Life News:
OMG, we're here!! In Woking, a surprisingly nice part of it too, ye gods and little fishes. Yes, we have moved, begorrah and pass the smelling salts. I cannot believe it. Honestly, it feels soooo good to get out of the Godalming flat, though we will miss the neighbours, that's for sure. We got up at 4am on Tuesday and didn't get to bed till 10pm but it was worth every last strange second of it. Our four packers (who were surely all below working age, or am I just getting older?...) arrived at 6.45am and were absolutely wonderful in every way. So a big thank you to Cook's of Cranleigh who, although they have no idea what a website is for, don't have email or mobiles (goodness, so modern, madam ...) and live in a hugely rural setting with a lot of horses, are experts in smiling efficiency, friendliness, speed and glass wrapping. Not to mention coping with the sixteen outside steps and sixteen inside ones in our old flat with absolutely no complaints - what stars. I loved the way they arrived, cased the joint and then promptly took a twenty minute smoke break with coffee, teas and biccies supplied by me - so wonderfully British, my dears. However, after we'd realised that once they got going they packed at the speed of light and could strip a room in less time (almost) than it took for me to say golly, you're fast, I has absolutely no qualms with them taking whatever time they needed to refuel. More tea, anyone?...
They promised we'd arrive in Woking at round about 2pm and they made it at 2.10pm, which for removals is pretty much bang on the dot, good for them. And I love it here. It's even quieter than Godalming though it's odd to be on the ground floor (but what bliss ...) and have people above us. There's a novelty - we've lived in the roof for eighteen years, so it's good to ditch the oxygen masks and be able to admire the flowers. Which we can actually see from here, goodness me. It's a shame in some ways that it's only rented and a temporary move - the rooms are great, especially the living/dining room, which is simply a vast expanse of space with some fantastic sofas and wooden flooring. Wooden flooring! My dears, living on the top floor means we've never dared imagine such luxury ... And we have a garden too - and today I have sat outside on the patio (yes, one of those as well!) furniture supplied very kindly by the rental agents, Martin & Co, and eaten my lunch. Bliss. This is the life, eh ...
Mind you, I've not been entirely lazy - we did most of the unpacking on Tuesday evening, but K sorted the books out yesterday, and today I have tackled the spare room - except for the boxes that are too heavy to lift, which we can sort tonight. Not many of them now, thank goodness. And, as you can see, K has sorted out our Internet connection with Virgin Media via a dongle (yip, I'm still laughing at that one, sadly ...), and it does seem a lot faster than BT, so far. Though of course the connection in Woking is by default better than the one in Godalming (valley, TV/phone blackspot, the Surrey outback, etc etc) so I shouldn't be too surprised that things are faster here. Still, there are a couple of niggles I hope we sort soon - TV is a bit of an issue as we think the best option would be Virgin cable and of course they want an initial 12-month contract for set up so that's impossible at the moment. However, we've gone back to basics and K is looking for an aerial and a booster so we can get some kind of transmission in a terrestrial fashion. Not, at the moment, that there's very much on, by the look of it, but it would certainly be nice to have. Ooh, and we're having trouble with the bath taps - they're soooo stiff, I have either to call for K to come and help me turn them on and off, or wrap a towel round my hands and go to it, as it were. What fun. Still, it's great and I'm settling in much faster than I imagined, hurrah.
Yesterday, I was back at work for one day only - the commute from here was roughly the same as the one from Godalming and appears to be only one mile longer - but of course it's half-term so it will be interesting to see what it's like next week when I'm in on Monday. Being me, I took a map in the car but I managed to find my way rather well, I must say. However, I was very grateful indeed that I'd booked a reflexology treatment for lunchtime - as I certainly needed it by then as I was absolutely shattered from the move.
Today, as well as unpacking and sorting out admin stuff, I've popped in to see my lovely former neighbour in Woking - he's now only a two-minute drive in the home so that's fantastic. Yes K did suggest I walked it, but really I was just too idle for that ...
In terms of flat selling news - yes, you've guessed it: our solicitors in Knaphill have found yet another document for my poor lovely ex-neighbour to sign and are going to be sending it to her. Thankfully she's agreed to sign it (thank you, G!) - this time it's a document for the current/future flat dwellers to agree the new lease that's already been updated, agreed and signed by the old flat dwellers. This apparently is standard practice so you'd have thought our solicitors would have known this and not told me last week that there was absolutely nothing else that G needed to sign. My confidence in the legal profession, particularly when it comes to conveyancing, has always been appallingly low, but it has reached new depths of negativity in recent times, I can tell you. Deep sigh ...
Book News:
I have a launch date for The Gifting! - which will take place on Wednesday 6 July at Godalming Museum, so I'm very much looking forward to that. Ruth at work's husband, D, has agreed to do the catering (thank you, D!) and I already have eight people attending, well gosh, even though I only sent out the invitations today. Okay, I admit that includes Ruth & D, K and me, and the Godalming Museum rep, but three yes responses aren't to be sniffed at in the small-time author trade, believe me.
NB THIS SECTION HAS BEEN REMOVED DUE TO LEGAL NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE PUBLISHER CONCERNED, AT THEIR REQUEST.
Anne Brooke
ANNE BROOKE BOOKS: Independent writer of modern fiction
Thursday, June 02, 2011
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Gardens and goodbyes
Life News:
We've spent most of the weekend preparing for the move on Tuesday and saying goodbye to the neighbours (when they're in). We've now sorted most of the books into piles for taking to the rented flat and piles for storage, so that's a relief. Still to be done is: emptying the loft, draining the washing machine, defrosting the fridge and turning off the freezer (which is all but empty now anyway). We're getting there, though I must say K is doing most of the hard graft with me providing essential domestic support wherever I can.
Still, I managed to squeeze in a game of golf with Marian on Friday, and it was such a relief to get out and knock some balls into ridiculously small holes (as it were). Made a great change from the trials and traumas of Thursday, hey ho. Also during the week, we have breathed the proverbial sigh of relief to note the massive improvement in Wednesday's episode of Midsomer Murders - which also included a naked Sgt Jones which was fabulous, I must say. More please ... Set against that, however, was the totally appallingly written, long-winded, dull and overly emotional episode of Dr Who we bravely sat through (whilst yawning and glancing repeatedly at our watches) on Saturday. What are they thinking?!? Every time someone had a tearful moment we'd just laugh and shout at them to get a grip, and the sickly-sweet moments with the boy at the end definitely needed cutting. Or someone should have drowned the wretched boy in acid. One of the two ... I would have done it myself if I'd been there.
Today, we decided we'd had enough of flat sorting so popped out this afternoon to see Moleshill House garden and The Coach House garden, both in Cobham and next door to each other which made it easy. Lovely to see both - the first one was more dramatic and overgrown, but the second one was incredibly peaceful. If we do ever actually manage to get into a house of our own (dream on, eh!...) then we would both aim for a peaceful garden for sure. Don't hold your breath ...
Book News:
NB THIS SECTION HAS BEEN REMOVED DUE TO LEGAL NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE PUBLISHER CONCERNED, AT THEIR REQUEST.
However, I am much cheered by this 5 star review of A Dangerous Man - thanks, Erik. And for this bank holiday weekend only, you can get a 50% rebate at the till for ALL my All Romance Ebooks if paid for by Paypal or credit card - so for a good weekend read, now's the time to buy!
In terms of work in progress, I've started the fourth in my Delaneys' series, Dating the Delaneys, and I'm also carrying on with my fantasy novella, The Taming of The Hawk. This latter seems to be moving rapidly towards the steampunk genre, I think - if I only knew what that really was, ho ho. But there are machines (of a sort), darkness, dirt and fantasy, so I might be right in my analysis. On the other hand, there's not much Victoriana, so I may equally be wrong. I'll have to wait and see.
Meditations this week are:
Meditation 532
Zimri takes pride
in being counted last
alphabetically
as God is his guide
and his family’s outclassed
hypothetically.
Meditation 533
That slow returning home:
the priests, the people
and the temple slaves
drifting like shadows
through the fields and paths
to houses shaped like graves
and a life they thought
they knew. The forgotten dead
crowd in on waves
of sorrow. No-one remembers
the laughter. They are silent
in the ruins God saves.
The Sunday haiku (because we saw it whilst golfing) is:
Treecreeper dances
across this divided tree
so rhythmically.
So, in conclusion, my last official day on the web is tomorrow and I'm not quite sure when I'll be back online - BT (if we continue at all with them) have promised us some kind of connection on 16 or 17 June in the rented flat, but we might on the other hand be doing something technical with a dongle (well, gosh!) so it may be sooner, if slower. Till then, have fun and I'll catch you on the other side!
Anne Brooke
We've spent most of the weekend preparing for the move on Tuesday and saying goodbye to the neighbours (when they're in). We've now sorted most of the books into piles for taking to the rented flat and piles for storage, so that's a relief. Still to be done is: emptying the loft, draining the washing machine, defrosting the fridge and turning off the freezer (which is all but empty now anyway). We're getting there, though I must say K is doing most of the hard graft with me providing essential domestic support wherever I can.
Still, I managed to squeeze in a game of golf with Marian on Friday, and it was such a relief to get out and knock some balls into ridiculously small holes (as it were). Made a great change from the trials and traumas of Thursday, hey ho. Also during the week, we have breathed the proverbial sigh of relief to note the massive improvement in Wednesday's episode of Midsomer Murders - which also included a naked Sgt Jones which was fabulous, I must say. More please ... Set against that, however, was the totally appallingly written, long-winded, dull and overly emotional episode of Dr Who we bravely sat through (whilst yawning and glancing repeatedly at our watches) on Saturday. What are they thinking?!? Every time someone had a tearful moment we'd just laugh and shout at them to get a grip, and the sickly-sweet moments with the boy at the end definitely needed cutting. Or someone should have drowned the wretched boy in acid. One of the two ... I would have done it myself if I'd been there.
