Saturday 24 December 2022

Made it in time!

 

Wishing you all a happy Christmas 

and a prosperous and healthy 2023


My new book has been published on Amazon! 


I made it just before Christmas!


The Styford Affair is set in Newcastle, 

very much my local city, and it was a 

pleasure to discover some of its history 

whilst doing research for Regency times 

n the area.


Lizzy must break free before 

it is too late…

Her odious guardian threatens to marry 

her in order to get his hands on her fortune. 

She flees Newcastle’s quayside, and rich 

landowner Lord Styford steps in to save 

her from disaster before handing her over 

to his mother. With hopes of turning this 

rough young woman into a cultured 

Regency beauty, Lady Styford befriends 

Lizzy. 

But her guardian tracks her down and trouble follows…


Whatever the cost…

Beautiful , quick-witted Lizzy considers 

handsome Lord Styford rather too high-handed

for her liking, but Miss Tremaine, his ex-mistress, 

considers her a rival for his affections and goes 

too far leaving Styford injured and like to die


A young girl's coming of age is played out on 

the quayside and historic streets of Newcastle, 

and the surrounding countryside. Here is the 

links to amazon Kindle author central, where 

you will find all my titles listed, including the 

new one. Happy reading!


rb.gy/2dssa9 (UK)

 


Saturday 17 December 2022

Too much dialogue?

 Ask yourself -

Do I rely overmuch on dialogue? 

There’s a trick to handling dialogue. A story needs a narrative voice to anchor us in the story, to tell us who these characters are and how they relate to each other. Without that, we lack understanding of

a) what is going on (no context)

b) where they are (no description)

c) why they are having this discussion.(motivation)

It’s good to have a description of the surroundings which may or may not be important to the conversation. Since we cannot hear the voices, we miss out on clues such as dialect, tone, emotion.

The very first literary agent I ever applied to said bluntly, “You’ve forgotten the who, why, what, where and how.” (I think those are the words she used. It was at least fifteen years ago! But if I misremembered, I’m sure you get what she meant.)

If a reader has to go back and read every word three times over to get the sense of what is unfolding, they will give up from sheer exhaustion. So remember - just dialogue may look cute, but it will not do the entire
job.

 

Friday 9 December 2022

Every sex scene should include...

 Some people find writing sex easy some find it difficult.
Things I need to remember or: every sex scene should:

a) advance the story

b) be a point of change for at least one of the characters.

c) Show the mind and heart set of the characters as well as what they see and do.

d) Actions reveal personalities and personalities can be revealed via actions.

e) What they seek must fit in the drive of the story as a whole

f) Sex is a dialogue between two minds.


Sometimes it helps to outline the same scene from the other person's point of view.
Always keep the tone and style of the story.

Be sure you know:

a) what each of your characters wants as they go into the scene,
b) what their point of change is, and
c) where they are at the end of said scene

I must remember to think of a sex scene as a point of mental and emotional change explained in physical terms. The action may well be similar to every other sex scene ever written, but the difference should be in my explanation of the character’s experience. And, of course, my writing style will also have a part to play.

Saturday 3 December 2022

That chapter was short....


Do you think about chapter breaks in novel writing?

I didn’t until I saw this piece on Emma Darwin’s Itchy Bitesized blog and started thinking about what I do.

I write until I think there’s an end of chapter coming up - a point where the story line is about to change. Most scenes come to an end naturally when there is no more to say without repeating what you’ve already said. On the other hand, I have occasionally written a long scene that goes across more than one chapter.  I need not say that sometimes I love doing a cliffhanger ending to a chapter!

Usually I have (without looking to check, which is unwise!) a chapter containing two scenes, occasionally more. I prefer not to do this, but occasionally it just works that way. Of course, those scenes will be short.

There might be a change of location necessary, or I want to change the POV and if all the other things concur, then a new chapter is a simple way of achieving both those things.

