Scared of Amazon

Selected a wonderful list of books yesterday in anticipation of spending my gift token. Chose nine titles all from awesome books at 0.35 pence each, hopped over to checkout and stopped short. The total cost of the books was something like £3.50 - but the postage and packing charge was £28.00! 

Telling myself it was too good to be true (to get  so many titles for so little) I went away shaking my head. They were all paperback, all from the same second-hand dealer in the UK and couldn't possibly have cost that much to post them all together.

Anyway, I declined to spend that much on postage.

Now I'm looking more carefully at each screen as I go. For me Amazon seems to be a minefield. Last time I remember their system swallowed my gift card and gave me nothing in return. (I did get it all sorted out, but it makes me wary. A couple of years ago I found I had somehow selected Amazon Prime and £79 had gone from my bank account. I did not and still don't want Amazon Prime, but their screens are so trickily worded and set out that it is easy to fall into the trap. DH fell into it a year or so later. Again, we both got everything sorted and money returned, but this sort of happening does make one wary. DH wont use Amazon any more. I use it, but in fear and trembling!

Wish me luck as I try to spend my gift wisely!

Since we have snow, wind and cold temperatures forecast for my area today I've been up and walked Tim so we can now hunker down in a warm house for a few hours and see what happens. Forecasts don't always come true, but I went looking for snow pictures and found this, taken in Zermatt in 2009 when we were perched on the top of the Kleine Matterhorn in sub-zero temperatures at something like 12-13,000 feet.

Dark clouds

Those dark clouds have been sailing up and down the valley constantly for the past few days but luckily we've had no more crashes of thunder. We are all going stir crazy because every time we nip outside in a sunny intervals, down comes the rain again! The fields are soggy in places, the stream is roaring through and the calves that are being born in the next field are getting a damp start in life. There is at least one fledgling bird scuttling about the hedgerow – out of its nest somehow, maybe in the strong gusts of wind that thrash the trees about just before the rain comes.

I’ve been thinking about Lee Child’s advice with the book I’m editing in mind. Happily there are questions – of course the biggest question of all is will Finlay win the crown of Alba? But there are smaller questions littered throughout on more personal questions of love and loyalty. 

As I'm writing a faint ray of sunshine has found me through the window. Immediately my spirits lift. The birds are singing outside and it strikes me that they've been silent for a while. Bill is off to do some work. Tim is determined to go with him. 

Holidays

Still no proof copy from Amazon, which is a little worrying. Soon I'll have forgotten what I was doing and have to start all over again. I don't understand why it is taking so long, because Postal services are pretty good these days.

In one of our odd weather quirks we had a miserable grey day yesterday. The air was full of moisture, yet I came home dry; but the grass in the fields was covered in water droplets and I had wet feet. Tim and I did not see another soul in all our 7,879 steps.  (Yes, I've got a new pedometer. Since I got it on the 16th, I've done 78,132 steps - and one day I forgot to record the total. It tells me that 5,000 steps equals 2.2 miles, so that must work out at roughly 15.5 miles. Wow. No wonder I'm hungry all the time!) Now today we are back to brilliant blue sky and sunshine. Tim and I have done our walk - 4677 steps or 2.1 miles and we didn't see anyone again. School holidays certainly make a difference to how people organise their lives. In term time the ladies tell me they get the kids off to school and then walk the dogs.

I'm picking up the pace with PR once more, so I apologise to all my friends who seem to see nothing but my book promotions. While I was in France I did none and it certainly had an effect on my sales and KENP. I also missed responding to people who wanted friendship on Facebook, for I found a whole batch of people who had contacted me while I was away. I guess six weeks is a long time. I befriended them all this morning!

