Aydon Castle

The east face of Aydon Castle. I had my character

Alina sit at the window and look out on the orchard below when her father told her whom she was to marry. Not of course, the man with whom she had fallen in love.

The projections, they say, show where an extension was planned but never executed. I'm rather glad, since we would have lost the pretty window had the extension gone ahead.

The weather is so very hot...25, 26 degrees centgrade. Creeping up to 27 and 28 yesterday afternoon. Just sitting still brought a slight dew to the skin, and moving was unthinkable. I suppose if you live long enough in such heat, then the body becomes acclimatised.

Round up

I'm blogging over at http://lindsaysromantics.blogspot.com/ today. If you don't know the blog, it's worth a visit. I added my piece on Historical Belles and Beaus
on the 22nd but forgot to mention it here!


Last week dh and I took a picnic over to Corbridge and walked up to the place I gave my heroine Alina as home - Aydon Castle. It looked pretty good in the blazing sunshine and I couldn't resist a few pictures.


In places so old there have been so many changes down the centuries that it is hard to be sure exactly what the place would have been like in Alina's day. The lovely blocked up window might have been part of the guest quarters, yet from the other side of the wall, you receive a different impression.
The door on the left steps straight in to the cow byre below the kitchen. The door into the sunlight leads to a narrow path above the ravine that caused Harry such trouble. I spend hours contemplating the old stones and how they are arranged and it never fails to give me ideas about stories, what might have taken places there so long ago.

But life calls today. There's a bit of necessary food shopping to do, compost* to buy for houseplant change overs, garden rubbish to take to the waste recycling and then a session in the gym.
(*Is compost the word I want? If it isn't, I can't think of the correct one!) None of the tasks will take us far from home, then it will be back for lunch and and afternoon in front of the tv for Wimbledon. Federer and Nadal in one day! Phew!

Distractions

There are so many distractions this week I've done almost nothing to my resurrected writing project. First of all the weather has been almost perfect, so we've been out and about, hence the shot to the right taken in the woods around Aydon Castle. Secondly, I've been watching Roland Garros in Paris and cheering on Rafa - and there's another week to go before the final!

Thirdly, and this is the crunch, I couldn't decide how I wanted to progress my wisp (work in second project, before you frown. Perhaps it should be work as second project and therefore wasp). M&B don't want it, so I want to make it less H/h focussed and have more secondary character interest.

I'm mulling over various title changes for it. I'd like something that reflects or hints at the story line, but nothing is coming to mind yet. Yesterday, I saw the way forward storywise, and have re-drafted the first two chapters and added a prologue. I have notes for the third chapter ready to tackle, but Federer is playing today... and the weather is perfect again, and our neighbours are hosting a garden party this evening...