Monday, April 25, 2011

Gardens and sunshine

Book News:

I've now corrected and returned the galley proofs for The Art of The Delaneys to Amber Allure Press, so am looking forward to publication date on 15 May. I'm currently writing another short story for them, For One Night Only, but intend to get started on the last two of the Delaneys series after that.

Meanwhile, The Gifting is getting ever closer to publication readiness at Bluewood Publishing and I'm just ironing out a few cover issues with my cover artist, Penelope Cline. So it's definitely getting exciting. And I'm pleased to say that my literary short story, A Woman like The Sea, gained a lovely 5-star review at Dark Divas Reviews - many thanks for the comments, Athena.

The Easter Sunday haiku (a day late but, hey, who's counting ...) is:

Lone boy skateboarding
on a blue bridge pulls along
the comforting sun.


Life News:

I hope everyone's having a great Easter holiday weekend - hasn't the weather been glorious. A very rare event indeed here in the UK ... K and I spent a rather pleasant day with Mother on Good Friday, and managed to get to the hour's meditation service at her local church too, so felt pleasingly holy. Ruddy uncomfortable pews though - if I'm sitting still for an hour, I hope, perhaps foolishly, to be able to get up afterwards, but I think we were all struggling. Note to self: next time, remember a cushion.

Back home in Surrey, K and I have enjoyed the Easter Sunday service and have had an equally good time visiting a couple of gardens over the weekend, including Walbury in Lower Froyle - which was small but charming - and Chestnut Lodge in Cobham - which has a collection of glorious tropical birds to die for and doesn't allow children under 15. Double bliss indeed. We loved it. Today, we've also had lunch and a wander round at Wisley, which was very relaxing. The orchid displays are a little past their best now, but still worth a view for the last few days of the exhibition. It was also surprising how empty it seemed in spite of the number of cars in the car park, but that, somehow, is always the nature of Wisley. You can feel on your own whilst ambling around as it's large enough to take it.

In terms of house-buying, there's good news and bad. The bad news is that we didn't really like the house we viewed in Knaphill, though at least we were both agreed on its unsuitability. So we're left with the Woking one plodding its slow, slow way through the purchasing maze. Still, we're keeping our options open until someone deigns to suggest an exchange date (let's not hold our breath, eh ...), so will continue to look. No harm there.

The potentially good news is that the rental property we viewed today in a very nice part of Woking (this afternoon rather than this morning due to timings mix-ups) is quite frankly lovely and we'd move in tomorrow if we could. I hope we get it. Not least because it means we won't be homeless in three weeks' time. Hey ho. Watch this space ...

And we loved Lewis last night on TV - how I wish this wasn't the last of the series and I hope it's back on our screens very soon. I'm getting withdrawal symptoms from the excellent pairing of Lewis and Hathaway already. Honestly, it's the best crime drama around at the moment by far.

Happy Easter week!

Anne Brooke

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