Today, we decided we'd had enough of flat sorting so popped out this afternoon to see Moleshill House garden and The Coach House garden, both in Cobham and next door to each other which made it easy. Lovely to see both - the first one was more dramatic and overgrown, but the second one was incredibly peaceful. If we do ever actually manage to get into a house of our own (dream on, eh!...) then we would both aim for a peaceful garden for sure. Don't hold your breath ...
Book News:
NB THIS SECTION HAS BEEN REMOVED DUE TO LEGAL NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE PUBLISHER CONCERNED, AT THEIR REQUEST.
However, I am much cheered by this 5 star review of A Dangerous Man - thanks, Erik. And for this bank holiday weekend only, you can get a 50% rebate at the till for ALL my All Romance Ebooks if paid for by Paypal or credit card - so for a good weekend read, now's the time to buy!
In terms of work in progress, I've started the fourth in my Delaneys' series, Dating the Delaneys, and I'm also carrying on with my fantasy novella, The Taming of The Hawk. This latter seems to be moving rapidly towards the steampunk genre, I think - if I only knew what that really was, ho ho. But there are machines (of a sort), darkness, dirt and fantasy, so I might be right in my analysis. On the other hand, there's not much Victoriana, so I may equally be wrong. I'll have to wait and see.
Meditations this week are:
Meditation 532
Zimri takes pride
in being counted last
alphabetically
as God is his guide
and his family’s outclassed
hypothetically.
Meditation 533
That slow returning home:
the priests, the people
and the temple slaves
drifting like shadows
through the fields and paths
to houses shaped like graves
and a life they thought
they knew. The forgotten dead
crowd in on waves
of sorrow. No-one remembers
the laughter. They are silent
in the ruins God saves.
The Sunday haiku (because we saw it whilst golfing) is:
Treecreeper dances
across this divided tree
so rhythmically.
So, in conclusion, my last official day on the web is tomorrow and I'm not quite sure when I'll be back online - BT (if we continue at all with them) have promised us some kind of connection on 16 or 17 June in the rented flat, but we might on the other hand be doing something technical with a dongle (well, gosh!) so it may be sooner, if slower. Till then, have fun and I'll catch you on the other side!
Anne Brooke
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Conveyancers 'r' Us and the Ups and Downs of Failure
Book News:
Lots of exciting news about The Art of The Delaneys this week which is now available at All Romance Ebooks, and has also received reviews at: Literary Nymph Reviews (4 star); Brief Encounters Reviews; and at Goodreads, a 5 star review and a 4 star review. Many thanks to all for commenting on the story and reviewing it.
In addition, Entertaining the Delaneys was reviewed at Three Dollar Bill Reviews, so many thanks also to Indigene for that one. Also, The Gifting is now available as a paperback from Amazon UK, so that's encouraging.
You'll find my review of Still Missing by Beth Gutcheon at Vulpes Libris today, and I've also managed to squeeze in one meditation poem into the pure mania of this week:
Meditation 531
Maacah is a hard-working woman.
Her husband does not help;
he is too busy
boasting of his many sons
and the cities he has built.
So she scrapes a harsh living
under a harsher sun,
flitting like a small shadow
through her menfolk
and their vigorous lives.
Life News:
What can I say? Nightmare City but with a very very slow edging towards the light. As it were. When it comes to our move into rented accommodation, we've sorted out the contents and car insurance, as well as the redirection of mail and notifying the bank. The rental agent told us yesterday that they need the deposit and first month's rent, plus their fees, cleared into their bank by Tuesday to allow us to move in, so we attempted to do a bank transfer through the Nationwide, where we've banked for years in a variety of ways - but sadly the Nationwide needed us to make an appointment to do this and they didn't have any spare time until next Friday. Hmm, it does not compute. Several moments (if not more) of sheer panic went by (particularly bearing in mind that the bank holiday makes everything slower), but K's lovely company stepped magnificently into the breach this morning and have solved the problem for us - what heroes ...! Naturally we have paid them back, but it's still a life-saver.
Meanwhile I have not been slack, though sadly rather more unsuccessful. I came back home last night to find a message from our flat estate agents saying how unhappy our buyer is and the deal is seriously in jeopardy if we don't exchange this week, and they desperately need our nice neighbour (called G) to sign the updated lease document for the tricky middle neighbours' solicitors (whom I shall call P). So today I did the following (and I can only really explain it in bullet form, sorry, as it's doing my head in ...):
1. Rang the lovely neighbour who kindly agreed to come round with the lease document herself.
2. Rang our solicitors (who go by the name of L) and told them I planned to take the signed document to P directly so they had it in their hot little hands, and then find out what they needed us to do at that point. I said I would bring it to L in Knaphill (quite a drive but I was beyond caring, frankly) if they needed to see it also. L were unhappy that I was directly contacting P as that is not the "done" legal thing. I said I didn't care about that either and it seemed that the only way of achieving results was for me to become my own private conveyancing service, so I wasn't asking them - I was telling them.
3. Rang P who said, eventually, that would be fine but they would need to discuss it with L. They also said that G would need to give them her passport and a utility bill to prove identity. G was fine with that but at that point needed to go to meet a friend for coffee. I agreed to take the signed lease into P there and then so they could get on with working towards exchange (ah, such optimism ...), and G agreed to meet me at the flat later with the passport and the utility bill for me to take to P in the afternoon.
4. Rang our estate agent (S) to update, and also rang K (remember him, Gawd bless him?) to update.
5. Went to P to give the lease to them. L rang me and said there was an additional identity document G needed to sign and they had already discussed this with P while I was on my way there. L also said that ideally, G should come in to sign another similar identity document with them in Knaphill, although, if P were in agreement, the signed identity document at P's offices would suffice. Had a meeting with P, and was told they shouldn't really be getting G to sign the new identity document at their offices as it was really something she should do with L in Knaphill. However, under the very complex circumstances of the case, they would do this if L had agreed to it, which they had. P also said in that case G needed to bring a passport photo with her for identity purposes as they therefore needed to actually see her in the flesh. P also told me there were two additional documents G needed to sign which hadn't yet been sent to her with the lease document and I said G could do that this afternoon if she was happy to come in with me to see P. P also said that completion would be delayed as they needed to register the new lease with the Land Registry (first I'd heard of that too ...), and with the bank holiday, it was hard to know when this might be done. But it should, in theory, not delay actual exchange, if all the solicitors in all the colours and sizes could agree.
6. After the meeting, I rang G, who was happy to meet me at the flat with the documentation and come in to see P with me. What a heroine - and way way beyond the call of duty ...
7. Went back home and updated everyone on the current situation. K not happy because L has been saying to our buyer for weeks that we're on the point of exchange, which is obviously far from the case, and therefore that is why our buyer has been getting hugely frustrated. I cannot blame him, though we also do wonder what P has been saying to L to make exchange seem imminent. Not sure who's lying, my dears, but someone is ... K writes firm but polite email to L, putting this to them, but no response as yet.
8. G arrives (Gawd bless 'er!), and I take her to Godalming. G gets her passport photos done and I utterly insist on paying, which is frankly the least I can do. G and I have meeting with P to sign documentation (on the way we were utterly drenched in the sudden downpour and had a bout of hysteria, wondering if the day could in fact get any worse ...). P's receptionist very po-faced and obviously not good with hysterical soaked-to-the-skin people who aren't actually clients. Didn't give a fig as to her feelings frankly. At meeting P happy, but when directly questioned, admits there is no chance of exchange today as the tricky neighbours (my phrase, not theirs), their clients, have not signed the necessary documents. In the meeting, I ring L to say what we have done. L still umming and aahing over whether they can accept the identity documentation being signed with another solicitor, even though they have already agreed this with me on the phone. I hand the phone over to P so the two solicitors can actually discuss it on the phone directly. Big surprise to all! - they haven't thought of speaking before ... L tells me that as P has witnessed the identity document, then she doesn't need to see G in Knaphill and all will be fine. At least we seemed to be one small step further forward, ho hum. L and P promise to keep talking once L has updated the buyer's solicitors and seen what they might accept in order to move the situation forward.
9. I take G for lunch. G insists on paying but I bargain for some kind of contribution and she accepts a small donation from me. It should have been more, G!
10. In the carpark in Godalming, L rings me and says they might have to ask G to come to Knaphill after all as they have changed their mind about the identity documentation as they're not sure what P has done. I say that I have just spoken to P in the meeting, rung L, and L spoke to P directly in the meeting also so surely this has already been decided. L says yes but she has tried to ring P once more to confirm (I am obviously not to be trusted ...) but P was not available. I ask G if she would in principle be happy to go to Knaphill with me, and she says yes. I relay this information to L, tell L that I am going home at which point I will ring P again and ask them to contact L to discuss further to confirm whether the Knaphill trip is needed.
11. At home with G, I ring P and tell her that L are having second thoughts and could P please ring them to have a further chat. P agrees to do this. We wait for half an hour. Nobody rings back. I ring K to update him. Both of us by now have lost the will to live. Probably G has too, but is happy about being kidnapped and driven to Knaphill for mysterious legal reasons if necessary. G now a serious contender for Best Neighbour Awards 2011. I ring L back. L says yes, they have spoken to P, and Knaphill is now definitely off the agenda. L has also spoken to the buyer's solicitors and all three sets of solicitors are now "in principle in agreement" that an exchange date can be considered. Well, good-oh, eh. However, it will not be today, but will be whenever the tricky middle neighbours think they can sign the documents.