In a long reading life, I would say chapters in general and particularly in genre fiction are now a lot shorter than they used to be. I can remember reading in bed at night (often under the covers) anxiously waiting for a chapter to end so I could switch off and go to sleep. For me, in my books, chapters average out at between three and four thousand words. When I first began a decade or so ago, they averaged about five thousand, but reading modern books has influenced me without my noticing the change.

Friday 25 November 2022

"Put him out of her mind. "

 

The Regency period was very short: nine years between 1811 and 1820, when the madness of King George III made him unfit to rule and his son stepped in as Regent. 

The author who made the Regency World her own, or indeed invented that world, wrote stories based upon and around the upper classes, their social lives, carriages and clothes and etiquette.  They have been incredibly popular since the 1950s. Her name was Georgette Heyer.

I’ve read one or two and enjoyed them. I’ve wondered if she made up all those phrases – a bag of moonshine, land a facer, in his altitudes

Heyer researched the period extensively and built up a library of a thousand reference books by the time she died. Her notes record things like how much candles cost in 1812 and it seems that authors who came after her used much of her writing as fact. Much of it can be checked today and probably more easily, thanks to Google, than when she did all those years ago.

My concern right now is how much of the language she used was real, and how much did she invent? I must ask the people who celebrate all thing Heyer on Twitter accounts such as the ones below. They may have the answer.

@georgettedaily Twitter account.

@HeyerSociety

@MissGHeyer

“She decided that her wisest course would be to put him out of her mind. After reaching this conclusion she lay thinking about him until at last she fell asleep.”

Friday 18 November 2022

Getting what she needs


 Mcharacter (work-in-progress character, not me!) has to change from a sort of wild child/tomboy to a young Regency lady and I am pondering how best to do that.

I need to show her emotional and psychological changes and ensure the readers sees how she reacts differently to her new world.

Describing her thoughts could get boring unless I also manage to show how she sets about getting what she needs or wants. There should be a chain that connects how she begins to where she realises something she didn't know before or reaches a point where she does something she wouldn't have done before. If I can include some physical activity while she thinks, that would be good.

She should change in appearance as well as behaviour and I must remember it won’t happen overnight. She could be retrospective at one point, in which she would point up the change she is undergoing.

Her character's voice could be really strong in this sort of piece. If she does one thing and the reader would most likely choose another way of doing it, then Lizzy should begin to feel real to the reader

.


Friday 11 November 2022

Saggy Middle, anyone?

 

I think I’ve reached that place that writers call a saggy middle. I understand it is a perennial problem. My characters have done so well, and fought all obstacles, but now – where do they go from here?

Stakes (in story telling at least) are those things that keep a reader reading. Without them, then the story sags and loses momentum.

A story starts with a challenge to a characters' ideas and plans. They are forced into new directions. But the character needs ever new challenges. Words like Then - but - therefore - but - then - but - therefore - but..."come to mind.

If you have more than one strand or thread, then they need to interweave in an interesting way. Each time you switch from one strand to another, the reader loses emotional involvement in one thread, and needs to pick up rather quickly on another. This can slow reading to a crawl. What? Who is this? What happened to the other person? Find a place where a breather is sort of welcome but also promises Things are going to get Hairy when you turn the Page.

The big turning point needs to have things change for ever. In Pride and Prejudice Mr Darcy's first proposal to Elizabeth is such a turning point: she is offered a splendid marriage which will help both her and her sisters and she turns it down. Why?

Elizabeth finds herself at the crux or the midpoint, where the theme, present in the story right from the beginning, is tested. She made her decision and may well rue it. The very end of the story is where it is finally resolved.

Saturday 5 November 2022

To filter or not to filter?

 Have you heard of something called “filtering?”

I discovered a description of it this morning and laughed quietly to myself, for I have been trying to break the habit in my own writing for about a year now.