War is declared

The mice are back. Last night I saw one run across in front of the fireplace so fast that DH missed it, and said I was seeing things because earlier in the day I walked into the upstairs bathroom and a dark brown mouse rushed out and vanished down the stairs. He turned sharp left and disappeared, which is odd because the stairs go down to the mill room there and there’s a drop of ten or twelve feet. A case of the disappearing mouse. Tim was on the landing and I don’t think he even saw it. Well, this morning DH came out onto the balcony to tell me he had just seen a mouse climbing up the tv wire that goes halfway up the wall, then disappears through the wall and on up to the roof. An acrobatic mouse, obviously, who may be seeking his family - all executed by DH. Total extinguished mice equals seven right now. DH is swearing there’ll be an eighth before too long.

Temperatures continue at 35 or 36 degrees with only occasional blast of breeze. We continue to melt.

Chapelle at Lapeyrouse.

Stormy times

After days of 35 and 38 degrees we woke at 4.45am to thunder and lightning which rolled around for an hour gave a couple of monster cracks which sent Tim scuttling out of his basket and into my arms - and put the electricity out. That meant dh had his trek downstairs to flip the switch again. Those last two cracks were the end of it but we have half the sky dark and grey and the other bright blue. Odd. Do you remember I sent a sock up into a tree and it stuck there? Well, the wind has brought the sock down to ground again in the last half hour. So we don't know if we're going to get a thunderstorm or not - so far there has been no rain - also very odd.

The picture was an early morning shot a couple of days ago when the sun was rising and lifting the mist off the lake.

A Change in the Weather

The good weather broke yesterday with thunder, lightning and heavy rain storms. From pic a to pc b in 5 minutes flat, and then the rain came sweeping in. This morning it is still raining, so we’re in for a wet couple of days. Makes a change from the blistering heat of the last fortnight. Hopefully it will take all the pollen out of the air because even Tim started sneezing yesterday. We had to bring him indoors before he stopped. Only DH is immune – not a single sneeze from him.

Partly because of the heat, which was excessive and had us cowering indoors some days, and partly because of Tim, we haven’t been out and about in the locality. He’s a good, affectionate dog but the one thing he will not do is walk calmly on the lead. However long it is, he wants to be a yard further on and investigate every smell in double quick time. He can lift me off my feet with no effort, none of which would go down well if we took him to town or anywhere there are crowds. Much simpler to walk him off-lead around the hay fields, now cut, or do the local hour-long monastery circuit where only the odd car is a worry. The other thing is that we’ve been coming here for 15 years and we’ve been to most of the local beauty spots, so there isn’t a huge incentive to drive anywhere. The downside is that it doesn’t leave me with many photographs for my blog! I may have to raid my expansion drive for pictures taken in previous years.

On the other hand, work on my re-write of my Viking story is going well. I’m experimenting with first person POV for the female character. In the previous version, now withdrawn from sale, I never gave her POV at all, which was probably a big mistake. I gave her actions and let those speak for her. That method was not a success; no one liked her and as a result no one liked the book. The beauty of Kindle is that I can take it down and re-write it, then publish it again. So, upward and onward!

Hot weather

The hot weather goes on. Yesterday there was a breeze, which made it much more pleasant to be out and about. The storms that were forecast for today have now moved back to the coming Thursday. All the hay has been cut, dried, turned and baled so now we have 17 bales taller than me in the field, and we can walk around the perimeter without fearing that we are doing damage. Tim loves it - all those new smells to investigate. I love it for that reason and also because my hay fever has vanished as if it had never been.

Rafa couldn't do it, Andy couldn't do it, so it's all down to Stan Wawrinka this afternoon. I hope he can succeed. Until then, I'll be checking The CRAIGSMUIR AFFAIR  one last time.

Hot Days

The time is 7 55am and I'm sitting here writing my blog with all the windows and doors open and the sun is beating down. Goodness knows what the outside temperature got up to yesterday - we stayed indoors where the living room temperature rose to 26 degrees C. This morning it is 22 degrees. Consider that when we arrived it was 16-17 degrees....and that the mill has three foot thick stone walls. Wi Fi is only available in the living room, (or downstairs in the mill room) because the walls are too thick. Evidently the floor is not quite so strong!

