I'll not lie: June has not started well. A cock-up at the printers meant that I didn't receive my final proof copies of the Mytek books as expected. Instead, I received the copies of Phantom Patrol I ordered and, eventually, a refund... but that was not what I wanted.
So the order for the proofs is in again, which puts me at the back of the queue once more. Hopefully I'll have them in enough time to take some copies to Stoke, as I'm due to appear at the next Comic Mart run by the Commando and British Weeklies comics group.
In the meantime I've been busy on the Air Ace companion doing a lot of the dull stuff, like looking through the old lists looking for typos and spelling mistakes, double-checking (where I can) the information David Roach and I compiled over the years to make sure any mistakes are corrected. (I should add that there haven't been many given the huge scope of the book we did, but I've found a handful.)
I also scanned a handful of copies of Air Ace that I had sitting in the living room, which adds to the pile of images I will have to draw from when I start laying out the book. I'm writing up another little essay that I thought would be a useful one to have in the book — and which I need to get back to because I've about two dozen tabs open on the laptop at the moment with a dozen pages in Spanish and a dozen Google translates on the go!
Since the Paperback & Pulp Book Fair (now a fortnight ago... how time flies!), it has been a case of inching slowly forward with the Air Ace Companion, sometimes inching backwards when I discover something is wrong or some new information, and then inching forwards again. Unfortunately, that makes rather dull reading in these columns, for which I apologise.
The warm weather has allowed me to continue my war with the alkanet, the pervasive wildflower/weed that has plagued our garden for years. There was an area at the bottom of the back garden where I allowed it to grow, as it is a bee friendly plant. What I didn't know was that if you let it get a toe hold, it will try to take over the garden, as you can see from this picture taken in May 2023.
Back in April 2023, I decided I would try to get rid of it and extend the grass down to the bottom fence. After clearing the whole area, I put down a load of grass seed and hoped for the best. A year later, we had a reasonable lawn, but it was dotted with alkanet, which was still well established along the line of the fence (its shaded, damp, stony ground, which the alkanet loves), so I spent hours again digging out the roots as best I could and putting down more grass seed.
This year there it was less of a problem, but there was still quite a lot around the pond, along the fence and in patches throughout the lawn, not helped by the fact that it can grow out of every crack in the patio or pathway. However, two years on and you can see the difference... although this photo was taken after I'd cleared some of the area at the front of the pond...
The whole area has again been cleared and more grass seed has gone down. The threat of rain gave me a useful deadline to get the work done.
I also want to do a similar job on the front lawn, which I attacked a year ago in May 2024. I cleared quite an area along the treeline — something like 100 square feet — and put down grass seed. Although it has established itself in some areas, there are still large bald patches that I need to re-seed.
Incidentally, I'm not a keen gardener. I'd rather not have to do all this digging and sowing, but it can't be left to its own devices or the weeds take over. It gets me outside and forces me to exercise a little, neither of which fills me with joy. But there is one good thing about it. Books can take months to complete and the work can seem neverending, but I can get out in the garden for forty minutes and I can see the difference I've made. Over a period of four or five days, that whole area in the back garden has been cleared and the results of the work are there for all to see.
I'm treating the Air Ace Companion in somewhat the same way. I approached it as a collection of shorter essays rather than thinking of the book as a whole. OK, so I had to start with some 18 blank pages that I had to fill, but it's easier to write a 1,000-2,000 word essay than be faced with writing 25,000 words, which can be quite daunting, especially when you're double-checking every word and the sources are often Spanish, Italian or Argentinian. Thankfully, I've made some very useful contacts who have helped where my knowledge was lacking.
Time to get back to it. I need to know the name of Leopoldo Sanchez's mum, but I have a feeling I might be on a fruitless search.
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