing nearly always sends me into a tailspin. Then when I hit the halfway mark I get my game-face on and open a can of whup-*ss, and everything's sorted.

I finished the Shadows copy edits on Sunday and posted them off today. So my new task is to re-read, mark-up and re-write FF. I'm really hoping that won't take more than a week or two at the very most. Fingers crossed.

Now onto prettier things. Autumn (fall, to American or Canadian readers) is my favourite season. I love it. LOVE it. I always forget just how much I love Autumn until it comes around again, and then I want to hang onto it for as long as I can. I love the chill in the air, the frosts, the clear skies, and most of all the colours. Suddenly every time you go outside you're greeted with a new array of living treasures.

On Sunday after the copy-edits were safely finished I decided to clear my head by going for a long walk in Weelsby Woods with my mum and my dog. And because I love you nearly as much (all right, all right, just as much) as I love my favourite time of year, I took my camera with me. Behold!

Finn, otherwise known as Finbar Finley Finbarsson the Third, The Devil Hound or Wonder Pooch. You may think this is a look expressing sheer doggy love and devotion. In fact, he is thinking: Give me a cheese treat. 

This was the start of our walk. Just to give you an idea of scale, that is the back of my mum, who is a lady of average height. These pictures, by the way, really don't do justice to the glowing gold, amber and red of the leaves. Something to do with the quality of the digital camera and it's photons.


But probably if I posted pictures that did capture the real colours you'd think I'd doctored them, because the Autumn display is so incredibly bright this year. It took our breath away.

Don't you just want to lie down and roll in those leaves? Maybe I even would have, except my dog went and pee'ed on them. Damn it, Finn!

He doesn't care. He's saying: Well, you should've given me a cheese treat.

Doesn't that look exactly like the path you see in The Fellowship of the Ring, right before the Ringwraithes come for Frodo? I had a shiver walking down this avenue, let me tell you. And I'd forgotten it was Hallowe'en! I'm lucky to have escaped alive.

Here's a tree I always stop to look at when I walk in these woods. Quite often you'll find little garlands of flowers or leaves draped over it, or sometimes empty snail shells. Sometimes you even find seashells. This wood is nowhere near the sea! So I'm pretty sure it's a fairy throne or something. I always make sure to nod respectfully at it, and put back the garlands or shells before I walk on.

We spotted a red squirrel - a rare sighting in England these days - just about here, but I wasn't quick enough to catch it. It darted up a tree and probably laughed at us.

This was as we were coming out of the woodland into the park, which still has a lot of trees but isn't really wild. But I can almost see an elf or a shapeshifter flitting between the trees here. I told my mum that, and she rolled her eyes at me and said: You and your imagination.

After twenty-eight years, you would think she'd be used to it by now.

The last picture I took before we left. You can't see them here, but as I took the photo there was a gust of wind and a shower of golden leaves came fluttering down. It was like something from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Gorgeous.

In other news, I saw the film Whalerider for the first time in full this weekend, and I think it might be one of my all-time favourite films. I also made my first Asian noodle soup from scratch (I'll use less chilli next time. My throat is still sore).

What did you guys do with your weekend?