John Gardner describes “filtering” this way:

... the needless filtering of the image through some observing consciousness. The amateur writes: "Turning, she noticed two snakes fighting in among the rocks." Compare: "She turned. In among the rocks, two snakes were fighting ..." Generally speaking - though no laws are absolute in fiction - vividness urges that almost every occurrence of such phrases as "she noticed" and "she saw" be suppressed in favor of direct presentation of the thing see.

Janet Burroway explains: As a fiction-writer you will often be working through "some observing consciousness." Yet, when you step back and ask the readers to observe the observer - to look at rather than through the character - you start to tell-not-show, and rip us briefly out of the scene.

These days we are advised to Show, not Tell. So how we clear out the filters becomes important.  Having finally noticed this in re-editing my own books I am, to paraphrase Emma Darwin, at the point where “conscious craft has become intuitive craft.” 

The more straightforward, physical filter-words like "saw", "noticed", "looked round" "watched" "observed" are the first ones to look for, and then you can chase down phrases like "I remembered that", "she wondered if", "they decided that", "we considered whether" "he thought about", "He thought back to when", "to her it seemed as if" and if you think of more, follow them, too. You may be able to take out a great many of them and thus improve your writing. I know it improves mine!

Saturday 29 October 2022


People talk of Gothic novels - aka Northanger Abbey – but what is a gothic setting? Dracula’s castle is gothic because it helps invoke gothic themes. Take architecture, add in claustrophobia and creeping dread, toss in distance from civilisation, a prison-like atmosphere and you are almost there. 

Old places, and isolated wilderness helps to set the scene.  Almost any castle will do, especially if it is partially ruined and has a dungeon or better yet – a locked door. How about an ancient mansion, a hunting lodge, or dilapidated chateau? There are plenty of ruined cottages scattered about the norther landscape.

Take something familiar and twist it. A doll isn’t gothic-scary, but a doll that inexplicably appears on your bedside table might be. How did it get there? Who put it there?

Signing the contacts on some property isn’t scary, but doing so in Transylvania might be, especially if a mysterious and reclusive count lived there.

Historical fiction is based in reality. In Gothic horror, magic and monsters and things that go bump in the night might be real.

In a Gothic horror, the doll would be the ghost of a horribly murdered girl that now possesses the doll.

In historical fiction ghosts aren’t real and there will usually be a protagonist driven mad by the nasty doll shunted around by her wicked uncle.

 I like writing about the Viking Age which tends to be action-packed and practical. But I am beginning to think along the lines of a chieftain’s hall in the middle of nowhere, with a murderer who stalks the corridors at night, leaving gruesome trophies behind!

Yes, I did read Beowulf at uni!


But add in dread, and snow them in over a brutal winter as they are picked off one by one…

Friday 21 October 2022

Flicking through other blogs

Mullion Headland

Every now and then I flick through the blogs of other writers and pick up some hints and tips to help me on my way. Today I learned that writing the opening line before you’ve finished the book is a waste of time.

I read on and found a first chapter should:

1. Introduce the Main Character.

2. Make us Want to Spend Time with that Character

3. Create an atmosphere from page 1

4. Hint at the Theme

5. Tell Us Where We Are. Home for geriatrics or Chatham House in 1832.

6. We need some conflict on page 1 but the major inciting incident can wait a little

7. What does Your Protagonist Want; one major goal (the main story arc) and a goal for each chapter. Great if you get both in chapter 1.

8. We need Major Characters with dialogue

As Anne R. Allen suggests at the end of her post, the urge to check my first chapter against this list is strong. My Regency heroine is escaping a mean guardian, runs into trouble and is rescued by a handsome young man all in chapter one. But do I have a theme? What does my heroine want, apart from escaping? I think she’s likeable (but I would, wouldn’t I?) but will readers find her entertaining?

All I can do is carry on to the end and then – only then – redesign the first chapter if I feel the need.


Friday 14 October 2022

Talking Second Chances

 Way back in 2018 I signed up to Mailchimp and put out a newsletter.

