Slack-oh

That's my Christmas cake, which I baked, fed with brandy for a couple of weeks, and decorated myself.

I am also eating it all by myself — and I don't mind at all. I love a good fruit cake. I'm almost halfway through. I have a slice with my afternoon tea. Perfect.

:: I've been slack about posting - sorry.

And I haven't even attempted to use the Big Black Nikon.

So no new pics for you. But this is my gorgeous grandson, with the boogie-board we gave him for his sixth birthday. He visited the other night and read a whole book out loud to me. I was proud and ecstatic!

:: Last week I filled in for the editor who had decided on the spur of the moment — as is his absolute right, and deservedly so — that he felt like another week off.

I had fun! I was really tired by the end of the day!

I promoted a couple of people, and gave the photographer a pay-rise and a company car. I invited people into my office to discuss their outcomes. I contemplated investing lots of the company funds in a sure-fire scheme recommended to me, personally, by some ex-president's widow, now living in an obscure African state.

We had a laugh or three.

And OMG, the editor gets some crap emails, by the gazillions.

Thankfully, the paper was not huge as this is still very much the holiday period.

Which also meant there weren't any "I demand to talk to the editor" phone calls.

Plus I had lots of support from my old mates, and those reporters who weren't off gallivanting, or sick, were all busy little beavers, so it was all plain sailing.

It was also good practice, because the editor is going to Italy for a month in June, so I'm going to be editor then, too.

:: This is another pic of my grandson in skateboard gear and complete Ben 10 outfit.

:: Meantime, only two of the five nature lovers who are walking the Cape to Cape track are still with the program. There was a blisteringly hot day down south last week, with big winds, and Will and Jenise realised they had taken too big a challenge in the middle of summer.

They are staying at the farm with Lily, who tried a few short practice hikes in the Pemberton forests, but whose lingering ankle injury — the one she sustained in Canada in September 08, the one we spent thousands on in the US trying to get fixed — really made it too uncomfortable even to contemplate the big one.

So the three of them are now the support crew for Scott and Nick, who must be having the time of their lives on the track, enjoying some father-and-son bonding as much as they're loving that stretch of wild coast.

We've had so much fun with Scott and Jenise — let's hope they get to come back in a cooler time of the year and try the track again.

:: Craft-wise: still finishing off aprons, binding the quilt to go to the UK, designing a quilt for my sister-in-law's coming 50th birthday, crocheting a rug, and working on a papercut for someone special.

:: I'll be here from next Sunday for a few days. Hmmm ... nice.