12. I let G go, after giving her a tray of courgettes. Sounds mean, I know, but I told her in all seriousness that she could have anything in the house that she wanted to have, up to the value of half my kingdom and that is what she chose. To cap it all, G also agreed to ring the tricky middle neighbours, with whom she has a better relationship than I do, to see how long it might take them to sign, and to keep me updated. I promised G I would buy her all the courgettes in England if that was what she wished for.
13. I rang S (our estate agent - remember them?) to tell them all the above in words of one syllable as I don't have the energy for anything longer. S in a state of resignation but slightly more confident that they can keep our buyer as there is some kind of positive news in it all. Really? Ah, the power of positive thought. However, our buyer withdrawing is also a very real option on the agenda at the moment, an opinion with which I could only concur, and we must prepare ourselves for anything. My dears, I have spent the whole damn day preparing myself for anything so one more item isn't going to make a jot of difference.
14. Rang K to update him. Lay down on carpet for extended period of time, trying to work out if it's worth cleaning it or not. Decided not to bother.
Oh, and in the midst of all this, I asked Godalming Museum about a launch date for The Gifting (they will ring back), sorted out a taxi firm for a big do at work which I hadn't been able to finalise yesterday, advised my change of address to the optician, bought and started writing some change of address cards and managed to write a few hundred words on the current novella. God, but I'm good. And then people wonder what I do all day when I'm off ... Hey ho. Is it Friday yet?
Anne Brooke
Lots of exciting news about The Art of The Delaneys this week which is now available at All Romance Ebooks, and has also received reviews at: Literary Nymph Reviews (4 star); Brief Encounters Reviews; and at Goodreads, a 5 star review and a 4 star review. Many thanks to all for commenting on the story and reviewing it.
In addition, Entertaining the Delaneys was reviewed at Three Dollar Bill Reviews, so many thanks also to Indigene for that one. Also, The Gifting is now available as a paperback from Amazon UK, so that's encouraging.
You'll find my review of Still Missing by Beth Gutcheon at Vulpes Libris today, and I've also managed to squeeze in one meditation poem into the pure mania of this week:
Meditation 531
Maacah is a hard-working woman.
Her husband does not help;
he is too busy
boasting of his many sons
and the cities he has built.
So she scrapes a harsh living
under a harsher sun,
flitting like a small shadow
through her menfolk
and their vigorous lives.
Life News:
What can I say? Nightmare City but with a very very slow edging towards the light. As it were. When it comes to our move into rented accommodation, we've sorted out the contents and car insurance, as well as the redirection of mail and notifying the bank. The rental agent told us yesterday that they need the deposit and first month's rent, plus their fees, cleared into their bank by Tuesday to allow us to move in, so we attempted to do a bank transfer through the Nationwide, where we've banked for years in a variety of ways - but sadly the Nationwide needed us to make an appointment to do this and they didn't have any spare time until next Friday. Hmm, it does not compute. Several moments (if not more) of sheer panic went by (particularly bearing in mind that the bank holiday makes everything slower), but K's lovely company stepped magnificently into the breach this morning and have solved the problem for us - what heroes ...! Naturally we have paid them back, but it's still a life-saver.
Meanwhile I have not been slack, though sadly rather more unsuccessful. I came back home last night to find a message from our flat estate agents saying how unhappy our buyer is and the deal is seriously in jeopardy if we don't exchange this week, and they desperately need our nice neighbour (called G) to sign the updated lease document for the tricky middle neighbours' solicitors (whom I shall call P). So today I did the following (and I can only really explain it in bullet form, sorry, as it's doing my head in ...):
1. Rang the lovely neighbour who kindly agreed to come round with the lease document herself.
2. Rang our solicitors (who go by the name of L) and told them I planned to take the signed document to P directly so they had it in their hot little hands, and then find out what they needed us to do at that point. I said I would bring it to L in Knaphill (quite a drive but I was beyond caring, frankly) if they needed to see it also. L were unhappy that I was directly contacting P as that is not the "done" legal thing. I said I didn't care about that either and it seemed that the only way of achieving results was for me to become my own private conveyancing service, so I wasn't asking them - I was telling them.
3. Rang P who said, eventually, that would be fine but they would need to discuss it with L. They also said that G would need to give them her passport and a utility bill to prove identity. G was fine with that but at that point needed to go to meet a friend for coffee. I agreed to take the signed lease into P there and then so they could get on with working towards exchange (ah, such optimism ...), and G agreed to meet me at the flat later with the passport and the utility bill for me to take to P in the afternoon.
4. Rang our estate agent (S) to update, and also rang K (remember him, Gawd bless him?) to update.
5. Went to P to give the lease to them. L rang me and said there was an additional identity document G needed to sign and they had already discussed this with P while I was on my way there. L also said that ideally, G should come in to sign another similar identity document with them in Knaphill, although, if P were in agreement, the signed identity document at P's offices would suffice. Had a meeting with P, and was told they shouldn't really be getting G to sign the new identity document at their offices as it was really something she should do with L in Knaphill. However, under the very complex circumstances of the case, they would do this if L had agreed to it, which they had. P also said in that case G needed to bring a passport photo with her for identity purposes as they therefore needed to actually see her in the flesh. P also told me there were two additional documents G needed to sign which hadn't yet been sent to her with the lease document and I said G could do that this afternoon if she was happy to come in with me to see P. P also said that completion would be delayed as they needed to register the new lease with the Land Registry (first I'd heard of that too ...), and with the bank holiday, it was hard to know when this might be done. But it should, in theory, not delay actual exchange, if all the solicitors in all the colours and sizes could agree.
6. After the meeting, I rang G, who was happy to meet me at the flat with the documentation and come in to see P with me. What a heroine - and way way beyond the call of duty ...
7. Went back home and updated everyone on the current situation. K not happy because L has been saying to our buyer for weeks that we're on the point of exchange, which is obviously far from the case, and therefore that is why our buyer has been getting hugely frustrated. I cannot blame him, though we also do wonder what P has been saying to L to make exchange seem imminent. Not sure who's lying, my dears, but someone is ... K writes firm but polite email to L, putting this to them, but no response as yet.
8. G arrives (Gawd bless 'er!), and I take her to Godalming. G gets her passport photos done and I utterly insist on paying, which is frankly the least I can do. G and I have meeting with P to sign documentation (on the way we were utterly drenched in the sudden downpour and had a bout of hysteria, wondering if the day could in fact get any worse ...). P's receptionist very po-faced and obviously not good with hysterical soaked-to-the-skin people who aren't actually clients. Didn't give a fig as to her feelings frankly. At meeting P happy, but when directly questioned, admits there is no chance of exchange today as the tricky neighbours (my phrase, not theirs), their clients, have not signed the necessary documents. In the meeting, I ring L to say what we have done. L still umming and aahing over whether they can accept the identity documentation being signed with another solicitor, even though they have already agreed this with me on the phone. I hand the phone over to P so the two solicitors can actually discuss it on the phone directly. Big surprise to all! - they haven't thought of speaking before ... L tells me that as P has witnessed the identity document, then she doesn't need to see G in Knaphill and all will be fine. At least we seemed to be one small step further forward, ho hum. L and P promise to keep talking once L has updated the buyer's solicitors and seen what they might accept in order to move the situation forward.
9. I take G for lunch. G insists on paying but I bargain for some kind of contribution and she accepts a small donation from me. It should have been more, G!
10. In the carpark in Godalming, L rings me and says they might have to ask G to come to Knaphill after all as they have changed their mind about the identity documentation as they're not sure what P has done. I say that I have just spoken to P in the meeting, rung L, and L spoke to P directly in the meeting also so surely this has already been decided. L says yes but she has tried to ring P once more to confirm (I am obviously not to be trusted ...) but P was not available. I ask G if she would in principle be happy to go to Knaphill with me, and she says yes. I relay this information to L, tell L that I am going home at which point I will ring P again and ask them to contact L to discuss further to confirm whether the Knaphill trip is needed.
11. At home with G, I ring P and tell her that L are having second thoughts and could P please ring them to have a further chat. P agrees to do this. We wait for half an hour. Nobody rings back. I ring K to update him. Both of us by now have lost the will to live. Probably G has too, but is happy about being kidnapped and driven to Knaphill for mysterious legal reasons if necessary. G now a serious contender for Best Neighbour Awards 2011. I ring L back. L says yes, they have spoken to P, and Knaphill is now definitely off the agenda. L has also spoken to the buyer's solicitors and all three sets of solicitors are now "in principle in agreement" that an exchange date can be considered. Well, good-oh, eh. However, it will not be today, but will be whenever the tricky middle neighbours think they can sign the documents.
12. I let G go, after giving her a tray of courgettes. Sounds mean, I know, but I told her in all seriousness that she could have anything in the house that she wanted to have, up to the value of half my kingdom and that is what she chose. To cap it all, G also agreed to ring the tricky middle neighbours, with whom she has a better relationship than I do, to see how long it might take them to sign, and to keep me updated. I promised G I would buy her all the courgettes in England if that was what she wished for.