For a while, it went well.

Then one day I could not get Mailchimp to co-operate with me, and I sort of abandoned the idea. Everybody seems to have an e-mail list these days, so I am trying again. You might notice there is a Sign Up now form over to the right of this post. I hope you will use it.

Mailchimp has retained the names who signed up in 2018 and happily sent off the new email to them, so there may be some weeding to do, but that is OK. I hope there will be new people who will sign up this time around. New additions to the list will receive a free e-Book and there will be snippets and chapters, scenes, and general news of what I am doing.

The pic today is of Halton Castle which features briefly in my story Fair Border Bride.  I know the non-castle addition is 17th century, but I am sure the tower was in place in the 16th century. I must have a walk that way again and see how big the "cat "shaped hedge is now. Fifteen years is a long time and there may have been changes!

Saturday 8 October 2022

In the long run

 What with gardening and "tidying up" my books and covers, I'm a tad busy which is just as well as it helps to get over the big gap there is in our household once again. Those who've never had a dog cannot imagine how silent and empty the house is without that doggy presence,

I haven't gone for a walk since last Sunday, but I have been in the garden every day. Pruning overgrown buddleias and digging up crocosmia that has overtaken everything else in the vicinity. Next it will be the Michaelmas daisies, but at the moment they provide a wonderful contrast to the autumn colours of the Virginia creeper.

Next, we are planning to take down an apple tree that is getting far too big for the size of garden we have and only produces tiny little crab apples - I think it was a wild seed anyway! Also, a laburnum, for the same reason. We will still have another laburnum in a different part of the garden. It does look lovely when in bloom.

The garden will look very bare throughout the winter but will be beneficial in the long run.

NB The Elsdon Affair is free for a few days from today. Why not read and review?


Thursday 6 October 2022

“Just get to the end of the chapter"

Crinan
 

I’ve always used chapter breaks to stop reading. 

“Just get to the end of the chapter and then stop.” 

Don’t know why I do this, but maybe that writing style was inbuilt in the authors I grew up reading. Today, not so much. All sorts of pauses and downright stops are employed now.

As a writer, I look at things differently. 

Much of the time I should like to stop the chapter on what I fondly hope is a cliff hanger, or at the very least, something that will persuade the reader to read on.

Many new chapters begin by ushering in a change of both setting and characters. In other words, a scene change. Scene breaks also occur within a chapter and that means the writer has to ensure the reader carries on reading without feeling they’ve been dumped in a new environment or with strange new characters they know nothing about. 

I have lately discovered what I think is called “the narrated slide” into a change of scene. A carefully worded slide into a new place and or time. The trouble is that this method oftens sounds passive and too many scene breaks in a chapter make the writing choppy. To be honest, when reading I don’t mind if it happens once or twice, but when it happens in every chapter, I find it annoying. I try to avoid it when I am writing.

Wednesday 5 October 2022

Technology Rules

 My current aim is to make a landing page.

A week ago, I wasn't sure what such a thing might be. 

To be honest I'm not exactly sure now and it seems devilishly difficult. But I shall keep trying. To be honest, I need something to concentrate on since Perla left us this week. I now have a house full of dog baskets and beds, but no dog and it is a year on the 12th since Tim left me. Plus which we have a funeral for a family member on 10th.

A landing page is supposedly what I need to get people to join my email list. I tried last year with Mailchimp and managed the first newsletter but could not get the instructions correct to send out a second or third letter. To my shame, I gave up. But now I am trying again with Mailerlite in the hope - faint, I admit - that it will prove easier.

Wish me luck. If anyone has any advice don't hesitate - tell me!


Saturday 1 October 2022

My Reading

 

These are the books I’ve read in the past few weeks:


Just like Heaven by Juia Quinn. Amusing in its way but I kept forgetting I was reading something set in Regency England. The conversations, and the language could have been in a contemporary novel.

