Louisa was absolutely flying high yesterday – literally! A raucous bunch of her descendants gathered for an afternoon of reconnecting and swapping family stories. With some last-minute dropouts (who may have realised they had to do laundry instead), the fourteen who were able to show up were a mixed bag from Generations 4, 5, and 6 of the family tree Louisa brought in to being, with ages ranging from 85 down to 14.

It was akin to an episode of the Australian documentary TV show, “Find My Family”. Although each group was aware of the others, for one reason or another, life has not often put them in each other’s path. I overheard many times that I was the “lynchpin” in bringing the family together. I know that is not true … just as with writing a book inspired by her story … it is Louisa pulling my strings.

After lunch, most of us gathered on the adjoining green for a friendly game of barefoot lawn bowls. Who am I kidding? The rivalry was fierce. To my mind, the scoring was a bit of a hit and miss affair – as was our bowling. The untethered border collie who ran on to the green to round up bowls did a better job of getting them in the right place than we did. Ultimately, I conceded my side went down by one point.

I wonder if Louisa ever played the game. According to Wikipedia, the first women’s bowls match played in Australia took place in Victoria in October 1881, but it did not reach New South Wales until 1902, well after the timeline of my novel. Thank goodness I didn’t need to dress like these ladies…

The family members are all looking forward to an invitation to the book launch of Louisa, an historical novel. The date is not yet set, although publication is imminent.

If you – like me – have been anxiously awaiting her arrival, you can jump onto the publisher’s website (David Reiter of IP (Interactive Publications Pty Ltd)) and pre-order your copy, as a paperback or digital. The site uses geolocation, so it automatically sets the currency to the IP address of your browser. Here is the link.

A note: The link suffered teething problems last week which have since been fixed. If you have any difficulties, please let me know.

Ever Garrulous, Gwen Wilson