Christmas shopping!
My hist fict trilogies have been reduced to a gobsmacking 99 cents until Christmas Eve.
My hist fict trilogies have been reduced to a gobsmacking 99 cents until Christmas Eve.
I’ve got a basically white garden and tend to accent mostly with blacks or close-to-blacks, even the odd grey or slate grey.
So here’s my few for this week’s SoS from our little Matchbox Garden in the city.
Writing this latest historical fiction (A Small Thread of Silk – working title only) is filled with serendipitous and exciting discoveries which is making the writing something special. Those of you who know me from Facebook will know about the strange revelations that have occurred, odd discoveries which mean that this book has just been waiting quietly in the wings to be written.
A few weeks ago, a friend of my daughter’s introduced her to this lovely goodwill gesture created by a young woman in Hobart, Sarah, who wanted to spread kindness and compassion.
We’ve just had a ghastly bout of weather. Last week we had 32 degrees and we were swimming. Yesterday, it was 9 degrees with galeforce winds and icy rain. My poor garden has been battered and bruised but plucky thing that it is, it continues to bloom regardless. That’s the wonderful thing about nature.
My six were taken in haste this evening after freezing rain earlier today.
Firstly my flower purchases.
White petunias for terracotta tubs here and there. Three packets of different varieties of sunflowers for the veggie garden. Pachystegia Insignis for tubs. Dicentra formosa. It’s delightful. Primula auricula with a ‘blackish’ flower.
Next, my veggies. Firstly parsnip seed. Then seedlings: cucumber, zucchini, basil, mixed lettuces and pak choy. I’ve already planted potatoes, snap peas, snow peas, carrots and beetroot.
Thirdly: my propagated sweetpeas. I complained a few SOS’s ago because they seemed only to produce blue flowers but in the last week they have started with pinks, so I’m quite happy. And I can’t believe that I grew this fence-load of plants from seed I collected myself. Thanks Mr. P for the encouragement.
Fourthly: Madame Alfred Carriere on the veggie garden fence. A picture, despite the gales we’ve had.
Fifthly: I wintered poor little Euphorbia Diamond Frost in my cold frame but it looks appalling! I hope evidence of green stems means it will survive. What I don’t like is the horrid seedling/triffid taking over the pot. How dare it! I ripped all the white foxgloves out of the garden last year and expect the rest of my life will now be stopping them taking over.
And finally six. It’s not hail or snow. It’s white petals off the Guelder Rose after the winds. Poor plant.
To have a look at other global gardens, pop over to Mr.P
Cheers all.
I have no idea where I’ve been the last few weeks.
Somewhere enjoyable? Yes, or else I wouldn’t have had a complete memory lapse about the approach of business and the real world.
Was it somewhere doing everything and nothing? Yes. Lots of everything, actually.
But wherever it was, and whatever I’ve been doing, (researching, writing, family – mostly family, masterclasses, birthdays, nannying and more), it made me completely forget that over this next week, there was a plan to offer all my historical fiction e-books at a SALE PRICE.
It began some time ago.
I located a map of my most desired area and opened it on the screen with a cup of tea and a cookie at my side. I slipped on my reading glasses and bent over the map.
I knew the treasure would be located somewhere between 12th century Lyon and the Forez. It had to be. After all, my last trilogy had played into those areas. Particularly the novel ‘Guillaume.’
The biggest hurdle though, was distance.
The distance between me and those areas. Me in Australia is a long and so very expensive way from France.
But then this is not insurmountable.
Because…
Every year I’m asked how I’d like to spend my birthday.
Heavens’ knows why because it’s an unbroken tradition that I go to Maria Island for the day with my husband.
This…
…hit me like a steam-train when I read it on Instagram. I can’t find the original spokesperson, someone called ‘Wood’, or I would pay credit, but as an historical novelist writing about the twelfth century, in particular Lyon and Constantinople, the words had complete resonance.
And try and say that quickly!!!
You know of course that a snifter is a brandy balloon…
…a piece of glassware that is narrower at the top than the bowl and concentrates the heady aroma of the liquor to the nose.
And in essence that’s what this post is.
Three free snifters designed to titillate your palate and give you an idea of what’s emerging from my little grey cells.