The fine art of invisible detection by Robert Goddard. I always enjoy RG’s books. The main character of this one is a Japanese lady by the name of Umiko Wada who sets out to discover why her boss was killed. Kept me going back to it until I had the answer. A good read.

Revenge by Tom Bower. Ties together all the bits and pieces I’ve picked up on the internet over the last few years. Lots about Markle’s early years, during which her father paid for everything she wanted. Much less on what happened after the wedding.

The Cove by LJ Ross. Set in a make believe Kynance Cove in Cornwall where I spent many a happy teenage /early 20s holiday. A pleasant read, as ever, but I now have trouble remembering the plot.

Wild Child by Mary Jo Putney. Another historical romance. Doubtful about this at first when learning of a heroine who could not speak and was suspected of being retarded. But it seems she could, and did, and the story was different and interesting.

In the Blood by Steve Robinson A crime committed in 1803 resonates down to the present-day Cornwall and a genealogy hunter risks his life to solve the mystery and save a life. A good read.

All the Weyrs of Pern by Anne McCaffrey. AIVAS IS discovered and the Red Star vanquished. An absorbing read. Her world of Pern is so real and I adore the talking dragons.

The Renegades of Pern by ditto. Lots of familiar, well-liked characters in this though the main thread is about Thrella’s leadership of a band of murdering rogues.

Sacrifice by Sharon Bolton. I read this on first publication and thought it great. Today I was less impressed, but of course its that annoying thing “I can’t remember the story line” but as each plot point unfolds, I recognise it and the surprise value was lost for me this time around.

The Decision by Penny Vincenzi. A monster of a book with 800+ pages. I used to read a lot of this genre when I was in my twenties and enjoyed it but by the time the end approached, I knew what was going to happen, for I had read it forty odd years ago!

The Jane Austen Pocket Bible by Holly Ivins. Interesting but a tad repetitive.

The Dolphins of Pern by Anne McCaffrey. Entertaining. Lots of characters I recognise.

Monday 26 September 2022

This is not a lounging holiday

 



11th September

More gunshots this morning. A hunter parked at the end of the lane, and I didn’t want to take Perla out while he was firing over the fields. The owners of the mill tell stories of hunters shooting each other more than the game they are chasing, which sounds both reassuring, thinking of the wildlife, and a little worrying when considering our own safety. We know the man who, with the help of his dog, tracks down the animals they do injure but don’t kill. He makes sure they do not suffer.

We’re starting on the roundup of “last tasks” – shaking out beds, cushions, sofas, sweeping floors, dusting, last minute washing of socks and knickers to get us home feeling clean. Dh has trundled the BBQ down to the Earth Room, (which I am told has now been renamed the West Room) and is currently out on the tractor cutting the grass. I am still dead-heading lavender. Tomorrow the Great Packing Adventure begins.

The heat has been so intense these three weeks with all but two days in the high thirties that working after 11.30 was impossible, so there are some things we did not get done that we would have liked to do. Our holidays here are not the lounge around the pool kind. Dh sanded and revarnished or Danish-oiled the fence around the pool and the balcony fence. I pruned the garden that skirts the pool (and got well and truly bitten doing it!) and we both hacked away at the vegetation so there is a wider view of the field from the bolly. The pictures are a Before and After record. We wanted to trim the laurels at the back of the mill, take some of the ivy off the trees and tidy the creeper in the east patio, but it wasn't to be. 

Tuesday 20 September 2022

Walnuts, anyone?

 

5th September

Thunderstorms at 11.20pm last night. Almost continuous sheet lightning that lit up the entire mill, front, back and sides at the same time. Thunder but no rain, or so little rain that we did not hear it. Perla being totally deaf is lucky in these situations as she slept right through. Tim would have been bouncing around – totally alert, half afraid and half aggressive.

