Inside Outside Interweave we go...

I love conversations and watching how threads weave in and out. If we listen closely enough there are things connecting us all the time. I was just at the Hobby Shop on the corner (6 houses down from my house). I have spent the holidays working on building yet another dolls house for my children. Well actually, it's not for dolls, but for tiny rabbit families (the Sylvian Collection) which my children are enchanted with. The Best Beloved built the actual house. Finn (my big boy of 13 years old) built his own one alongside his dad. I took over the decorating and detail work (and I know that the job will never be finished because you can never have enough hand-stitched quilts and soft furnishings for you tiny houses can you...?).

Anyway, back to the idea of common threads: So I walked down to the hobby shop because I needed balsa wood to make the tiny window flower boxes. Got to chatting to the friendly proprietors and he asked the question "are any of your dolls houses ever actually finished?" So I laughed and said "no", because now that the tiny rabbit houses have been built, the children are "borrowing" the quilts and soft furnishings from their original dolls house and I will have to make more. To this he said "speaking of borrowing..." and proceeded to tell me that he is working on the latest "The Borrowers" movie set. I was amazed and so we chatted and found out that he is doing ALL the remote controlled work for the film. It is an English production, but they are using the Cape Town studios for this kind of work.

I LOVE SOUTH AFRICA!! We have so much talent and energy and there are exciting things happening all around us.

So there it is: I went from talking about "borrowing" the hand-stitched quilts to chatting someone who is working on the movie set of "The Borrowers", and I got a shot in the arm of pride and renewed confidence in this fantastic country and the people in it.

15 July - mid winter made glorious summer!

Today I read with great excitement that South Africa has launched its very own digital book publishing wing. After the journey with ABNA this last year and getting to know fellow authors who are looking at the digital publishing . This is such an exciting community and I have complete faith in this format. The possibilities are endless.  So have a look at our proudly South African option as Random House Struik goes digital .