The farmers work early, knock off in the middle of the day and start again about seven in the evening and yesterday they had my sympathy because it was still too hot to sit out even then. I felt some sympathy for the tennis players, too. Though I have to say that Serena gave a most convincing display of being about to faint away until she needed to hit a convincing shot and then all her reflexes kicked in and the most complicated shot was executed with ease.

I have been diligently working away for a couple of hours every morning on The CRAIGSMUIR AFFAIR and have reached the last stages of publication via Kindle. Things appear to be going well and as long as the Table of Contents comes up as I expect, then I'm done. Publication Day is the 20th July.

Time flies

Here we are at Sunday again, our third here and it hardly feels like that at all. You may find it hard to believe but I was up and out with the dog by half past six in the morning yesterday; also today, but today I cheated and we both came back to our respective beds after he had relieved himself. Twenty minutes past eight we finally decided it was time to rise and shine. Consequently it is ten past eleven by the time I sit down at my computer. Time flies! 


The mousetrap went off with a clatter while we watched tennis yesterday. So that's mouse number two sent on its way. A third one has nicked the dog biscuit without setting off the trap, so no doubt this war will go on for some time.

The forecast was for overcast and cloudy today, so we had planned to drive down to Bergerac. But the sun is shining and it is very warm, so we are still at the mill. Tomorrow the forecast is for rain, so we will see. Maybe tomorrow it will be Bergerac.

Meanwhile, we'll keep watching the wildlife around us. Dragon flies are hatching on the pond, hanging over the  water in jewelled clusters. Tiny frogs abound, literally, in the grass and reeds. DH says he is constantly seeing them leap out of the way of the tractor when he cuts the grass. The little one on the right is hovering on the top of the water, with his shadow on the stone beneath and he has adopted excellent camouflage. He looks exactly like the stone beneath him.  If I hadn't seen him jump, I'd never have spotted him. (Sorry, no pun intended.)

The squirrel has made two appearances, both times galloping over the house roof and then down to the bolly rails. Our wildlife camera has recorded two white eyes in the darkness, presumably Monsieur Reynard doing his rounds. No more sightings of the coypu, though something is leaving tracks into and out of the pond. There are definite trails now. Mallards, perhaps as we often see them fly off in the early morning, and Tim has routed them out from the river.

Take a Break

We've had a week of splendid weather and I've spent a lot of it outdoors, so writing has taken a back seat. Considering it's only April, the weather has been amazing, reaching temperatures of 20 and 21 degrees. I'm so not used to such heat that working at anything was a trial! The forecasters claim the weekend is going to be cold, so I tell myself I'll catch up then.

Sometimes I need a break from working at the computer day after day. I get some relief every day now I have my dog, because he's a high energy type who needs a lot of exercise. He gets three walks every day and he's just impossible if he doesn't get those walks. While I'm out with him I see how much new growth there is on trees and shrubs, even on the meadows as the grass begins to grow again. The range of colours in tree foliage is beautiful and changes day by day. Watching him bound across streams, leap fallen logs and bouncing through mud patches is such a joy.

But sometimes the three walks a day are not enough and the temptation to abandon the computer becomes too much. So I give in to it, because I know that I won't produce anything worth while until I've refreshed my mind by pulling lots of fresh oxygen into my lungs. There's nowhere better for that than walking in forests.

Run-up to Christmas

Miss a day and e-mails choke up the computer! Now I'm running to keep up, and all because I took Saturday out to host a dinner for friends. Well, and Sunday to get over it - I was cream-crackered even though DH did a lot of the cooking!

Here I am today, running to catch up. E-mails checked off - except that for some reason BT Openworld is down, though G mail is functioning without a hitch. Keeping abreast of the Sydney Lindt cafe seige, and trying to plan for the next few days and the run-up to Christmas. I try and stay out of town at this time of year because I dislike being pushed and shoved in crowds, and conspicuous consumption is quite ugly in its raw state. Unfortunately, some things must be purchased, and while buying online is great in many ways, I do like to touch and feel clothes I buy - before I buy! I need something for DH, and so I'll sneak in really early one day this week. Everything seems to be so urgent in the run up to the big day. So many things that Must Be Done and yet, would we really miss them if they weren't done? Will anyone notice if I fail to buy or make sausage rolls? I doubt it!