Dh drove into Vergt and did a shop that is supposed to last until we leave for home. Sometimes we get it right, sometimes we don’t, but it is not a worry as we have to go into Vergt on Monday to see Monsieur le docteur le vétérinaire to get Perla’s worming tablet and her Animal Health Certificate signed off. Then we have a few hours to get to Calais and through the tunnel back into England. (Out of interest for anyone thinking of taking their dog to France, we were charged £65.) Considering the £225 in England for the AHC before we went, and £65 in France, it is an expensive option – thanks to Brexit! Bah humbug.

The mornings are noticeably colder now, and likewise the evenings. A good time to get work done – it was far too hot when the temperature was in the high thirties, but low twenties is ideal. The nasty little biting creatures seem to be gorging on us as if to fatten up for the winter. I don’t see them, but I have several nasty bites, and they have attacked Perla’s paws as well. The pool is not quite so inviting now, and the leaves are turning yellow gold. I sweep the fallen ones from the bolly every morning. Sadly, the walnuts are not falling yet, but they are growing.

The very first Sunday of September and a hunter was out with his dogs, shooting at goodness knows what. Possibly deer, rabbits or boar, none of which we have seen, though we have seen signs that tell us they are around. It must be a struggle for them to find water, for the stream that runs through the mill land is still just a trickle and seepage. The spring that feeds the pound, however, runs as it ever did, so they will always find water here.

Saturday 17 September 2022

Sleeping in the leper house

 

You need a password before they will open the impressive solid wooden gates to allow you to drive into the grounds of L’Abbaye Royale de Fontevraud.  The old Leper house now operates as a very smart hotel and that is where we stayed the second time in Chinon

https://www.medart.pitt.edu/image/France/fontevrault-new/fontvrlt-tombs.html

In the nave of the white stone abbey there are what I first thought were coffins but later discovered were effigies depicting Henry II, and Eleanor of Aquitaine, (always Peter O’Toole and Katherine Hepburn in my mind!) I think the other two were Richard the Lionheart and his wife Berengavia.

The rooms are small since they were designed for monks and patients but are wonderfully “dressed” as they say these days. Medieval tapestries, hangings and furniture, but with comfortable beds and a tiny, but modern bathroom!

We ate in the cloister, where linen cloths covered round tables surrounding le petite jardin. I dined on sandre, or sondre, which still remains something of a mystery as the word, depending on whom you ask, translates variously as pike, eel or perch, which I know are three very distinctly different fish; but it was delicious in a light butter sauce. And I slept well. No ghosts at all, royal, leprous, fishy or normal.

Wednesday 14 September 2022

Chinon

 

The Sauvignon Blanc grape is planted along the eastern banks of the Loire in limestone country and it produces two exceptional wines – Pouilly-Fumé and Sancerre. What I did not know was that fume refers to the smoky bloom on the grape as they ripen, and not the flavour of the wine in my glass.

Chinon on the river Vienne is known for its red wines. We stayed there once in a lovely Best Western that had all its ancient woodwork modernised but with the style preserved. That stay was overshadowed by the fact that we got a parking ticket for being a little late on returning to our little white Toyota sports car. 

Worried that the gendarmerie would swoop down on us and with dh knowing from previous French holidays that heavy fines landed on those who did not pay up within 24 hours, we spent a restless night until he could go and settle the payment. (He now thinks the fine increased the longer you delayed in paying it - but then admits his French was maybe not up to the task of translation!)

Wednesday 7 September 2022

A Catastrophic winter


 Saturday 3rd August

Flicking through another book on the shelves here, I found this little story: there was a catastrophic winter in 1709, so cold the sea froze over near the Loire estuary, the vines were destroyed. The wine growers, or vignerons, replanted with a white grape that was more resistant to frost. Melon de Bourgogne was its name, known locally as Muscadet. Inexpensive, it is one of the classic wines of France – Muscadet de Sèvre-et-Maine, awarded an Appellation Contrôlée in 1926. A crisp, dry white it is perfect with shellfish and seafood. 

