Once again it is time for an update, and once again I regret that I am not blogging more regularly these days: So much has happened!

The best news first: Three weeks ago we adopted two cats: Winnie (4yrs) and Wilbur (2yrs). So now, finally, I have the book tigers I always wanted!

Winnie loves to “help me” with all my desk work. While I am making my daily sketching and drawing exercise, she likes to lie down – in best cat-fashion – exactly where I am currently drawing.

She also licks my brushes and walks through wet paint. But while I am writing/editing, we have come to a mutual agreement: I am keeping my manuscript (which is OF COURSE not written by hand; weird that it is called that) in a box where she likes to sleep while I am editing. Today, when I didn’t take the paper and pencils out because I am blogging of course, she meeowed demandingly, and so I gave in. Today the paper is just sitting on the side, this is how it looks like when I do edit:

Winnie is brave and quite fierce. Although she is gentle in her own way and has not hurt neither me nor the kids seriously, she does bite and scratch when she doesn’t get what she wants. I guess she is trying to teach us the rules like she would teach a kitten. And she is teaching the children some respect for sure.

Wilbur, her completely (well, almost, he has two white hairs on his chest) black son is very different in nature. I think he believes he is still a baby. – And he is awfully cute, I have to admit that! He loves to cuddle all the time, demanding attention and love frequently during the day. He doesn’t jump onto my table or lie down on the paper I am writing on. Instead he will stand in the door frame meeowing in a heartbreaking pitch. When I do come over to him, he curls up in a ball on the floor, and wants to put his head in my cupped hand. He startles easily and when in doubt, he quickly hides in our library:

Now compare this with my Büchertiger Logo:

Not quite there yet, but that’s just because I didn’t capture them like this yet. In the evenings, when we are all in the library, reading to the kids, they both like to walk through the shelves, and indeed Winnie sometimes peeps out between books.

This was really the best piece of news I have, so I’ll mostly leave it at that. In brief here are some other news items:

  • I started teaching at the German Saturday School in Leicester in September. My pupils are 6-8 years old. So far we have not done any bookbinding yet. But it is nevertheless a lot of fun. I have a vague idea for some bookbinding this year, and if we do, I’ll of course let you know what we made and how it went.
  • I have been working on 346, but I think I’ll rather speak about this and other boxmaking related issues in a new blogpost. I suppose you are all interested in the details and intricacies of making boxes, and so I’ll give this the room it needs.
  • Yesterday the kids started on their first over-night trip with school which meant a kids-free afternoon and morning for M and me. It was amazing: I was looking forward more to the morning without dragging two 6 year olds to school. But I realized yesterday how much more time you have without kids. When my alarm went to pick them up from school, I instead had another session editing my novel. Then I went to the gym, then went out to a pub with M. And when we were home, we looked at the clock and realised that this was the time when “our” evening usually starts, and the editing, gym, pup – it all had been a bonus. The time I’d have without kids! – Now I’ll be picking them up soon, I am curious to see in what “state” I am going to get them back.
  • I have been working on my novel, too, which is taking shape more and more. Still there is plenty of work to do, and I have no idea when I’ll be at the point where I’ll want first test readers.
  • Oh, I almost forgot, one of my bottles that I dispatched in Mainz got found, one with a chocolate and apple in it. More about this soon in its own blogpost over at flaschentiger.wordpress.com