Midnight Moll's dinner parties

 

What do I remember of my first visit to Caithness? The flatness, the stone fences, and the wind. Gorse in bloom. Warm, friendly people who claim to be Wickers, which means they come from Wick, and have no truck with Gaelic and Jacobite woes. These people claim their heritage from the Norsemen and are proud not to be of any clan.

We hit lucky with our visit to the Castle of Mey on 10th April.  Recently widowed Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother saw it during a visit to the area in 1952, fell in love with it and decided it must be saved as part of Scotland's heritage. She bought it for £100 and spent her summers there, gradually restoring it. She set up a trust before she died, and it went to  her grandson, now Charles III. 

It was Easter Weekend when we were there and the Castle was open to visitors. The huge wall protects the castle from the worst of the winds off the sea, and shelters the walled garden. The castle seems a huddle of chimneys and odd little towers, a delight, almost a child's idea of a castle. Once through the gates, we walked round to the front of the house, which faces south across the fields. 

Surprisingly, the day I was there the wind shrieked in from the south! and we were glad to get inside those huge doors. Once the nine-inch key had safely been turned in the foot square lock to keep out unwelcome visitors, we enjoyed our tour with Mr Jackson. Just the three of us, through the drawing room, the equerry's room, the sitting room, then up the spiral stairs to view the bedrooms. One housed a romantic four poster bed in a room designated as Princess Margaret's room though she never slept there because she thought the castle far too cold and always went back to her quarters on board Britannia in Scrabster harbour fifteen miles away.

Down a set of stairs so steep the Duke of Edinburgh claimed they reminded him of being aboard ship, (and I wondered how the aged Queen Mother managed them) and into the dining room, the pantry and then down again to the kitchen with the 1950s fridge, still in use. Anecdotes and reminiscence all the way. 

The Queen Mother had fifty years of widowhood and we heard stories of Dinner parties in the castle that went on so late that she earned the nickname Midnight Moll. Menu reminders, handwritten in French, were propped up at her place at the dinner table, a kitsch Nessie toured the top of the sixteenth century tapestry in the drawing room. Yes, I'd love the castle to be mine - but could I afford the central heating? Probably not.

It was built for the earls of Caithness between 1560-1580 and stayed in the family for 300 years. Though it is only 200 yards from the sea, I saw no beach but my dogs would have loved it.- acres of space and no one about! I recommend the castle of Mey for your delight if you are ever that far north though I cannot guarantee Mr Jackson will still be there.

A thunderous noise on the stairs

Can't remember when I last painted my study and when I look around, the walls are scuffed where people (and that includes the dog!) brush against the walls on their way in and out. Right now I have one wall cleared in expectation of Painting. Everything is pushed into the middle of the room and  one bookcase has been emptied into another bedroom. But the wall behind me is clear and ready for work.

Oh! The dust! You wouldn't believe the dust. And a toy car from when the grandkids were here, a white leather bookmark from Jorvik Viking museum... the finds were surprising.

What it means and why I'm documenting it here is that until this room is back to rights, I won't be doing much on my computer. 

To add to the day being memorable, we had a visitor in the shape of black cat. The first I knew of it was the thunderous noise of Nala racing downstairs , back up and down again. At first I thought she'd fallen, and ran out to see  - she was pursuing a black cat upstairs, past me into the bedrooms. Cat dived under the bed, ran for the windows, scrabbled to try and reach the curtain rail - which we don't have as we have blinds - and ran out. We all three of us ran into every bedroom and out again. I got each door shut and she  (I think it was a she) ran down stairs and shot through the hall, the kitchen and out into the garden still with Nala in hot pursuit. I just hope she didn't pee on Bill's pillow as she ran across it, or under any of the other beds! 

Where my book wanted to be

 Just pushed the PUBLISH button on a new book!

Not 100% new, but 95% new. The general storyline has not altered but oh! I've spent so much time on  re-writing, improving and slanting it in a new direction, too - Romantasy.

I was never happy with my first attempt and when I started reading Romantasy, well  Wow! I thought, that was where my book wanted to be all the time.  So now it is there, and unashamedly promoted as that. Let's hope it does well. 

This is the first time I've deliberately aimed at one of the more niche genres and I can say it makes Promos a whole lot easier than trying to excite someone with a commonplace historical romance. It may take KDP 72 hours to have a book ready for a reader but I shall be watching all progress with an interested eye. One or two facts about Trust No Maid -

Setting: Ireland and north west Scotland

Period: around turn of 11th century

Characters: New heroine  appears but Olli, Flane, Emer and Skeggi featured in Far After Gold, as they did in Viking Bride and Viking Summer.

Why are fairies cruel?

  I've just read A Court of thorns and roses by S J Maas even though it was published in 2015.

It reads like an adult fairy tale and like the fairy tales I hated in my childhood, it is in part gruesome. Now I don't mind so much. I'm big and grown up and I can handle gruesome. But why is this sort of fantasy suddenly so popular?

The Sunday School I used to attend pre the age of seven gave out copies of Grimm's Fairy Tales as prizes - I can't remember what for. I got one, and when I began reading the short stories  they had me in tears so often that my parents took it off me and hid it somewhere. Or threw it out - I don't know what they did with it to be honest.

