A new release coming up!
‘A sequence of polished little gems that offer tantalizing keyholes to the past…’
‘A sequence of polished little gems that offer tantalizing keyholes to the past…’
I reckon it’s quite hard to do SoS in the winter. There just doesn’t seem to much going on that’s of interest. Especially in our little Matchbox garden in the city which is resting, as any little hard worker should, until the busy blooming time of spring.
Very quick SoS today.
We’re in the city for a few days and the weather is astonishing – twenty degrees and the garden is so confused. And dry…
The inspiration for my latest book, Reliquary, originally came from the research I carried out for the previous trilogy called The Triptych Chronicle. In the process of seeking facts on rare and valuable merchandise that may have been traded in the twelfth century, I came across mention of a silk called byssus and which is still harvested in the Mediterranean from a species of shellfish.
We’ve finally sunk into a true winter burst, with chilly temps and snow on the mountains. Whilst the snow will be gone by Monday, the cooler temperatures remind us that we need to consider frosts and planting seeds for spring. We’ve planted broad beans in the veggie garden (traditionally on Anzac Day April 25th, here in Tasmania but we’ve planted as late as August) and begun to rest and feed the veggie garden. There’s always more for us to do in our garden in autumn/winter, I love it. Pruning, feeding, mulching, planting, planning – and so we’ve begun.
This is one of those chatty posts, as though you and I might be sitting across a café table from each other and we are meeting for the first time. I’m drinking a cappuccino with a coffee macaron on the side. And you? You’re having a coffee as well? Excellent.
You want to know what I do?
Well…
Over the years, I’ve often commented on how inspirational Dorothy Dunnett’s writing has been to me as I tread the path.
Once a couple of years ago, I was asked to write a piece for the Dorothy Dunnett Society’s august journal, Whispering Gallery, on the nature of shock or more particularly, what I found to be the most shocking piece of writing in Dunnett.
We’re back in our big garden on the coast after dallying in the city last week and I was happy to see the garden breathing again as temperatures drop and the nights have welcome dews. This garden suffers in summer, as I’ve mentioned before, and in order to try and create a more temperate micro-climate, we’ve slowly been filling the old orchard with trees of all sorts. Hopefully they’ll act as not just wind protection, but feedlots for birds and insects AND lower the overall summer temperature of the whole garden. Trouble is, it may not be in my life time. But that’s gardening, isn’t it? A measure of future-proofing?
It’s been an age since I contributed to SoS, despite that I’ve always visited all the other gardens across the globe. Life’s been a bit busy and to be honest, it’s that time of year where nothing much is going on in our gardens.