13. I rang S (our estate agent - remember them?) to tell them all the above in words of one syllable as I don't have the energy for anything longer. S in a state of resignation but slightly more confident that they can keep our buyer as there is some kind of positive news in it all. Really? Ah, the power of positive thought. However, our buyer withdrawing is also a very real option on the agenda at the moment, an opinion with which I could only concur, and we must prepare ourselves for anything. My dears, I have spent the whole damn day preparing myself for anything so one more item isn't going to make a jot of difference.
14. Rang K to update him. Lay down on carpet for extended period of time, trying to work out if it's worth cleaning it or not. Decided not to bother.
Oh, and in the midst of all this, I asked Godalming Museum about a launch date for The Gifting (they will ring back), sorted out a taxi firm for a big do at work which I hadn't been able to finalise yesterday, advised my change of address to the optician, bought and started writing some change of address cards and managed to write a few hundred words on the current novella. God, but I'm good. And then people wonder what I do all day when I'm off ... Hey ho. Is it Friday yet?
Anne Brooke
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Tigers and snowglobes
Book News:
The Gifting is now available, both as a eBook and paperback, at Bluewood Publishing, and you can also find it, in paperback, at Amazon US, and in Kindle version, at Amazon US and Amazon UK. I gather some people have already bought copies, so thank you and I hope you enjoy the read. Mind you, if you're local and you know me (those brave few!...) - don't forget the launch is in July so you'll need to wait till then or I'll have no more buyers left, alas. It's also been a pleasure getting the boxes of author/launch copies delivered this week and I think I might stop stroking them now but don't hold your breath ... It is quite something when the book one has spent so many months and months giving birth to is finally ... um ... born. A scary and exhilarating feeling, I can tell you. I'm also compiling a list of potential reviewers so need to start working my way through that once I've liaised with Bluewood. Always good to be busy.
Meanwhile, The Art of the Delaneys gained its first 5-star review at Goodreads, so thank you, Marsha, for that. Much appreciated.
Here's a recent meditation (ah the joys and pains of being the youngest child - how well I know it!):
Meditation 530
The youngest child
carries the sins
and joys of all
who came first.
They store memories
like dust or shadows:
moon-maddened,
blood-cursed.
Watch them.
The Sunday haiku is:
In sunlight and dust
I pack up my memories
for another day.
Life News:
It's all change! As you may be able to tell from the haiku ... We had a phone call on Friday morning to say all the signed documents for selling our flat were now completed (gosh, the tricky neighbours have come through then, thank the good Lord for it ...) and our buyer wanted to complete and move in as soon as possible. So, I spent most of Friday and some of Saturday (not necessarily in this order) (a) driving to the removal firm in Cranleigh to redo our removal quote to include storage and sign it off there and then; (b) agreeing with our rental flat agent when we can move in; (c) filling in the documentation the rental agent sent us; (d) contacting the gas, water, electricity, credit card, pension and other financial people etc etc while K when home did the telephone and council tax people etc etc. My, what fun - especially when we find out that BT will not be able to connect us to the phone or internet in our new rented flat until 17 June, so it looks like we will be on radio silence, as they say, until then. Then again, it may do us good and we can rediscover the roses once more, hey ho.
So the upshot is that we will be moving on Tuesday 31 May, so a week on Tuesday we will be out of here, hurrah! And I will, after all my moaning and groaning, get to have my birthday somewhere else, so another reason to thank God of a Sunday (though, speaking of holy matters, surely He's got it wrong in that K and I are still here and haven't been Raptured?... I demand a recount ...). Anyway double hurrahs for all sorts of reasons and put out the bunting. And, for a woman moving in just over a week, I am startlingly calm. Must be the pills.
Anyway, in the midst of all this, I spent a pleasant morning yesterday seeing a friend in Maidstone (hello, Pauline!) whilst K looked at a very posh house that everyone appears to want, but thank goodness he didn't like it so we don't have to compete. Plus he thought the tenants were bitter and dodgy (much like us, then) and couldn't bear the thought of having to deal with them, so we're best off out of that one, to be sure.
Other good news of the weekend is that (sound the trumpets) K and I have actually managed to grow our first ever flower, well gosh. Everything else we've been trying out lately in our preparation to be gardeners has died and we've had to throw it out - but our rose bush which we pruned earlier on in the year in its little pot has produced one flower. This may not be much to you expert gardeners out there, but it is a huge achievement for us and we are rightly chuffed. In addition, whilst watching (a rather better than normal) Dr Who last night, I was thrilled to see the great man use a snowglobe as a scientific method of observing the universe. Ha! All these years I've collected snowglobes and everyone has laughed at me - but now I am proved right and they will laugh no more. I promise you that my catholic collection of snowglobes (including the old pope, the Holy Family, Noah's Ark, Pompeii, Dubai, Madeira and a host of other places I've been or people I like) is the only thing standing between us and the Rapture. Be thankful that I'm still here ...
So, to today. We have attended church and said our goodbyes to the people there - as we're unlikely to find time to go next Sunday and then we're off to Woking - though we didn't manage to catch up with the main vicar so will have to email him during the week. I'll miss them, and the intermittent bible study groups which were always great fun, but it's time to go and start again, if only temporarily, elsewhere. Also on our journeys this morning, we dropped into the parish's smaller sister church as that was the one we originally started going to until it suffered a very bad fire about two or three years ago. We didn't expect to be able to get in as it's not re-opening till next month and we knew building works were still ongoing - but actually another parishioner was showing his family round so we managed to get inside for a few minutes. It was nice to be able to say goodbye properly in that respect, as it's a beautiful and very peaceful building and they've done a magnificent repair job. We hope to drop in at some point once it's possible, but for now it felt like closure.
Finally, I am delighted to announce that I have at last found my ideal career - toy tiger marksman - as is now a possibility locally as you can see from this news item. Though, as K said, didn't they feel suspicious when the helicopter couldn't pick the ravening beast up on the thermal sensors? Perhaps they thought it might be a vampire tiger. Indeed, the end of the world is nigh ...
Anne Brooke
The Gifting is now available, both as a eBook and paperback, at Bluewood Publishing, and you can also find it, in paperback, at Amazon US, and in Kindle version, at Amazon US and Amazon UK. I gather some people have already bought copies, so thank you and I hope you enjoy the read. Mind you, if you're local and you know me (those brave few!...) - don't forget the launch is in July so you'll need to wait till then or I'll have no more buyers left, alas. It's also been a pleasure getting the boxes of author/launch copies delivered this week and I think I might stop stroking them now but don't hold your breath ... It is quite something when the book one has spent so many months and months giving birth to is finally ... um ... born. A scary and exhilarating feeling, I can tell you. I'm also compiling a list of potential reviewers so need to start working my way through that once I've liaised with Bluewood. Always good to be busy.
Meanwhile, The Art of the Delaneys gained its first 5-star review at Goodreads, so thank you, Marsha, for that. Much appreciated.
Here's a recent meditation (ah the joys and pains of being the youngest child - how well I know it!):
Meditation 530
The youngest child
carries the sins
and joys of all
who came first.
They store memories
like dust or shadows:
moon-maddened,
blood-cursed.
Watch them.
The Sunday haiku is:
In sunlight and dust
I pack up my memories
for another day.
Life News:
It's all change! As you may be able to tell from the haiku ... We had a phone call on Friday morning to say all the signed documents for selling our flat were now completed (gosh, the tricky neighbours have come through then, thank the good Lord for it ...) and our buyer wanted to complete and move in as soon as possible. So, I spent most of Friday and some of Saturday (not necessarily in this order) (a) driving to the removal firm in Cranleigh to redo our removal quote to include storage and sign it off there and then; (b) agreeing with our rental flat agent when we can move in; (c) filling in the documentation the rental agent sent us; (d) contacting the gas, water, electricity, credit card, pension and other financial people etc etc while K when home did the telephone and council tax people etc etc. My, what fun - especially when we find out that BT will not be able to connect us to the phone or internet in our new rented flat until 17 June, so it looks like we will be on radio silence, as they say, until then. Then again, it may do us good and we can rediscover the roses once more, hey ho.
So the upshot is that we will be moving on Tuesday 31 May, so a week on Tuesday we will be out of here, hurrah! And I will, after all my moaning and groaning, get to have my birthday somewhere else, so another reason to thank God of a Sunday (though, speaking of holy matters, surely He's got it wrong in that K and I are still here and haven't been Raptured?... I demand a recount ...). Anyway double hurrahs for all sorts of reasons and put out the bunting. And, for a woman moving in just over a week, I am startlingly calm. Must be the pills.
Anyway, in the midst of all this, I spent a pleasant morning yesterday seeing a friend in Maidstone (hello, Pauline!) whilst K looked at a very posh house that everyone appears to want, but thank goodness he didn't like it so we don't have to compete. Plus he thought the tenants were bitter and dodgy (much like us, then) and couldn't bear the thought of having to deal with them, so we're best off out of that one, to be sure.
Other good news of the weekend is that (sound the trumpets) K and I have actually managed to grow our first ever flower, well gosh. Everything else we've been trying out lately in our preparation to be gardeners has died and we've had to throw it out - but our rose bush which we pruned earlier on in the year in its little pot has produced one flower. This may not be much to you expert gardeners out there, but it is a huge achievement for us and we are rightly chuffed. In addition, whilst watching (a rather better than normal) Dr Who last night, I was thrilled to see the great man use a snowglobe as a scientific method of observing the universe. Ha! All these years I've collected snowglobes and everyone has laughed at me - but now I am proved right and they will laugh no more. I promise you that my catholic collection of snowglobes (including the old pope, the Holy Family, Noah's Ark, Pompeii, Dubai, Madeira and a host of other places I've been or people I like) is the only thing standing between us and the Rapture. Be thankful that I'm still here ...
