Floods and Droughts

Alarming scenes on the News on Monday night - floods in Pakistan, and drought in Spain.  It is, I believe, monsoon in Pakistan, and floods are sadly expected, but these are on a new scale. And they are dispossessing the poor of what little they had.  One young man was driving his herd of skinny cattle through the mud trying to find somewhere they could feed and keep them - and therefore his family - alive.  They were all he had left.

And parts of Spain look as dry as the Saudi desert. Hence the photos above - one of the Rub al Khali (the Empty Quarter, Saudi Arabia), and one taken many years ago on the Dhahran to Abqaiq road. 

The olive harvest is failing - the trees are surviving, but are producing very little in the way of fruit.  So no doubt many smallholders and farmers in Spain are facing desperate times too.

If we have a very hard winter here. combined with frightening fuel prices, and a collapsing NHS, we also will be in for some hard times.  

How much we need a government that can perfectly control the weather - and everything. One that can manage us properly, and with real love. We truly do believe that the Kingdom of God is so close now, and are doing our best to tell you. We are back out on the doors from Thursday on, which is making me very anxious.

After a hiatus, the walkers on the balcony returned on Tuesday morning and there were more bangings and clatterings and cries of "Oh Dear!" (or words to that effect) when things were dropped on toes.

I was thrilled to be asked by one of my readers when my next book was coming out. It will be a book of short stories if and when it does come out, and I am struggling with one of them now, trying to make it come to life. And I am considering publishing the first chapter of "Small Island", the book that was published as "Waiting for Gordo", as a short story in its own right. 

I began the book when my party of divers was helicoptered to a small sandbar in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The helicopter left us, and there we were, no shade, no nothing, waiting for a boat that was apparently coming from one of the islands on the far horizon.

Clearly there is a story there.  But when I had written the book, I realised that the story had nothing to do with the beginning on the sandbar and that it must start on the island itself. I still have the first chapter and am hoping I can do something with it - shortstorywise.

And what more could any author ask for, that people are looking forward to their next book?  That was so encouraging.