The vineyards lie south and east of Nantes and the rivers are the Sèvre and the Maine. Much of the wine is named Muscadet-sur-Lie and it is slightly petillant. I thought Lie was a river but now I discover the term means wine that has been left to drain naturally after fermentation while still in contact with the lees. A small amount of carbon dioxide is retained after bottling, which gives the slight “fizz.” Usually wine is drained, racked off and put into a fresh cask. So now I know a little of the history of the wine I love drinking!

 

Saturday 3 September 2022

Weather, wine and thunderstorms


 31st August

Dead mouse floating in the pool this morning. Where it came from we don’t know. It wasn’t there first thing. I only noticed it while we were pulling weeds and trimming the lavender. The temperature is still in the thirties, with brilliant sunshine, so not a lot of work is being done after mid-morning. Yesterday morning a fox walked across the garden, bold as brass at half nine in the morning.

1st September

Yesterday we drove into Vergt and detoured by the household waste bins as we had a week’s worth in three separate categaries – paper, glass and household waste. Everything else is supposed to be composted. Every commune has a designated bin area and every householder has to buy a pass keycard that unlocks the household bin. The other two can be used without the card. Absolutely no rubbish is collected from the home now. (It used to be picked up from the end of the drive once a week, but no longer.)

The detour meant we had a slightly longer drive than usual. At this time of year the fields are full of sunflowers and sweet corn, both of which grow taller than five feet. This year they are poor crops because of heat and lack of water. The sunflower heads are half the normal size and the sweetcorn is dry and shrivelled with hardly a corn cob to be seen.

It must be heart-breaking for the farmers. They bought seed early in the year, ploughed the land, planted the seed and watched it begin to grow. When we were here in April I walked Perla early one morning, turned the corner onto the St Laurant road and saw a thin bright ribbon of green shining in the sun. It was the first sign of the sweet corn breaking through the soil. If I can find that picture I will load it when I get back home. After all that effort, money spent on seed and petrol, his crop has come to nothing. He will be lucky if there is anything to feed to his cattle this winter. I don’t know how the strawberry growers got on, for the season seems to be over here.

Last night a tick attacked Perla. She felt it and ran away from it, and kept on doing that. At first I thought flies bothered her, but in the end I examined her carefully and found the large grey thing gripped onto her back leg just where the long hair curves over her ankle. Dh removed it and I bathed the wound. After that, she cuddled into us and seemed more comfortable. The tick now lives in the septic tank!

2nd September

Two rolls of thunder at 5am this morning and then a heavy downpour. I got up to shut the window in the living room in case it was slanted to the west, but all seemed well, and I shut it anyway.

For a little light reading I dipped into A South Wind through the Kitchen (Elizabeth David) and looked up wine. Every kitchen, says the author, should hold a bottle of red and of white wine and to remember that the wine is cooked, so that the alcohol is volatilized (if only I knew exactly what that meant) and only the wonderful flavour remains. For short cooking dishes, reduce the wine to half the quantity by fast boiling.

Abandon the cabbage water, gravy browning and cornflour when making gravy, she says; instead, strain off the fat from the roasting tin, pour half a glass of any wine in and scrape up the juice of the meat, let it sizzle for a minute or two, add a little water, cook gently for another two minutes and your gravy is ready.  It sounds very much what my mother did except she had no wine and used said gravy browning. I guess I still do the same, but occasionally I add red wine.

If you make the mistake of adding white wine to Moules Mariniere, Ms David says you will find the whole dish turns “a rather disgusting blue.” She adds that cider is excellent for cooking white fish and mussels, ham and rabbit as long as it is draught or vintage cider.

