Suddenly, there are lots of worries. The cost of living crisis that has just had me buying dried pasta instead of fresh, and flour instead of dried, for next time.
The global warming crisis, which saw our temperatures reach 40°c last month for the first time in thousands of years, and starved us of our usual rainfall, leading to a hosepipe ban. It raised the risk of wildfires, which do break out from time to time in the forest that abuts our house.
Relatives, who seem suddenly more elderly and vulnerable than before. Offspring, on the brink of key. coming-of-age changes. A threatened redundancy, now averted, thank goodness.
And through it all, I keep editing. Only one chapter per day. It’s all I can sustain the focus for, and I’m busy, now, with food harvesting and processing. I’ve just done another Maybelle chapter and rereading that one in close detail reminds me yet again, that I was right. Her and Zoe’s friendship is very much a two-way problem. Zoe is even gloating, at the end, albeit in the privacy of her own head, about Adam sticking up for her!