The reason I’ve been so quiet for the last week (plus…) is because I’ve been away.

For Christmas, Mum paid for my partner and I to go on a family trip with her and her fiancé… We went to see my brother and sister-in-law in Echuca, spent a few days there, then moved on to Daylesford where we stayed in a little cottage. Despite the usual tension that happens when you spend too much time with family, it was a good week.

Echuca had a great used book store, as did Daylesford.

I left with 3 books. I came back with 7… I exercised a great deal of self-restraint to only come home with four extra books.

The books I acquired:
1. Minimum of Two, by Tim Winton.
2. Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
3. Tales of the Unexpected, by Roald Dahl.
4. Everything I Know About Writing, by John Marsden.

So this is added to my pile of Christmas books.

Other than the new additions to my bookshelf, the time away also gave me some time to read – I got a start on and am now quite a chunk through The Book Thief, and thoroughly enjoying it… Zusack has an amazing way with images.  (My favourite so far – “she had a breath that smelled like Heil Hitler”)… I also got up early and wrote as the sun came up over Echuca…

So what creative liberties has your holiday period given you? Have you acquired books? Pens? Notebooks? Time to yourself?