So, to today. We have attended church and said our goodbyes to the people there - as we're unlikely to find time to go next Sunday and then we're off to Woking - though we didn't manage to catch up with the main vicar so will have to email him during the week. I'll miss them, and the intermittent bible study groups which were always great fun, but it's time to go and start again, if only temporarily, elsewhere. Also on our journeys this morning, we dropped into the parish's smaller sister church as that was the one we originally started going to until it suffered a very bad fire about two or three years ago. We didn't expect to be able to get in as it's not re-opening till next month and we knew building works were still ongoing - but actually another parishioner was showing his family round so we managed to get inside for a few minutes. It was nice to be able to say goodbye properly in that respect, as it's a beautiful and very peaceful building and they've done a magnificent repair job. We hope to drop in at some point once it's possible, but for now it felt like closure.
Finally, I am delighted to announce that I have at last found my ideal career - toy tiger marksman - as is now a possibility locally as you can see from this news item. Though, as K said, didn't they feel suspicious when the helicopter couldn't pick the ravening beast up on the thermal sensors? Perhaps they thought it might be a vampire tiger. Indeed, the end of the world is nigh ...
Anne Brooke
Thursday, May 19, 2011
A wobbly week
Life News:
It's been a bit of a wobbly week, being back at work this week, I must say, and I don't think I've been my usual jolly self (ho ho). My head is so full of vast quantities of stuff that it's proving really tricky to sort it all out so I haven't really been trying. Office tasks seemed very long and complex when they probably shouldn't have been, plus I'm worrying (well, it's after Lent so I'm allowed to) about when our flat exchange date might be, if our buyer is going to hang on or give up, if we'll still be able to go to the rental property we like if we do suddenly have to move or if we'll be homeless, and whether our removal firm can fit us in even though I'm unable to explain anything useful to them at all. On top of all that, we're now seriously looking at other houses again if we can fit viewings in as nothing's moving on the house we've "bought" and it's been three months now and still no sniff of an exchange date, and the vendors' solicitors are being as unhelpful as ever, sigh. I honestly can't now remember what we liked about it, and neither can K really. It feels like a purchase someone other than us has made.
Anyway, today we've seen two other houses, one in Knaphill which we did like but K thinks it might be the "safe choice" and there's nothing that individual about it even though it's well within our price range, so I'm probably keener than he is. The other one in Pyrford was okay but way too near the main road, and therefore too noisy, which we both hate. On Saturday K is going to see another house in Woking that he's really keen on but I can't go as I'm seeing a friend in Kent. The plus points for that one are it's quiet, in a nice area, and there's no chain (though I understand the tenants are rather tricky, so that's a bit worrying), but it's over our budget and I'm a bit worried by that. Well, we'll see, eh.
It's rather disheartening as K and I promised ourselves last September that we'd be out of this flat by my birthday for sure - but as that's only a month and two days away now, I fear there's not much hope. In that case I suspect a tear or two will be shed when I reach that great milestone, birthday or no birthday, ah well. On the other hand, when we get to September and we're still here (goddammit), I suppose I can bake a one-year-house-hunt-failure celebration cake. What joy.
This week, I've also had my regular appointment with the doctor to see how the anti-depressants are working. Well, what could I say? I just told her I was having a wobbly week due to being back at work and period etc (sorry, too much information, probably ...) and decided to leave the rest of it unsaid as I couldn't think of the words. No doubt the wonder pills are making things better on a personal level than they otherwise would be, so thank God for small mercies.
Book News:
Sometime this or next week, The Gifting should, I hope, be published, so I'm busy preparing a launch party for, I think, sometime early July. I'm hoping to hold that at Godalming Museum but obviously it depends on schedules etc. I've got a list of about 40 people I'd like to invite, so with a bit of luck I should get 25 or so coming at least. I've just got to think of something to say and which passage to read. Best get my thinking cap on then.
This week's meditations are:
Meditation 526
The only ones mentioned
are the leaders
and the fighters.
Nobody thinks
of the cooks, the plumbers,
the gardeners or the writers.
Meditation 527
Shaharaim divorced
two wives
granting them shame
but also their lives.
Meditation 528
The fewer the words
the greater the thought
for it is in the spaces
that wisdom is caught.
Meditation 529
Long-forgotten names
are like stars:
a distant glitter
at the edge of your eye,
a strange coldness
patterning the sky.
Anne Brooke
It's been a bit of a wobbly week, being back at work this week, I must say, and I don't think I've been my usual jolly self (ho ho). My head is so full of vast quantities of stuff that it's proving really tricky to sort it all out so I haven't really been trying. Office tasks seemed very long and complex when they probably shouldn't have been, plus I'm worrying (well, it's after Lent so I'm allowed to) about when our flat exchange date might be, if our buyer is going to hang on or give up, if we'll still be able to go to the rental property we like if we do suddenly have to move or if we'll be homeless, and whether our removal firm can fit us in even though I'm unable to explain anything useful to them at all. On top of all that, we're now seriously looking at other houses again if we can fit viewings in as nothing's moving on the house we've "bought" and it's been three months now and still no sniff of an exchange date, and the vendors' solicitors are being as unhelpful as ever, sigh. I honestly can't now remember what we liked about it, and neither can K really. It feels like a purchase someone other than us has made.
Anyway, today we've seen two other houses, one in Knaphill which we did like but K thinks it might be the "safe choice" and there's nothing that individual about it even though it's well within our price range, so I'm probably keener than he is. The other one in Pyrford was okay but way too near the main road, and therefore too noisy, which we both hate. On Saturday K is going to see another house in Woking that he's really keen on but I can't go as I'm seeing a friend in Kent. The plus points for that one are it's quiet, in a nice area, and there's no chain (though I understand the tenants are rather tricky, so that's a bit worrying), but it's over our budget and I'm a bit worried by that. Well, we'll see, eh.
It's rather disheartening as K and I promised ourselves last September that we'd be out of this flat by my birthday for sure - but as that's only a month and two days away now, I fear there's not much hope. In that case I suspect a tear or two will be shed when I reach that great milestone, birthday or no birthday, ah well. On the other hand, when we get to September and we're still here (goddammit), I suppose I can bake a one-year-house-hunt-failure celebration cake. What joy.
This week, I've also had my regular appointment with the doctor to see how the anti-depressants are working. Well, what could I say? I just told her I was having a wobbly week due to being back at work and period etc (sorry, too much information, probably ...) and decided to leave the rest of it unsaid as I couldn't think of the words. No doubt the wonder pills are making things better on a personal level than they otherwise would be, so thank God for small mercies.
Book News:
Sometime this or next week, The Gifting should, I hope, be published, so I'm busy preparing a launch party for, I think, sometime early July. I'm hoping to hold that at Godalming Museum but obviously it depends on schedules etc. I've got a list of about 40 people I'd like to invite, so with a bit of luck I should get 25 or so coming at least. I've just got to think of something to say and which passage to read. Best get my thinking cap on then.
This week's meditations are:
Meditation 526
The only ones mentioned
are the leaders
and the fighters.
Nobody thinks
of the cooks, the plumbers,
the gardeners or the writers.
Meditation 527
Shaharaim divorced
two wives
granting them shame
but also their lives.
Meditation 528
The fewer the words
the greater the thought
for it is in the spaces
that wisdom is caught.
Meditation 529
Long-forgotten names
are like stars:
a distant glitter
at the edge of your eye,
a strange coldness
patterning the sky.
Anne Brooke
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Holidays, Gifting and Art
Life News:
Just back yesterday from an utterly fabulous holiday in (fairly ancient) Italy - the guide was grand, the hotel very good indeed and the history fascinating. Really, what more can you want? Major highlights for me were (a) the marvels of commercial Pompeii, where we were lucky enough to spend over 7 hours exploring and taking it all in, hurrah; (b) the smaller but better preserved seaside town of Herculaneum - which actually I preferred to Pompeii and which was somehow more moving. The inhabitants were basically smothered by a wall of volcanic mud travelling at c250 to 300 miles per hour, and those who'd previously rushed to the harbour to escape by boat couldn't as the winds were against them so all died on the shore. Horrific to think of it really. Apparently (look away if you're squeamish), the method of death was the moment the vastly boiling mud touched the skin, the brain couldn't take it and basically exploded. It was fascinating to see the great wall of volcanic material which still covers half of the town ... Oh, and (c) was the surprisingly well-preserved Greek temples of Paestum, whilst (d) was actually climbing to the top of Mount Vesuvius where the whole story began and looking at the hundreds of swallows flying over the top. Amazing. Plus a special mention for (e) the guide reading out the letters of Pliny the Younger who (as a man who usually wrote incredibly long and dull administrative letters to the Emperor) somehow reached very affecting levels of poetry in his description of the eruption and the consequent death of his uncle, Pliny the Elder, during it. Hearing this eye-witness account made the whole thing come alive. So, if all this enthusiasm has made you curious, here's the tour we went on - expensive, yes, but frankly worth every penny and more.
Anyway, back down to earth now and the flat is full of more washing than I'm sure I've ever seen, groan - how I'm looking forward to that ironing pile. Um, not. Talking of the flat, there's no real news about anyone moving (sigh) and we certainly haven't exchanged this week, as the solicitor was hoping. Hey ho. The one good(ish) thing is that the new lease requested by the tricky neighbours has been finalised and all we have to do is sign it, which we're happy to do, and hope that all goes through smoothly from now on. Dream on, eh!
