Having promised an insight into my tropical building site garden I thought it about time I shared with you the secrets of cultivating one of your own. Of course, I use the word 'cultivating' quite wrongly.

You're going to need a cement mixer; everything revolves around this, if you'll pardon the pun.  Add to this a strategically inconvenient pile of builders sand insufficiently covered with a holed and garish tarpaulin; allow weeds to grow through - you'll not have a choice. Alongside, proximate enough to mix and spoil, drop recycled chippings. Attempting to wall these 'ball bearings of death' behind planks unsuitable for the job will lend a wonderful, mysterious air to your site.

Scatter an assortment of wood, brick, tile and other plumbing and electrical fittings over poorly laid black weed suppressant matting. Finally, scatter generously with exotic weed seed. Behold.

I know I'm becoming "Australian by contamination" but there's just something about the NZ anthem - when sung at the rugby - that makes the hairs on my neck stand up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb_8DtGbXJs

The possums ate my post. :(

BW1 DN done.

After days of editing, culling, slicing, formatting, optimising and ‘removing the self indulgences’ I have, with the help of my masters, reduced BW1 DN from its original first draft of 95,000+ words, down to just one; “wickty”.

Okay, its about 88,000 and I've uploaded every word, and a cover, to Smashwords and Amazon. Both sites are 'pending approval'; hopefully be ready for general consumption within 2 weeks, when wickty will be revealed.

Watch this space for more details!

Vast and green, an easy start,

Look within to find the heart.

Upon a rock, beneath a stream,

See it shift, see it gleam.

1. Scan all parts of 10+ year old hand drawn A3 Hops Castle map into Paint Shop Pro 5 and Shift+S to shrink. Copy and align the pieces back together, magic wand and del the unwanted bits. Print.

2. Improvise a light box with a cleaned sheet of plastic taken from an old picture frame raised off a desk equally on both sides by some cherished Alistair Macleans to a sufficient height to allow an IKEA desk lamp to slide easily beneath. Turn lamp on. Trace.

3. De-paperclip and scan unblemished black Artline FINE 0.4 map, Ctrl+A onto copy of “possum paper” as new map layer, reduce opacity to 40%. Add map’s key layer; 60%. Add title layer; opaque. Voila. BW1 DN eBook cover done...

I humbly suggest Monet’s dabbing and rapid brushstrokes in oil technique would have improved immeasurably had he been fortunate enough to witness the unique and beautiful patterns found in the mesmerising spray of possum urine. Certainly The Water-Lily Pond is quite good but lacks that stippled agedness only possum urine can truly achieve. Once my masters demonstrated this technique the rest was obvious. After burning the garden furniture I left some A4 outside overnight and on the morrow it was duly, nay lovingly stained. After allowing for drying time and for the overwhelming stench to fully dissipate, I scanned it, capturing its beauty forever; this will become the background layer for BW1 DN’s book cover.

If you answer to a different master, try rubbing A4 with a used Tetley teabag (“Tetley make tea bags make... paper look really old”). That looks quite good too.