So, it's Saturday, which means I'm tired. This frustrates me so much - during the week I come up with all these great plans - "Let's go to York on Saturday! Or Skipton Castle!" - and then it gets to the weekend and I crash. Because it's Saturday, I've made it through, and I'm flopped. This is deeply, deeply pathetic. From an objective perspective, okay, I can understand that after having been sick for a full 3 months, my body will take a while to regain its former state of energy. But hoping for me to really accept that...well, that would be as unrealistic as hoping for me to accept the fact that, okay, after having been sick for 3 months with a non-wasting disease, yeah, I gained a few pounds.

Neither one is something I'm happy about accepting.

Oh well. With luck, the fact that my stocks of energy are gradually rebuilding themselves will solve both problems.

***
In the meantime, I'm reading Dorothy Sayers's Busman's Honeymoon, which is a lovely relaxing read, after having given up on Mark Chadbourn's Jack of Crows, which I was meant to review for the next issue of Interzone. Sadly, at 50 pages in, I had to admit that I was just the wrong reviewer, because it was so clearly subjectively Not My Thing (in just the same way that Sorcery & Cecilia so clearly was Exactly My Thing). So I emailed in and gave up that review, and am now feeling deeply relieved.

Also, yesterday I got a sneak preview of the forthcoming illustration for my Elizabethan fantasy story, "Ivy and Thorn", and it's gorgeous! I was so happy to see it - I've had very, very few story illustrations so far, and it feels fantastic to get one, especially such a good one. The image I was sent was only a black-and-white sketch, but as soon as there's a finished image available, I'll see I'm allowed to post it up here. GrendelSong is seeming like a really lovely magazine to be involved with.

***
In really good news, Nika's vet has decided to try her on an anti-allergy medication to see if that'll clear up her problems (and we're all knocking on wood, hoping that it will, especially because that would mean that the more doom-and-gloom forebodings were all wrong). In less good news, her pills have to be given without food, thrust straight down her throat. I'm not sure whether Nika or we are enjoying the process less. Nika probably wins that competition, I suppose, because she doesn't even realize there's a good reason for doing it...but we're all hating it so far. Does anyone know any really good techniques for forcing pills down dog's throats? Yesterday, she managed to spit out her first pill eight times. This is ridiculous.