Today, we've tried to extend the holiday feeling by lunching at Wisley - the roses are beginning to appear and should be great over the next few weeks or so. But I must say that after the glorious Italian weather, it does seem a tad chilly here in the mother country ...
Book News:
I'm thrilled to say that The Art of The Delaneys, the third in my erotic Delaneys series, is now available at Amber Allure at a discount price for its first week, so buy early buy often, as they say. Keeping to the subject of erotic short stories, my stand-alone (as it were) story, For One Night Only, will be published by Amber Allure on 24 July, so the summer should, I hope, get hotter.
Meanwhile, the first of my fantasy trilogy, The Gifting, now has its own page at Bluewood Publishing, which looks very snazzy indeed, and is due out in the next couple of weeks, well gosh! Honestly, I can't wait for this one as it seems I've spent years beating that trilogy into some sort of shape and now the first one is nearly here. I do hope at least some people might like it.
Finally, here are two Sunday haikus for you:
In my deep blue haze
waiting for the rain to pass,
I dream in sunshine.
Sun carves out the day
and I taste only the sea
shimmering in heat.
Anne Brooke
Just back yesterday from an utterly fabulous holiday in (fairly ancient) Italy - the guide was grand, the hotel very good indeed and the history fascinating. Really, what more can you want? Major highlights for me were (a) the marvels of commercial Pompeii, where we were lucky enough to spend over 7 hours exploring and taking it all in, hurrah; (b) the smaller but better preserved seaside town of Herculaneum - which actually I preferred to Pompeii and which was somehow more moving. The inhabitants were basically smothered by a wall of volcanic mud travelling at c250 to 300 miles per hour, and those who'd previously rushed to the harbour to escape by boat couldn't as the winds were against them so all died on the shore. Horrific to think of it really. Apparently (look away if you're squeamish), the method of death was the moment the vastly boiling mud touched the skin, the brain couldn't take it and basically exploded. It was fascinating to see the great wall of volcanic material which still covers half of the town ... Oh, and (c) was the surprisingly well-preserved Greek temples of Paestum, whilst (d) was actually climbing to the top of Mount Vesuvius where the whole story began and looking at the hundreds of swallows flying over the top. Amazing. Plus a special mention for (e) the guide reading out the letters of Pliny the Younger who (as a man who usually wrote incredibly long and dull administrative letters to the Emperor) somehow reached very affecting levels of poetry in his description of the eruption and the consequent death of his uncle, Pliny the Elder, during it. Hearing this eye-witness account made the whole thing come alive. So, if all this enthusiasm has made you curious, here's the tour we went on - expensive, yes, but frankly worth every penny and more.
Anyway, back down to earth now and the flat is full of more washing than I'm sure I've ever seen, groan - how I'm looking forward to that ironing pile. Um, not. Talking of the flat, there's no real news about anyone moving (sigh) and we certainly haven't exchanged this week, as the solicitor was hoping. Hey ho. The one good(ish) thing is that the new lease requested by the tricky neighbours has been finalised and all we have to do is sign it, which we're happy to do, and hope that all goes through smoothly from now on. Dream on, eh!
Today, we've tried to extend the holiday feeling by lunching at Wisley - the roses are beginning to appear and should be great over the next few weeks or so. But I must say that after the glorious Italian weather, it does seem a tad chilly here in the mother country ...
Book News:
I'm thrilled to say that The Art of The Delaneys, the third in my erotic Delaneys series, is now available at Amber Allure at a discount price for its first week, so buy early buy often, as they say. Keeping to the subject of erotic short stories, my stand-alone (as it were) story, For One Night Only, will be published by Amber Allure on 24 July, so the summer should, I hope, get hotter.
Meanwhile, the first of my fantasy trilogy, The Gifting, now has its own page at Bluewood Publishing, which looks very snazzy indeed, and is due out in the next couple of weeks, well gosh! Honestly, I can't wait for this one as it seems I've spent years beating that trilogy into some sort of shape and now the first one is nearly here. I do hope at least some people might like it.
Finally, here are two Sunday haikus for you:
In my deep blue haze
waiting for the rain to pass,
I dream in sunshine.
Sun carves out the day
and I taste only the sea
shimmering in heat.
Anne Brooke
Friday, May 06, 2011
Holidays, houses and hope
Life News:
We had a lovely bank holiday Monday visiting Hinton Ampner and also met up with Colin & Cathy from work (hello, C & C!) which was an unexpected treat - hope you've both recovered from the shock by now ...
This week I've been back at work and managed, somehow, to deal with the 150 emails that awaited me. I'm just so incredibly popular, don't you know. Actually, it wasn't as bad as I feared after having been away for such a long time - though the easing-back-in process was definitely improved by Andrea & Monica bringing in chocolate, hurrah. What stars.
Wednesday night, I was up in London seeing Jane W (hello, Jane!) for drinks, food and chat, which was great as, honestly, what with everything that's been going on, it seems to have been ages since we met. Anyway it was wonderful to catch up, as always, though I fear Waterloo Station is not what it was. All the shops have gone, shock horror, as they apparently have a huge project to make a big shopping centre out of it at a mezzanine level. Ah, I feel that the spirit of Waterloo Station simply doesn't fit that scenario ...
Yesterday, K and I were out at the theatre to see Ayckbourn's Communicating Doors, which, as a comedy thriller, is something of a departure for him but well worth seeing. We loved it. A complex and very satisfying time travel/crime plot and some really scary moments, as well as his inevitable and very appreciated witty one-liners. If it comes your way, do go and see it if you can.
This morning, I have filled the car up with petrol and then attempted to get into the wrong car after I'd paid - oh the embarrassment of it all! All I can say in my defence was the car was quite similar to mine and I wasn't really paying attention, hey ho. The real owner was very sweet about it though - so I don't have to spend the night in Godalming police station, hurrah.
Mind you, you can't blame me as there's suddenly a hell of a lot going on again. Our house purchase is trundling on in the background. But, in terms of our flat sale, one of our tricky neighbours has actually signed the transfer, huzzah and put out the bunting! Mind you, the other one hasn't, yet, and they're now in addition wanting the lease to be changed, but that's at their expense, so we're holding our breath and hoping. Our solicitor even thinks that, if the wind's in the right direction, we might exchange with our buyer by the end of next week - even though we're on holiday then (see below) - but I think that will be rather over-optimistic myself. In the meantime, today - which is our last day in the UK for a week - I'm trying to (a) keep both sets of estate agents updated on a rolling basis, (b) agree to take the next step on the rental property we saw last week, with maybe a date for moving into it (ho hum), (c) keep in contact with K at work while all this is going on so various mutual decisions can be made, (d) keep our buyer happy by trying to give him a proposed completion date by close of play today (ha - that's three hours then!), (e) if (d) goes through, book our removal firm, and (f) pack my suitcase for the holiday. All this whilst the ruddy email here isn't working properly so I can't send anything out so nobody's getting any of my messages and I have to do it all via phone. Lordy indeed. It's astonishing I'm still calm ... Must be the fact that I managed to fit in a session of reflexology at work this week - bliss.
Anyway, I'll have no option but to forget it all next week and face the possibility of homelessness and our worldly goods on the street outside when we get back from sunny Italy, which is where we'll be for the next seven days. Having missed out at the last minute on Pompeii last year due to that pesky and very ironic ash cloud (ho hum), I'm determined to get there this year and enjoy every last moment of it. And, hell, we definitely need the break - another one!
Book News:
At Vulpes Libris you can find my review of Anne Tyler's Noah's Compass, which is a great read but rather bleaker than I'm used to with this author, I must say.
Other book news is that Untreed Reads have accepted my literary short story, A Little Death, for publication, so that's grand. And the ebook of The Bones of Summer can be purchased directly from the publisher at a 20% discount throughout the whole of May.
Enjoy the rest of your week!
Anne Brooke
We had a lovely bank holiday Monday visiting Hinton Ampner and also met up with Colin & Cathy from work (hello, C & C!) which was an unexpected treat - hope you've both recovered from the shock by now ...
This week I've been back at work and managed, somehow, to deal with the 150 emails that awaited me. I'm just so incredibly popular, don't you know. Actually, it wasn't as bad as I feared after having been away for such a long time - though the easing-back-in process was definitely improved by Andrea & Monica bringing in chocolate, hurrah. What stars.
Wednesday night, I was up in London seeing Jane W (hello, Jane!) for drinks, food and chat, which was great as, honestly, what with everything that's been going on, it seems to have been ages since we met. Anyway it was wonderful to catch up, as always, though I fear Waterloo Station is not what it was. All the shops have gone, shock horror, as they apparently have a huge project to make a big shopping centre out of it at a mezzanine level. Ah, I feel that the spirit of Waterloo Station simply doesn't fit that scenario ...
Yesterday, K and I were out at the theatre to see Ayckbourn's Communicating Doors, which, as a comedy thriller, is something of a departure for him but well worth seeing. We loved it. A complex and very satisfying time travel/crime plot and some really scary moments, as well as his inevitable and very appreciated witty one-liners. If it comes your way, do go and see it if you can.
This morning, I have filled the car up with petrol and then attempted to get into the wrong car after I'd paid - oh the embarrassment of it all! All I can say in my defence was the car was quite similar to mine and I wasn't really paying attention, hey ho. The real owner was very sweet about it though - so I don't have to spend the night in Godalming police station, hurrah.