The wine of this south west region has been known and loved for 700 years. The Pechamant is our local wine appellation though there are eight others in the area. Pechamant make fully dry reds which require aging, so I have to confess that we haven’t bought any. Aging wine is not for us. We prefer the type that needs to be drunk now.  We like Muscadet-Sevre-et-Maine 2021 from the Loire region and a Bordeaux Superieur 2020. Mind, it is 13.5% proof and after two glasses I’m either madly cheerful or asleep.

Monday 29 August 2022

So relaxed we are melting


 26th August

Relaxing nicely into the French experience. We eat our meals on the bolly beside the pool, and admire our efforts to tame the rampant greenery. Tonight we had salmon with nectarines, camembert, cornichons and black olives with salad, plus French bread with grains of mustard. A selection we would not think of in England. A swim every day for me, but not dh, who does not swim and cannot be persuaded into the water. We rescued a big green lizard who was so startled to see dh, he jumped aside and fell in the pool. We fished him out with the scoop and he scuttled off into the bushes. (I have so little internet access that I shall load pictures once I am home.)

We’ve never been here in August before and it is different. The heat is steady most of the day from 10am, with no wind, and the nights are pleasant. Saturday night we sat out until midnight and stared at the sky. There is little or no light pollution here, and the stars are amazing. Best of all there are no mosquitos! Though there are small things that bite flying about – we both have several lumps, bumps and bites to prove it. There are very few flowers in the fields and we have yet to hear the sound of a tractor – very different to earlier in the year when the farmers are rushing about growing and harvesting crops. The sunflowers on the hill opposite are still yellow, but won’t be for much longer.

There are few holiday makers around. We hear maybe one or two cars a day, which is staggering. Even white van man is not bombing around as he is in the early part of the year. I wonder if the holidaymakers have stayed home this year. The stream is so low it barely trickles over the stones and all the sunken wrecks of once proud trees are plain to see.

Perla thinks it is too darned hot. I must admit we spend a good deal of time in the shade of the bolly. Up early, we walk her while it is cool, do whatever tasks need doing and then relax for the rest of the day until wine o’clock ( at 4pm!) and dinner as the sun starts to go down.

With no access to Facebook et al, I have written the first chapter of a new historical romance set in, of all places, Newcastle!

Thursday 25 August 2022


23rd August

Travelling always has the potential for delight or disaster.

Bicycle in the Andes or Mercedes on the M1, the chance is always present. Our trip down the A1 proved uneventful and we made good time to Folkstone. No terrible traffic queues, the pet reception people were friendly and we got onto the train before the one we had booked. Chortling, we settled down for the journey under the Channel.

That’s when the PA system informed us that “a train has stopped in the tunnel so our journey will be delayed.” We sat there for an hour or so while the stalled train was rescued and the people for the train we had booked on were loaded onto our train. (Very few cars had loaded with us and but for seeing pictures on tv later that night of people from the stalled train walking out of the service tunnel, I might have believed the delay was a ploy so that they could fill up our train! A'hem - suspicious, or what?)

At Abbeville the Ibis was ready for us and after a swift shower (did I say that the temperatures had been in the thirties all the way and even hotter in France?) we ate outside in the courtyard and I had my first ever Croque Monsieur with salad and chips. Very tasty though I doubt anyone would consider it high cuisine!

24th August

After an excellent night’s sleep we set off south. The temperatures rose throughout the day and the air conditioning was a boon but hard on the ears. We stopped to collect essential groceries at the local Intermarche and arrived at the mill at 5.12pm. First thing was to offer Perla a nice walk in the shade and then feed and water her. She seems to take all this travelling in her stride which is wonderful. Tim used to be up and whining every half hour – like a child crying “Are we there yet?”


I had a short swim in what proved to be a rather chilly pool since half of it was in shadow as the sun went down and then surveyed the "garden.” It is amazing that all our efforts in April to tame the undergrowth have been wiped out. Greenery springs everywhere, crowing out loud at our puny efforts.

Just let it wait until we’ve slept and recovered from the journey – and then we’ll see who is crowing!

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