From winter to spring and back again

It's been the oddest time here in Zeeland. Honestly, last week, we thought we'd come to the end of the miserable winter weather. The sun came out; we went for some lovely walks; Zoe shook off some winter fluff and we even got to spend the weekend on Vereeniging. The photos below are the evidence. Look at that cerulean blue sky and the puffball clouds!

I loved this view of one of the great sea ships on the canal in the distance with Zoe snuffling in the foreground.

In the fields nearby, the horses were out to grass again. The photo above is from a bit later last year – May, I think – but the same horses were in this field last week and the baby has grown quite a bit already. It was so good to see them. Zoe and Lucy, her pal, found them quite fascinating, like dog TV, so we had to stand and watch them graze while the pups sat and gazed at them adoringly.

And of course, we've been out and about. The photo above is totally gratuitous cuteness, but my excuse is that it's for Rebecca (if she sees it :)). I love the way her little paws are tucked in.

Best of all, though, was being able to spend the weekend on my Vereeniging. With all the recent storms, it's been impossible to stay over, because we've never been certain we could get on or off the barge. When the wind blows hard from the west, as it often does, it pushes her away from her mooring and I can't reach her to climb aboard. Try that with a dog as well. I can help Zoe jump the gap but then can't bridge it myself – either on or off. Anyway, last weekend was glorious and only just a bit breezy. I even worked outside in a T-shirt, managing to sand the teak entrance hatch and give it a coat of varnish, which it sorely needed.

I love waking up in the harbour; it's so peaceful. The two photos above and below were taken on Sunday morning when I was out for a walk with Zoe. The harbour is very popular with pooches and their people, so we had plenty of fun time as well as working on smooshing Vereeniging up a bit.

However, and here's the thing, we're back to winter again now. I can hardly believe I'm writing this, but it's now really cold and stormy and we've got high winds, lashing rain and hail. Last Saturday it was 24C and today, it was only 6C when I went into the village an hour ago. Is this normal for April? Maybe, but I'd be very grateful if it would just stop and give us back that lovely sunny warmth. I was really hoping to be able to get used to it.

In other news, I was also wrestling last week with the production of my new travel memoir. To cut a long and anxious story short, I published it on pre-order with a less than perfect version of the content. Big mistake on my part.

Unfortunately, you have to upload the content or you can't promote the possibility for readers to pre-order it. I was still waiting for some final feedback from my readers, and knew I'd be making some changes, but thought I'd be able to upload the best version before D day (or rather P for publishing day). One thing led to another and I realised I needed a bit more time to sort out some formatting issues and a couple of small glitches, so I tried to postpone the release date. 

And this was the real mistake. 

I'd obviously done something wrong, although I have no clue what, but Amazon wouldn't let me change it. Anyway, I've sorted everything out now, and it's released, but it was a bit stressful. Self-publishing is a choice for me, and I actually enjoy the whole production process. I like the formatting and cover design; I enjoy the nitty gritty of getting things right (as best as I can anyway), but there are times when I'm glad I'm already grey-haired. What did I learn? That I'm not sure I'll be risking that pre-order process again...

If you're interested in taking a look, here's the link to the book on Amazon US, but it's available on all Amazon marketplaces.

So that's it for this week allemaal. Keep your fingers crossed that spring returns to our shores soon. Enjoy the rest of your week!