Walking with Tim is a slipery-slidey task these days. We've had one good day of frost when the ground was hard and silver with frost. Tim went out in his overcoat - the temperature had dipped below freezing overnight. He trotted out looking very pleased with himself. The frost had gone by lunch time, the overcoat went back on the hook and the ground turned to mud again, The fields are green, winter wheat is growing apace in the fields. The lawn looks a mess because it is still growing but too soggy to cut. 2014 has been the strangest year for weather that I can remember.

Unseasonable weather

A few of my blog friends appear to have given up on blogging in favour of other forms of social media, so I'm clearing out the attic, so to speak. No hard feelings. I've enjoyed their words of wisdom for a year or two, and if they come back on-stream, no doubt I'll find them again.

As I find new and interesting blogs, I'll add them to the list. Talking of changes - if I could discover how to put new photos up in the Jen's Holiday pics feature (on the sidebar) I'd refresh that too, but as of this moment I have no idea how I managed to get them up in the first place.

I know the north American continent  has snow already, but we still have temperatures that are unseasonably warm. I tend to dress for the season rather than the actual weather, and that is proving a huge mistake. I seem unable to adjust to going out in November without a sweater or a fleece. Madness.

Staying Cool

Finally we have a dull, grey day, but it is still warm enough to wander around without a coat. I used to think May was a good month to visit Britain, but  anyone holidaying here this summer has been lucky beyond words.
Some days we've stayed indoors until the evening when things cooled down. The back of our house  - and the garden - face south, and so we get the sun all day long. That's great in the winter, when it helps warm the house, but this summer I've been following the French habit of closing the curtains and keeping the sun out on that side of the house. There's little air-cooling equipment around because we usually don't need it. John Lewis is always a nice department store to step into whatever the time of year, as they keep the air cool and fresh, but some of the older buildings can be unpleasant.

In May everything is new green and growing like mad and the weather is often sunny and gentle - or perhaps it just seems that way after the horrors of winter. Here in late August the cornfields are ready, some have already been cut, and the hedgerows are full of berries. It looks spectacular.

There is nothing quite so dispiriting as the sight of a cornfield laid flat by wind and rain, but this year the farmers must be laughing as every singe stalk stands tall and proud. In Somerset, government marksmen on behalf of farmers, are busy culling badgers because they claim they transmit TB to cattle. Given that other creatures - rabbits, deer, foxes, rats, mice and the like - all share the fields with cows, I don't know how they can be so sure badgers are the villains. Farmers in this locality shoot crows, which is sad because they're intelligent birds. We have a family of four who visit our garden, and we've watched the parents raise their brood each year. They're always together, the four of them, once the infants can fly. They seem such a happy group, much more so than the blackbirds, where the chicks harass the parents endlessly. The parent birds look quite hen-pecked by the time the fledglings can fend for themselves.

Hot days & Technology

The warm weather continues and it is pretty wearing. I sympathise with people who have to work through the hot days and remember how awful it was to be trapped indoors in offices and libraries - and yet now I close the curtains against the sun, open windows on the shady side of the house and only go out on to the patio after five o'clock when the heat is deliciously warm without being overpowering. Now I know exactly why France closes down in the middle of the day and comes alive at night. We've had temperatures over 30 degrees Centigrade here in the north, and I think the big cities like London are reaching 34. Only Scotland comes up shady on every weather forecast.

Today is the day I joined the ranks of those who have a smart Apple iphone in a smart red leather jacket. It isn't that I use a mobile phone very much at all, but Tim got hold of the bum bag I use when I take him for walks, and in it was the old Nokia phone. I carry it in case we get too tired and need dh to come and pick us up - thought that is less and less likely as Tim leaves puppyhood behind. But still, it's handy to have in case anything goes wrong. The old Nokia still worked in spite of the teethmarks and the missing bits, but it didn't look too good. Now I will have to learn how to use this lovely new gadget. I never really became at all conversant with the Nokia, but dh assures me this are far easier to use. We'll see. Maybe I'll join the ranks of those people who walk down the street oblivious of all but what's on their iphones...

