I had planned on squeezing in one more post for AusReading Month, but our Sunday in Sydney was the first super hot summer's day of the season, with temperatures going 40℃ + around NSW. After grabbing a quick early morning walk before the heat ramped up, I stayed inside with the air con, lazing around, reading.
After lunch I summoned up enough energy to finish my Margaret Atwood post, but that was all the brain power I could manage!
Normally I'm a 1st of December Christmas tree decorator, but we will be out on Tuesday evening. So I decided to go early with the tree. At 5pm I made a Christmastini and tuned up the Christmas playlist on Spotify. I then spent a lovely hour remembering all the wonderful people in my life who have given me decorations over the years, the many holidays shared with Mr Books where we bought more decorations for the tree and the many childhood decorations belonging to the boys at various ages.
When people ask me what my tree theme is (do people actually have tree themes?) I simply reply, 'love and memories'.
All that is to say, I woke up this morning, grateful for the cool change that blew in last night but regretful that I had no post for the last day of AusReading Month (the official wrap up post is scheduled for tomorrow).
Some of you may be wondering why I had a day left over. And some of you may have noticed that I did not post an Anticipation post.
Blogger ate it!
The recent batch of Blogger updates has made editing posts on a touch screen laptop trickier. When I think that I am highlighting one word or a phrase to delete/cut, it will delete/cut the entire post! A quick hit of the 'undo' button would normally rectify this, but the new & improved Blogger has a 5 second autosave function (that cannot be turned off or adjusted). Before I had even realised what had happened, it had autosaved the blank page and the chance to 'undo' was gone. Forever!
The same thing happened with my Elizabeth and Her German Garden post. Thankfully I was in preview mode as part of the editing process. Although it was not possible to copy and paste the preview screen, Mr Books was able to save it as a PDF that I could then copy and paste back in. Without Mr Books' tech know-how, I wouldn't have had the heart to start that rather long post all over again. Which is how I felt about the all-but-completed Anticipation post. Gone forever. Leaving me with one empty slot for AusReading Month.
Hence the ramble/rant instead.
I can tell you that I have several Australian books almost finished. However, they will now have to count in next years stats!
- Ceridwen Dovey | Life After Truth 57% completed
- Richard Flanagan | The Living Sea of Waking Dreams 24% completed
- Richard Fidler | The Golden Maze 36% completed
- Ellen van Neerven | Throat 75% completed
- Julia Baird | Phosphoresce 23% completed
My BINGO card ended up being a hodgepodge of squares, with a plus formation through the middle. I guess that is officially two lines, which makes me a GREY NOMAD this year.
- Our Shadows | Gail Jones WA
- Stone Sky Gold Mountain | Mirandi Riwoe QLD
- The Spare Room | Helen Garner VIC
- Only Happiness Here | Gabrielle Carey NSW
- Josephine Rowe on Beverley Farmer TAS
- The Last Migration | Charlotte McConaghy FREE
In honour of AusReading Month I made my latest CC Spin list an all-Australian affair. My winning spin was Ernestine Hill's My Love Must Wait. It's a chunkster at 560 pgs, so I'm glad I have until the end of January 2021 to read it.
Hill also wrote a book called The Territory, about her time in the Northern Territory in the 1940's. Note to self - remember this for my 2021 BINGO card!
Note to self II - create a list of books and authors for Canberra and the ACT.
#AusReadingMonth2020
Blog problems "gone forever" I often look at posts as drafts.
ReplyDeleteWordpress has a few options in very small print and with my unsteady fat finger....I press 'trash' instead of 'preview'. Luckiy I had made a copy of the post...and could give a sigh of relief. It is impossible to conjurer up the same thoughts..again!
Not one completed bingo card...and I did try! It seems Aus authors congregate in NSW, VIC and a scattered few in QLD! Who lives in ACT? ...only politians and civil servants for a short time! TAS is always a challenge but I do find more writers in The Island that in WA of NT. Had a great time going "whole hog" this year...and look forward to 2021!
Your enthusiasm is always appreciated every year Nancy. You keep me going during week 3 when my energy begins to flag!
DeleteI’m planning a few non-blogging days, then will get back into the swing of things for all the end of year/planning for 2021 posts 😃
Wow, what a lot of books read by us all, that's lovely!
ReplyDeleteI was impressed by the length of the list year too Liz. Great effort by everyone!
DeleteSo many books and authors: fantastic!
ReplyDeleteDoes the Control-pressed-with-Z trick solve your problem? (It works like an undo.)
Unfortunately, no. The autosave has saved the blank page, there is no going back!!!
Delete