Thursday, August 11, 2022

A winter walk, new furniture, and errors in my books...


 
Hello chic friends!
 
I take the doggies for a walk down the road each day. We walk away from the house, turn around, and come back.

This has been working fine for… more than four years since we adopted them.

Now Chloe decides that she doesn’t like leaving the house and puts the brakes on all the way. I have checked if she is hurt, no. Too tired, no. And the little tart is full speed when we turn back to come home.

So, what’s a girl to do when her tiny dog calls the shots? No I am not carrying her one way.

I thought of a genius plan… when my husband leaves for work each day, we all catch a ride to the end of the road… then walk home! The dogs love going for a ride in the car and they only have to do ‘the good half’ of the walk. And I don’t have to try and coax Chloe all the way. Seriously, the away leg takes twice as long as the return leg!!!

I know it’s not very good dog training but I couldn’t think of a better solution!

So in just over an hour, we’ll be heading off for our morning ‘walk’...

I hope your pets are better behaved than mine are!
 
Can you see Chloe and Daphne in their hot-pink fleece jackets in the photo above? It’s been frosty this week.

And the next photo shows the cows in our paddock enjoying their breakfast. They come running for hay! And they’re always so inquisitive about the dogs too. Black and white heads turn to follow them when we walk up the fence line. So cute.
 


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The chapter I remember most fondly writing in my book 'How to be Chic in the Summer', was Chapter 5 - 'Your Own Personal Stylist'.

The concept was really inspired the way it came to me and I enjoyed writing it so much that the chapter almost wrote itself.

 
 
 
 
So I decided to revisit that chapter the other night and went to the book in my Kindle. Imagine my horror when I found a mistake! I have a thorough editing process and my books go through many 'sifts' to make them as readable and error-free as possible but this one evaded me.

Instead of saying that your visiting personal stylist 'envelops you in a fragrant, warm hug', I had put 'envelopes you in a fragrant, warm hug'. Envelopes! Like the stationery!!

The next morning I corrected the error in both my Kindle and print documents and resubmitted them with Amazon so it's all okay now, but it got me wondering how many other little mis-types like this have slipped through...

So, I am asking you, if you spot an error in any of my books, will you please email me and let me know? If you can be bothered of course, it's not your job to be my proofreader. But if you are someone like me where errors in books jump out, it's probably fun for you to spot them, and I'd be so grateful too!

And of course I will fix them straight away :)

I am the kind of person where typos and errors jump out at me. I wish I could turn it off...

The kind that really get me are bad apostrophes such as 'Farm fresh apple's for sale', and their/there/they're mix-ups. I just can't help it!

And if you have the 'envelopes' book copy, perhaps it will be worth a fortune one day, like when postage stamps are printed upside down. Some are worth over $1million. For a tiny paper stamp!

(From online: "Stamps with printing errors are strongly coveted by collectors, some being valued thousands of times higher than their nominal price")

Let's hope those rare first copies of my book are the same!
 
 

 
We finally found a cabinet to go under our television. The colour and style suits the room so much. But of course, when there is a new empty space, can a cat ever resist it?

(And obviously she had me trained well to put her sheepskin inside too). Jessica loves her new apartment!

Thankfully the novelty wore off (well actually we just shut the cabinet door) and she is now back to her spot on the sofa, with sheepskin square in situ of course.

(The cabinet from Interior Warehouse, Napier. This is not an ad but it is my brother's store!) 
 
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I hope you're having a fab week. I have been pottering around at home getting things done, and enjoying some writing time as well. My next book is coming along and I hope to have it available before the end of the month. Wish me luck!

xx Fiona
 




 
 
(I am an Amazon affiliate which means I may make a small commission on items you buy through my links, at no extra cost to you.)

2 comments:

  1. Hi Fiona, I wouldn't worry too much about the errors, the brain has a marvellous way of reading what you expect to see rather than what is actually there.

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  2. I really feel your distress at spotting an error, I am really bad at spelling (thank goodness for spell-checkers) but when I do spot one it bugs me each time I see it. And don't get me started on apostrophes, sometimes I feel I should walk around with a Sharpie in my pocket so I can make corrections!...or maybe not, I could get in trouble.
    PS Could not log in as normal with Google so I am Elizabeth Forbes, not Anonymous.

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Merci for your comment. Wishing you a chic day!