Smoko

Here's Steve and I having smoko at the orchard we are working in at Kingaroy. We've packed peaches and nectarines for the past six weeks and we're heading off to NZ just before Christmas to celebrate my sister's 60th birthday on Christmas day. We're also looking forward to competing in the NZ Masters Games, touring the South island and possibly even working picking fruit for a few months. My daughter will be at home slaving away getting our book ready!

Joy

Hello from the other red dirt writer

This is my first effort at blog writing. I think Angela has done a stirling job to set up the site.

Nearly two years ago Angela wrote to me with the idea of us writing and publishing a book about Steve and my journey of our travels and work throughout Australia for the past 13 years, to which I readily agreed. For the first few months the going was slow and at times I was sorry I had agreed to the project. My time-consuming work commitments, moving around the country and nowhere to shut myself away for uninterrupted time, made it too easy to put off writing. Angela’s time was an even bigger issue. She had Peppi’s shirts to iron, Oscar to look after, became pregnant with Archie, her business to run and a busy social life. But every time we met and reviewed our efforts and bounced ideas off each other we became motivated again and so we have chipped away at it bit by bit.

While we still have a lot of work to do we feel our endeavours are paying off and we’re excited by the prospect of being in print by May next year. Your comments and encouragement are much appreciated – please keep them coming, along with any suggestions and ideas you may have. And keep blogspotting for further updates.

Many thanks – Joy.

Thanks for your support

Well it's been a whole week since doing my first ever blog and it's been great to get comments from family and friends. None of you said the blog or the book were shit, which is very encouraging!!

It seems mum and I must be in sync. When I called her (they are picking peaches in Kingaroy, no, not nuts) to tell her I had set up a blog I expected to have to show my expert knowledge and explain what a blog was. Mum said, "oh a blog, that's great. I was having a look at one a couple of nights ago. Did you know that blog stands for web log?" Mmmm, good work Joy.

Mum checked out our blog and she too was excited to see some great comments. We really do appreciate supportive and encouraging words from family and friends as sometimes it feels like we are in a vacuum writing this book. It's been a labour of love for about two years but finally, finally mum and I can see it coming together. We are excited and hopeful and probably a little fearful - someone will read this book one day - well we hope at least someone will!

So, thanks again for getting behind us. There'll be another post shortly. By the way, if there's anything you want to know about please let me know. I can post a bit more of the book, but if there's something specific you want to know I'd be happy to tell you.

Cheers
Ang and Joy
(Red dirt writers)