Mind you, you can't blame me as there's suddenly a hell of a lot going on again. Our house purchase is trundling on in the background. But, in terms of our flat sale, one of our tricky neighbours has actually signed the transfer, huzzah and put out the bunting! Mind you, the other one hasn't, yet, and they're now in addition wanting the lease to be changed, but that's at their expense, so we're holding our breath and hoping. Our solicitor even thinks that, if the wind's in the right direction, we might exchange with our buyer by the end of next week - even though we're on holiday then (see below) - but I think that will be rather over-optimistic myself. In the meantime, today - which is our last day in the UK for a week - I'm trying to (a) keep both sets of estate agents updated on a rolling basis, (b) agree to take the next step on the rental property we saw last week, with maybe a date for moving into it (ho hum), (c) keep in contact with K at work while all this is going on so various mutual decisions can be made, (d) keep our buyer happy by trying to give him a proposed completion date by close of play today (ha - that's three hours then!), (e) if (d) goes through, book our removal firm, and (f) pack my suitcase for the holiday. All this whilst the ruddy email here isn't working properly so I can't send anything out so nobody's getting any of my messages and I have to do it all via phone. Lordy indeed. It's astonishing I'm still calm ... Must be the fact that I managed to fit in a session of reflexology at work this week - bliss.
Anyway, I'll have no option but to forget it all next week and face the possibility of homelessness and our worldly goods on the street outside when we get back from sunny Italy, which is where we'll be for the next seven days. Having missed out at the last minute on Pompeii last year due to that pesky and very ironic ash cloud (ho hum), I'm determined to get there this year and enjoy every last moment of it. And, hell, we definitely need the break - another one!
Book News:
At Vulpes Libris you can find my review of Anne Tyler's Noah's Compass, which is a great read but rather bleaker than I'm used to with this author, I must say.
Other book news is that Untreed Reads have accepted my literary short story, A Little Death, for publication, so that's grand. And the ebook of The Bones of Summer can be purchased directly from the publisher at a 20% discount throughout the whole of May.
Enjoy the rest of your week!
Anne Brooke
Sunday, May 01, 2011
Royal Wedding celebrations et al
Life News:
Well, I must say of course how utterly splendid in every way the Royal Wedding has been. I was up early on Friday and I stayed glued to the TV (apart from very rapid loo breaks ...) from 8am until 2pm. Underneath this prickly and kick-ass exterior beats a heart of marshmallow, my dears, after all. I loved every single moment of it, and I think Kate and William (or Team Cambridge, as we now appear to be calling them) were wonderful throughout. The Middletons came out of it all as the classiest and most elegant family in England and have definitely done their daughter proud on all fronts. Good for them - we middle classes aren't quite as bad as everyone thinks, ha! And at least Mrs Middleton does know how to choose a hat, unlike Posh Beckham who appeared to have a quashed unicorn on her head, and Princess Beatrice who seemed to be wearing a copy of the female reproductive system on hers - or was that a cunning message to the country?... The mind boggles. In fact both Prince Andrew's daughters were dressed by some evil person in clothes more suited to a 70-year-old living in the 1950s - which is a shame as they're such pretty girls. Talking of which, everyone was I think bowled over by Earl Spencer's three daughters - who were giving a good impression of the Three Graces with their very eyecatching blonde beauty and style. Ah, there's trouble ahead there for the Earl, I think ... I also loved the two balcony kisses from Team Cambridge (ahhhh ....) and, earlier on, the wonderful image of the flunkey opening the car door for the Queen and saluting while she ... um ... exited with Prince Philip on the other side of the car. I imagine the flunkey must have been rather startled by her non-appearance, ah well.
Anyway, it was a fantastic day, and just proves that we British are indeed the best in the world when it comes to doing pomp and circumstance with that essential hint of informality and genuine joy. Bliss indeed. I'm already looking for my commemorative teatowel.
K and I have spent the rest of the weekend in a mini-tour of houses & gardens with Royal connections in honour of the occasion. Saturday was Polesdon Lacey (where the Queen Mother and King George VI spent some of their honeymoon) and Claremont Landscape Garden, which even had a Royal Weddings trail, hurrah. Then today, we've spent a lovely day at Highclere Castle where Downton Abbey was filmed, so there's TV royalty there, I'm sure. It was great fun walking round the castle (which has 50 bedrooms, but thankfully there's a whole floor not open so you don't have to take sandwiches to keep up your strength) and seeing where parts of the series were filmed. Actually, I didn't recognise any of the rooms as I think I was too focused on the characters and plot while I was watching it. The only part I did recognise was when we were outside and I suddenly realised I was in the scene at the start when Hugh Bonneville is walking up the meadow (um, their garden, I now realise) to the house with that pesky golden labrador (sorry, I really hate dogs, and golden labradors are the worst ...). Then later on we had lunch on the lawn where the last scene of Series One takes place, and K suddenly put his cup down, leaned over towards me across the table and said: I have bad news, darling. We are at war with Germany. A joke which you will only get if you saw the end of the series, I fear ...
After all this excitement, we popped in to Sandham Memorial Chapel, which is tiny, but the walls are covered with some really wonderful and very moving war paintings by Stanley Spencer. I thought they were great and well worth a visit if you're in the area.
Turning to less exalted matters (unfortunately), I must say that the recent Dr Who 2-parter which ended (well, sort of) yesterday has been quite ridiculously bad. K and I felt as if a handful of writers, probably on speed, had thrown together every plot cliche they could possibly think of and decided to see if they could do it at a gallop to boot. No sooner had one Big Reveal been uncovered than we were swept on to the next, and then the next and the next. It had more plot holes than the Grand Canyon and would have been far, far better if they'd concentrated on only two themes instead of dozens. Or, alternatively, made it into a 7-parter (at least!) so the viewer could have an essential breather now and again, and the writers could work on making it hang together. Such a shame ... So I'm hoping tonight's new crime series, Vera, will be much better, even though it wins the TV prize for the worst-named programme so far this year.
Book News:
The Girl in the Painting has a new buy link at Untreed Reads, and I'm also very pleased with my first quarter royalties for 2011, both for my Amber Allure books and for The Bones of Summer, so that's been a nice boost really.
Here's the latest meditation poem:
Meditation 525
Sheerah is a builder
of towns.
She stands strong
in the foundations,
her bright hair
glinting in fiery sun.
She holds one smooth stone
in her hand and lifts it
to the sky,
already seeing houses,
streets and people
in her mind’s true eye.
The Sunday haiku is:
The morning chiffchaff
lilts its rhythmic springtime beat
in our sleeping ears.
Enjoy the rest of the bank holiday weekend!
Anne Brooke
Well, I must say of course how utterly splendid in every way the Royal Wedding has been. I was up early on Friday and I stayed glued to the TV (apart from very rapid loo breaks ...) from 8am until 2pm. Underneath this prickly and kick-ass exterior beats a heart of marshmallow, my dears, after all. I loved every single moment of it, and I think Kate and William (or Team Cambridge, as we now appear to be calling them) were wonderful throughout. The Middletons came out of it all as the classiest and most elegant family in England and have definitely done their daughter proud on all fronts. Good for them - we middle classes aren't quite as bad as everyone thinks, ha! And at least Mrs Middleton does know how to choose a hat, unlike Posh Beckham who appeared to have a quashed unicorn on her head, and Princess Beatrice who seemed to be wearing a copy of the female reproductive system on hers - or was that a cunning message to the country?... The mind boggles. In fact both Prince Andrew's daughters were dressed by some evil person in clothes more suited to a 70-year-old living in the 1950s - which is a shame as they're such pretty girls. Talking of which, everyone was I think bowled over by Earl Spencer's three daughters - who were giving a good impression of the Three Graces with their very eyecatching blonde beauty and style. Ah, there's trouble ahead there for the Earl, I think ... I also loved the two balcony kisses from Team Cambridge (ahhhh ....) and, earlier on, the wonderful image of the flunkey opening the car door for the Queen and saluting while she ... um ... exited with Prince Philip on the other side of the car. I imagine the flunkey must have been rather startled by her non-appearance, ah well.
Anyway, it was a fantastic day, and just proves that we British are indeed the best in the world when it comes to doing pomp and circumstance with that essential hint of informality and genuine joy. Bliss indeed. I'm already looking for my commemorative teatowel.
K and I have spent the rest of the weekend in a mini-tour of houses & gardens with Royal connections in honour of the occasion. Saturday was Polesdon Lacey (where the Queen Mother and King George VI spent some of their honeymoon) and Claremont Landscape Garden, which even had a Royal Weddings trail, hurrah. Then today, we've spent a lovely day at Highclere Castle where Downton Abbey was filmed, so there's TV royalty there, I'm sure. It was great fun walking round the castle (which has 50 bedrooms, but thankfully there's a whole floor not open so you don't have to take sandwiches to keep up your strength) and seeing where parts of the series were filmed. Actually, I didn't recognise any of the rooms as I think I was too focused on the characters and plot while I was watching it. The only part I did recognise was when we were outside and I suddenly realised I was in the scene at the start when Hugh Bonneville is walking up the meadow (um, their garden, I now realise) to the house with that pesky golden labrador (sorry, I really hate dogs, and golden labradors are the worst ...). Then later on we had lunch on the lawn where the last scene of Series One takes place, and K suddenly put his cup down, leaned over towards me across the table and said: I have bad news, darling. We are at war with Germany. A joke which you will only get if you saw the end of the series, I fear ...
After all this excitement, we popped in to Sandham Memorial Chapel, which is tiny, but the walls are covered with some really wonderful and very moving war paintings by Stanley Spencer. I thought they were great and well worth a visit if you're in the area.
