…and this was the view from his window.
And I couldn’t go. Meetings, reports…
6
My daughter (who hasn’t yet read Stormlord Rising) went to her local Waterstones this week, only to be told that yes, they had the book in, but it was embargoed until today, release day.
That’s right. You can now go out and buy it! Right this minute! You can read it over the weekend. And post an Amazon review, or something.
(Do I sound desperate to know what you thought? How did you guess?)
Oh, and look – on the back of the book there is a tiny sneek preview of what the cover of Stormlord’s Exile looks like…
Yep, that’s right, as of tomorrow in the UK, Stormlord Rising is available in book stores!
It’s been bouncing around nicely on Amazon for a couple of days, breaking the 1,000 mark on the best seller list, which is lovely to know. And of course, I am an utter wimp for even looking…
(Just try to stop me…)
ON the left UK, on the right US.
On the left, matte and slightly hazed, sort of glowy, on the right, shiny and sharper.
On the left more orangy, on the right more blue.
On the left more orangy, on the right more blue.
Which do you prefer?
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Usually I manage my writing life and the conservation project side of my life nicely. When I am flat out with one, the other is not to the forefront.
Alas, this time they clash. Delays have pushed both to occupy the same space in my life.
Which means that blogging is going to suffer. Short posts for a while, and not every day, but I haven’t forgotten you all… hang around, I shall be back!
You know how the conversation goes, “Oh, you’re from Australia? Do you know X? He’s from there too.”
And you carefully explain that no, you don’t know X. (And is it any wonder, when the population of Australia is over 20 million…)
So I am wondering how the conversation went when a Malaysian friend of ours, who was staying at a youth hostel in London, bumped into my Australian niece there, whom he hadn’t previously known existed, and they both found out that the degree of separation between them was … 1.
Namely, me.
So what’s your story about a huge coincidence?
I had a load of fun over at Sia’s Blog. Although I didn’t imagine that we’d end up talking about cockroaches. Anyway, you can see the conversation in the comments section here.
And here’s a few more photos from Borneo Rainforest Lodge.
Imagine, you are hot and sweaty and have almost been wiped out by a falling branch….
And then you arrive at a place that looks like this:
And you find a table, set with cloth, cutlery, napkins…cold chicken, cucumber sandwiches, fruit, cakes and jellies…
As Ann said, how Noel Coward! So I promptly withdrew my silver inlaid-with-mother-of-pearl card case from my skanky belt pouch, and gave them my visiting card…(no, not joking)
I mean, you can’t miss an opportunity like that, can you?
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| Our guide, Edmundo Cafe, keeping in touch with his crew via walkie-talkie |
I’m over at lovely Sia’s Blog, hiding out in the comments section. You can ask what you want…and I’ll do my best to say something coherent in reply. I’ll be around there on and off for the next 20 hours or so…
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Tomorrow I won’t be blogging here.
Instead I will be over at
which means you can chat with me there as I will be popping in and out all day.
That’s tomorrow, US time. (Not sure which time zone.)
So if you want to ask me questions, that’s the place to do it.
Bring your own coffee.
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I suppose to out the words “pygmy” and “elephant” together (see my last post) is a bit ridiculous. But the Bornean elephant is small, hence the name. Smaller than its cousin found in Peninsular Malaysia, the Asian Elephant.
But here are some photos of something that really does deserve to be called “pygmy” : the Plain Pygmy Squirrel. Photographed on the canopy walkway of Danum Valley Rainforest Lodge, this little fella is fully 4″ (10cm) long from nose to tail tip. Which makes its body barely 2″. And boy, is he fast…
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| Find the Squirrel… |
Forgive me for the lousy pictures in this post – I was much keener on looking at these six Bornean Pygmy Elephants through my binoculars than worrying about taking photos through the dusty windscreen.
While I was away in Borneo, my husband was away attending a meeting in Cairo – in fact we went out to the airport together.
Internet reception was lousy at the rainforest lodge, so it wasn’t really until I came back that I realised he had been gone for five days and there was no email from him or any other form of communication – to anyone. In fact, his email account hadn’t been opened, and usually he does keep in touch. So I started to get a little uneasy. I chatted to my daughter on Skype and she said she’d try telephoning his hotel in Cairo. While she was doing that, I continued the conversation with her partner, P.
The conversation went like this:
P: You’ve lost your husband!
Me: Yep. Saw pygmy elephants though. And orang utan. Had a fabulous time – luxury accommodation in the middle of nowhere, my own jacuzzi on the verandah…
As it turns out, husband was fine, but internet connection was beyond paying for in the hotel and he was never free to look elsewhere.
But here’s what daughter posted on Twitter later:
When P. said ‘You lost your husband!’ my mum’s reply was ‘Yes, but I saw some pygmy elephants in the rainforest.’ My family is nuts!
Yeah, guess we are, kinda…but it’s a glorious madness.
