The Books Arrive

The first copies of Tainted Tree have arrived. They're big books and they weigh a ton, but I've managed to find cupboard space for them in the 'children's rooms', as the Son&H and the PD will not be here again, before the launch in May.

There are some problems with the formatting of the text in these first ones. It's ironic, isn't it, I was so careful with the other Goldenford books, printing out pages to make sure they were right, and with my own, I didn't achieve quite what I should have. Still, hopefully, the story's OK, and that's the important bit.

Tainted Tree has also made its appearance on the Amazon site, though it says The Tainted Tree, which I will have to get them to correct. Beneath it are ads for nurseries where you can by trees, and similar. How do they manage that? Not a mention of the genealogy or Family Trees. But then my first book, The Fruit of the Tree (do I have an obsession with trees?) was once found in the garden section at Waterstone's, whilst A Bottle of Plonk was assumed to be a guide book on good and bad wines. There isn't a cover picture, yet, on Amazon, but you can see it, by going to my website and looking up Tainted Tree. And it will soon be uploaded to the Goldenford site, where you can order a pre-publication copy at a discount.

The daffodils have been lovely this year, and I will upload a picture of them in the next day or so. Also the moles have gone.

So that's the good news. However, the bad news is that before my camellias have even flowered, half the buds have been eaten by the local deer. Obviously very short deer, because the bushes are shorn about two-thirds of the way up and then bush out like mushrooms. I didn't think that deer ate camellias, because they've never touched our rhododendrons - just polished off our roses. I'm still trying to find deer-proof plants for all the season. So if anyone has any advice, I'd be grateful, but please don't tell me Lion Dung. Sometimes you have to consider very carefully which is the lesser of two evils.