I've just begun reading Leopard Unleashed by Elizabeth Chadwick and enjoying it, partly because there are fictional characters taking the main parts, and partly because she infiltrates her research so well. My reading has been fairly eclectic lately, veering between The Art of Fiction by David Lodge, Rafa, My Story by John Carlin, and To Distraction by Stephanie Laurens. Tim got hold of the last named and chewed several pages, so I had to pay up at the library and now I own the book. The blurb says it is "sinfully sexy," by golly that was a true statement. . I've read Laurens before, and I'm surprised this title isn't listed on erotica sites along with 49 shades, or whatever it was called.

Locked out!

We went for a walk over the Bank Holiday weekend. Picked up the keys, slammed out of the house and halfway down the drive realised we'd picked up the wrong set of keys. Duh. Fortunately we'd left the windows open and hadn't engaged the security alarm. We usually do both, but luck was with us this time. Hopefully we knocked at a neighbours door. Did he have a set of ladders long enough to reach an upstairs window? Amid much laughter, he did, and climbed in through our bedroom window, came down the stairs and opened the door for us, grinning.

For those who are interested in the current trends in reviewing, here's another link:
http://www.salon.com/2012/08/18/how_to_write_a_bad_review/
This one has lots of spin-off links and makes an interesting read.

As for me, I'm away up the hill to visit the Bank Manager this morning, so I can't dilly-dally here for much longer. We've been out walking every day this week so far, and it certainly pays off in alertness, though I can't say it helps with sleeping. I still do most of it after 1am. The radiators warmed up this morning for the first time since May, which means we had a very cold night, and certainly there's been frost on car windscreens. Summer's over, folks. Autumn is here, so look out for falling leaves clogging the drains and Virginia creeper leaves turning a gorgeous dark red. Ours hasn't, as yet, but it will, it will. All the rain this summerhas turned our garden into a crazy jungle in which I've been hacking and tearing all this week. Untold bags of vegetation have gone to the household waste recycling plant (otherwise known as The Tip) and there's loads more to do. And yes,before you ask, interspersed with all this activity, I've edited a good many chapters of my book about Matho.

The pic? Durham Cathedral from the south yard. We were there on Tuesday, and it was a gorgeous day - for an hour, and then it all went to hell in a handcart...

Montastruc

The Chateau

On our way back from Bergerac yesterday we stopped so I could take photographs of the rather lovely Chateau de Montastruc near the river Caudeau. Every time we pass the gap in the greenery that signals the narrow side road leading to the chateau, I snatch a glimpse of it. This time I was determined to look more closely.

Built on top of natural limestone, the chateau rears up into the sky, and someone, at sometime, carved chambers out of the limestone at ground level. Click here to view the Chateau's own website. For those proficient in the French language, you can read it in that language, but I have taken pity on those who struggle as I do, and the link takes you to the English language site.

The website is large, and the detailed history of the place reports that parts of the foundation dates from the 5th century.  You might find the birdsong intrusive, but the pictures of the interior are worth a glimpse, and seeing the chateau in snow makes it look magical. Imagine my surprise when I discovered the place was for hire!

The weather is calming down now. After impossible temperatures yesterday, (37 degrees C) the sky has clouded over and we may well get thunderstorms later according to the weather forecast. We'll have lunch and then think about going out for a short ride on our bikes.

It's a pity, but I cannot get Blogger to load a second photograph - and I have so many just waiting to load up!.