I wonder why fairies are thought to have this streak of cruelty? Ms Maas's fairies are definitely cruel. I might even say downright sadistic. Maybe it is as simple as a corruption of power. Give someone enough power and they will use it - whether it depends on good or bad depends on the personality of the individual. If you have any good ideas as to why fairies are cruel, let me know!

A sound check first

 

I wonder if people who comment on social media show their true colours there or if they are simply posturing - trying to be the one who says the most outrageous thing?

Back in the day, we had newspapers who actually reported news. They were read and the articles were discussed, usually, among people who knew each other. Today newspapers have no news to report as it is all broadcast 24 hours a day on tv and via our phones, so the editors resort to promoting dispute wherever they can. This weekend newspapers, via social media,  are making hay out of the BBC changes with tennis commentators. 

Who knew there was such huge disagreement over who the public want to commentate on their tennis matches? Personally I like Andrew Castle. His voice is pleasantly suited to the job and he talks equally about the tennis  and the people watching.  This last week I have missed him telling me who the camera was focussing on in the crowd because I recognised very few of them.

The American crew (McEnroe, Austin) came in for huge criticism for their nasal tones and their bias towards American players to the detriment of the British contestants.  Why they approached Eugenie Bouchard I shall never know except that she represents Canada and that will persuade Canada to buy the rights to showing tv coverage there, as American commentators help sell to America. 

Then there are the people who want Sue Barker to return. Much loved as she is, Sue was born in 1956 and is now 70.  There is much work involved in keeping up with players and their losses and wins and Sue deserves to enjoy her retirement. 

And then there is Andre Agassi. A great player, certainly and knowledgeable about tennis and I am sure his books are very readable but   - and it is a huge but - a speaker he is not. It is hard to understand the closed mouth delivery, the monotone level, and initially he talked over the play on the court below. He was not popular. 

Where the Wimbledon committee go after this is difficult to predict. Cultivate home-grown commentators? Bring on some of the younger British ex-players such as Anne Keothavong? She does well. Give them a sound check first and see if they can actually commentate  sensibly and most importantly, that their voices are pleasant to listen to for three hours at a time. That would be a good idea. 

Gritty Regencies coming our way?

 

It seems readers of historical romance are turning to "Romantasy" (Romance Fantasy) and contemporary fiction rather than traditional historical romance. Harlequin has officially shut down its beloved Historical line. Some author contracts have been let go and established authors are being pointed toward the new genre. 

I am a little late in discovering this. Discussion started as long ago as May 2025 and there are lots of opinions out there if you care to read them. The books of the genre I have read recently have made me wonder exactly what is changing, which is why I did a little research. Basically the main reason things are changing is money. Is it not always so? Authors write what publishers want to publish and publishers want to make money. Readers opinions matter,. If they don't buy, the publisher wants to know why. Which is why the historical romance genre is changing. 

Younger readers are more sensitive to racism and sexism. New authors try to avoid such problematic content, but the book can then feel too modern and alienates the readers who have been enjoying HR for many years and always accepted that “that’s the way it was back then.”

There is also an argument that says declining literacy must take its share of the blame. The Netflix Bridgerton show created a huge boom in period drama, but the books themselves did not enjoy the same popularity. Contemporary romance is the world we all know but historical romance is a different world and not every romance reader feels at home there.

However, while traditional historical romance has shrunk, there is hope. They say the indie and self-publishing space is thriving. Many authors are finding passionate audiences on platforms like Kindle Unlimited. Many authors are successfully blending genres—infusing magic into history (creating "Historical Fantasy") or adding grittier, mystery/sleuth plots into Regency-era settings.

Definitely food for thought for any author.

One thing Ancestry won't tell you

Evidently, we can all trace our ancestry back to a most recent common ancestor of all humans, who probably lived in either Egypt or Babylonia during the classical period.

Assuming an average generation time of 20 years, this means that we are all 120th cousins, descended from someone that was alive when the pyramids were already aging structures. (Many millions of other people living at that time also have living descendants, of course. The last common ancestor is simply the one who is an ancestor to all of us, in addition to our many other ancestors who are not common to everyone.)

Like many others I tracked my parents and grandparents and apart from one grandfather who came from Shropshire, almost every other ancestor came from the Wear Valley in Country Durham. By that I mean from Durham city up to the border with Cumberland as it was known then. And that grandparent moved up to Etherley and married a local girl.

One thing that Ancestry.com won’t often tell you (but which I soon discovered for myself) is that the genealogy that you discover may not be accurate. Inferences have to be made when you are dealing with records that are hundreds of years old. There are many surnames and first names that are quite common. (In my case, Thomas Wilsons and John Hulls crop up everywhere) There is no way to be sure that the “Jacob Carter” that turns up in one record is the same “Jacob Carter” that shows up in another from fifteen years later, even in the same general area.
Then, as now, many families were on the move. An isolated census record containing only a name is nothing more than a low-resolution snapshot. Especially, as I found, if you are checking mining communities in South Durham. Families followed the work.)

Try reading Nathan H. Lents, Ph.D., professor of molecular biology at John Jay College, of the City University of New York if you want to know more.