Life imitating art

I seem to write about my life. Not in a self-conscious 'look at me' way (possibly an unconscious 'look at me' way, though) but it just sneaks in. Life has been very, very busy and I have no energy left at all. Writing is reduced to a hundred words here and there - slow progress really doesn't cover it. In the last two months we have (big breath) emptied two shipping containers into our family car and moved it in (one still to go), painted two large rooms and started on a third, installed half my books and all of Russell's music equipment, reorganised the kitchen by moving units around and putting a washing machine in, reorganised the whole garden, Russell has built me a huge shelf unit in the dining room, he's been to Arvon, I've finished the historical strand of a book and started another and have organised two new chimneys and wood-burners. Phew. All of that has sneaked into the books I'm writing.

My characters are tired out, stressed out and away from the familiarity of home. They are trying to find their way in a  new world, too, and perhaps other people don't understand the difficulties they are having.  I wonder how much of us is woven into each book, how much of our experience and personality is woven so tightly in our words that we can't take it out - or maybe even recognise most of it.

My present book (the dreadfully titled 'B&B' book) has a character who just wants to be left alone by the Aga and never bothered again. Get me an Aga, stat. On the plus side, it's crept up to 16k words in a  few days, so she obviously wants me to tell the story. 

Our anti-depressant kittens are definitely working even though they have both had surgery in the last few weeks (Jasper is sick of having his bottom examined, thank you, let alone stitches, but his castrate went wrong). To our amusement, they have started watching TV, from about three inches away, so we have to find programmes they will like. Autumnwatch, that worked, as did a programme about meerkats, but they also chase the clouds on the weather forecast. This was a cat programme...