A drenching

We walked along the shore to the old ferry landing on the north side and then on along the shore of Loch Glendhu. There's a pretty section through the forest and then out along the open shore line, which offered dramatic views of the hotel, the bridge and the mountains rearing up behind. If you look closely, you can probably see where we walked; we passed the first waterfall coming down the hillside, and the next was just around the corner, where the  shadows start - it was also the exposed corner where the storm caught us, at the furthest extreme of the walk and with no shelter anywhere.


sunlight across Loch Glendhu (from the hotel window)

the sparrows were wet, too

By the time we got back to the hotel we were drenched and a hot bath was the only sensible thing. The sparrows came huddling in by the hotel during the worst of the rain while we sat in the lounge with a log fire and the beautiful view of the loch as the weather drifted over, the sun came out and the tide came in.
The land in the picture forms part of the Reay Forest which belongs to the Duke of Westminster and there's more information here, plus a rather nice video of the area. Taken in better weather than we had, I must say.

House of Wine and wildlife

We must have missed the House of Wine in Bergerac on other trips, or else it has opened up this year. We didn't bother going down into the caves or view the art exhibition. The courtyard was more than enough for me, with its wooden gallery on two sides and old, ivy-covered stone and brick walls completing the square. Beneath the gallery a series of posters details the history of wine in the area from Stone Age times, with lots of info on which wines grew where and why. Philistine that I am, I just like drinking it!

Still the rain continues. It's like being at home, except that it's still warmer here most of the time. The clouds are hanging low over the tree tops and the air is thick and heavy - 94% humidity. We may have to go looking for a lavarie soon - we can wash clothes at the mill no problem, but drying them in this weather is an issue.

There is a field surrounded by trees next to the mill, and we've found that deer come down at night and eat the plums off the tree. They regularly trek through in both directions, going down to drink at the river, or just passing through. We've put up our wildlife camera overnight, and caught one picture where the deer certainly saw or heard something from the camera as it took his picture. He stared right at it, and then vanished into the darkness. The camera caught a few other pictures, sometimes a stag, sometimes a doe. We saw a doe while we were eating breakfast on the bolly one morning, and yesterday around sixish, still daylight, I looked up just at the right moment to see a doe and faun sprinting for the cover of the trees.

A French lunch

There was a hint of sunshine yesterday so we shot off into Bergerac hoping to catch it. We needed to replenish the store cupboard (for that, read fridge) but we spent a happy couple of hours wandering around the old town before we hit the new Carrefour.
We've had too much rain lately - the first pic is typical of the last fortnight.

What we'd rather have is the second pic!

We've found the food prices high this year, and it's all because of the exchange rate. A couple of years ago, there were almost two euros to the pound sterling. Now, a euro equals 94pence or very nearly 100p (a pound sterling). You can imagine that makes a difference to the food bill. There's little on the supermarche shelves less than a euro. Now a bottle of French wine at five euros is not about £2.50, but almost £5. Petrol is about the same as back home - around £1.35 - £1.39 a litre when we left. Let's hope it's not gone up again when we get back. Bearing that in mind, we find 11 euros x 2 just a little much for lunch every day when we're out and about, so we seek out a boulangerie that provides those wonderful baguettes filled with chicken and ham, cheese and salad. Poulet complet, nine inches long, in a fresh baguette at 3.50 euros - what could be better? We found ours, a seat in the thin sunshine, and ate it across the square from the restaurant advertising moules frites for seven euros. Two old Frenchmen walked by, nodded approvingly and bade us 'Bon appetit.'

Having said that, every restaurant was packed with people lunching in true French style.

Rain, rain and an interview

The farmers must be delighted with all the rain we having here in the Dordogne, but I'm tired of it now. I came to France for sunshine ...


We've had a little sunshine this morning, but as I look out of the window I see dark grey clouds drifting in from the west. The rain comes from the Bay of Biscay, drifts east, dumps the lot exactly where we are, and drifts on east. The next day, you can almost bet on it that those self same clouds will halt, drift west and dump again, exactly where we are.

Perhaps I'm getting cynical about the weather! There has been one good thing to cheer me up this morning - my interview is up on the RNA Blog.
Here's the link - http://tinyurl.com/3vypvff

I tried really hard to make it interesting, so let me know what you think!