Turning to less exalted matters (unfortunately), I must say that the recent Dr Who 2-parter which ended (well, sort of) yesterday has been quite ridiculously bad. K and I felt as if a handful of writers, probably on speed, had thrown together every plot cliche they could possibly think of and decided to see if they could do it at a gallop to boot. No sooner had one Big Reveal been uncovered than we were swept on to the next, and then the next and the next. It had more plot holes than the Grand Canyon and would have been far, far better if they'd concentrated on only two themes instead of dozens. Or, alternatively, made it into a 7-parter (at least!) so the viewer could have an essential breather now and again, and the writers could work on making it hang together. Such a shame ... So I'm hoping tonight's new crime series, Vera, will be much better, even though it wins the TV prize for the worst-named programme so far this year.
Book News:
The Girl in the Painting has a new buy link at Untreed Reads, and I'm also very pleased with my first quarter royalties for 2011, both for my Amber Allure books and for The Bones of Summer, so that's been a nice boost really.
Here's the latest meditation poem:
Meditation 525
Sheerah is a builder
of towns.
She stands strong
in the foundations,
her bright hair
glinting in fiery sun.
She holds one smooth stone
in her hand and lifts it
to the sky,
already seeing houses,
streets and people
in her mind’s true eye.
The Sunday haiku is:
The morning chiffchaff
lilts its rhythmic springtime beat
in our sleeping ears.
Enjoy the rest of the bank holiday weekend!
Anne Brooke
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Meditations, mascara and Royal Weddings
Book News:
Not much news this week on the writing front really. I'm continuing on with my gay erotic short story, For One Night Only, and, with only a couple of scenes left to do, should get the first draft finished over the next few days.
In the meantime, here are some meditation poems:
Meditation 522
So many sons
and not one daughter
which categorically
fails to demonstrate
a vision of life
as it oughta.
Meditation 523
Hushim has no siblings.
He stands alone,
shadowed in the evening light
and waits for the wind
to breathe over his skin
whispering of silence
and all that lies within.
Meditation 524
The Aramean concubine
had no name
but her sons
founded a dynasty
and in that there’s no shame.
Life News:
How a few days changes everything on the house-buying front, sigh. Earlier this week we were rushing round trying to find rental properties to move into as our buyer wanted to move in on the week commencing 16 May. We found a lovely one in Woking on Monday and were all set to give the go-ahead on Tuesday when our solicitor tells us that our tricky middle neighbours have just lost both their buyer and their solicitor all in one swoop. Lord only knows what's really gone on there!... I must admit I couldn't help but laugh but of course that (rather long) moment of schadenfreude has turned round to bite me. Because they no longer have a buyer, all our own flat transfer documents etc etc have to be redone with the nasty middle neighbours' details on it rather than the new middle neighbour (as really should have happened in the first place, but they would insist ...) - and of course now we have no legal hold over them with our possession of their transfer document, then they have no real reason why they should agree to our sale at all. Deep groan. We're waiting for our solicitor to let us know what (if any) response she gets when she writes to the middle neighbours, but I strongly suspect we're going nowhere on the week commencing 16 May, and may well lose our buyer if more delays occur. We also suspect we're possibly moving into a situation where neither of our flats will be able to sell as neither of us will be prepared to sign the necessary documents for the other. Though, on the other hand, it may be that the middle neighbours are so desperate to get rid of us (one can only hope!) that they'll do anything. We'll have to wait and see, eh. Honestly, you couldn't make this up.
In the meantime, and while our purchase of the Woking house goes on - and on and on - we're still viewing other houses, which has led to the point that one of the local estate agents who is apparently in the middle of helping our vendors buy a house has found out we're still looking, and is terribly anxious in case we drop out of our original purchase and therefore he in turn can't sell his house to our vendor. Ha! Really, I have little sympathy and at least it'll put more pressure on that agent to get the vendor out more speedily. Again, one can only hope ... However, if we can't sell our flat (see above ...), money's going to be tight though we can - just - do it, and we may have to think about renting it out instead. At the same time, we'll need to do it up, I suspect, before any lettings agent will take it on, and that takes money, which we'll have to watch etc etc. Goodness, what fun 2011 is turning out to be, hey ho ...
However, it's not all misery and moaning here in the shires - well, not quite anyway. The lettings agents of the flat in Woking we were intending to rent come mid-May is being an absolute star (thank you, Jennifer of Martin & Co) and says this sort of thing happens all the time and if anyone else expresses interest in the flat, she'll let us know. Above and beyond the call of duty, I feel, and very much appreciated. What a nice woman.
Not only that but I've had the whole of this week off as the University is closed until next Tuesday - and really, I've needed the break, and I can well see what bliss retirement is set to be. Dream on, sigh ... Whilst I've been away from work, TV has been good - loads of stuff on about the Royal Wedding which I have been lapping up, my dears, being a big softie at heart, and also I am getting seriously hooked on the zany but occasionally rather moving Campus. I can't bear to miss it now and I do hope there'll be another series. Some of those one-liners are seriously fantastic and the developing relationships are grand. Lovely. Oh, and The Suspicions of Mr Whicher was a top-class factual drama with a very classy main character and if you were unfortunate enough to miss it, do try to catch it online if you can. It's definitely worth it.
Plus, today, I have nipped into Godalming and bought my first lipstick and mascara for a whole four years - so the anti-depressants must indeed be working, Gawd bless 'em. I've even put them on and look somewhat more defined in the mirror than I usually am. Though whether that's a good or a bad thing is anyone's guess.
Finally, tomorrow from 8am I intend to be glued to the Event of the Year and I wish the happy couple, and indeed everyone else celebrating tomorrow, every joy in the occasion. Must rush and dust off my wedding hat ...
Anne Brooke
Not much news this week on the writing front really. I'm continuing on with my gay erotic short story, For One Night Only, and, with only a couple of scenes left to do, should get the first draft finished over the next few days.
In the meantime, here are some meditation poems:
Meditation 522
So many sons
and not one daughter
which categorically
fails to demonstrate
a vision of life
as it oughta.
Meditation 523
Hushim has no siblings.
He stands alone,
shadowed in the evening light
and waits for the wind
to breathe over his skin
whispering of silence
and all that lies within.
Meditation 524
The Aramean concubine
had no name
but her sons
founded a dynasty
and in that there’s no shame.
Life News:
How a few days changes everything on the house-buying front, sigh. Earlier this week we were rushing round trying to find rental properties to move into as our buyer wanted to move in on the week commencing 16 May. We found a lovely one in Woking on Monday and were all set to give the go-ahead on Tuesday when our solicitor tells us that our tricky middle neighbours have just lost both their buyer and their solicitor all in one swoop. Lord only knows what's really gone on there!... I must admit I couldn't help but laugh but of course that (rather long) moment of schadenfreude has turned round to bite me. Because they no longer have a buyer, all our own flat transfer documents etc etc have to be redone with the nasty middle neighbours' details on it rather than the new middle neighbour (as really should have happened in the first place, but they would insist ...) - and of course now we have no legal hold over them with our possession of their transfer document, then they have no real reason why they should agree to our sale at all. Deep groan. We're waiting for our solicitor to let us know what (if any) response she gets when she writes to the middle neighbours, but I strongly suspect we're going nowhere on the week commencing 16 May, and may well lose our buyer if more delays occur. We also suspect we're possibly moving into a situation where neither of our flats will be able to sell as neither of us will be prepared to sign the necessary documents for the other. Though, on the other hand, it may be that the middle neighbours are so desperate to get rid of us (one can only hope!) that they'll do anything. We'll have to wait and see, eh. Honestly, you couldn't make this up.
In the meantime, and while our purchase of the Woking house goes on - and on and on - we're still viewing other houses, which has led to the point that one of the local estate agents who is apparently in the middle of helping our vendors buy a house has found out we're still looking, and is terribly anxious in case we drop out of our original purchase and therefore he in turn can't sell his house to our vendor. Ha! Really, I have little sympathy and at least it'll put more pressure on that agent to get the vendor out more speedily. Again, one can only hope ... However, if we can't sell our flat (see above ...), money's going to be tight though we can - just - do it, and we may have to think about renting it out instead. At the same time, we'll need to do it up, I suspect, before any lettings agent will take it on, and that takes money, which we'll have to watch etc etc. Goodness, what fun 2011 is turning out to be, hey ho ...
However, it's not all misery and moaning here in the shires - well, not quite anyway. The lettings agents of the flat in Woking we were intending to rent come mid-May is being an absolute star (thank you, Jennifer of Martin & Co) and says this sort of thing happens all the time and if anyone else expresses interest in the flat, she'll let us know. Above and beyond the call of duty, I feel, and very much appreciated. What a nice woman.
Not only that but I've had the whole of this week off as the University is closed until next Tuesday - and really, I've needed the break, and I can well see what bliss retirement is set to be. Dream on, sigh ... Whilst I've been away from work, TV has been good - loads of stuff on about the Royal Wedding which I have been lapping up, my dears, being a big softie at heart, and also I am getting seriously hooked on the zany but occasionally rather moving Campus. I can't bear to miss it now and I do hope there'll be another series. Some of those one-liners are seriously fantastic and the developing relationships are grand. Lovely. Oh, and The Suspicions of Mr Whicher was a top-class factual drama with a very classy main character and if you were unfortunate enough to miss it, do try to catch it online if you can. It's definitely worth it.
Plus, today, I have nipped into Godalming and bought my first lipstick and mascara for a whole four years - so the anti-depressants must indeed be working, Gawd bless 'em. I've even put them on and look somewhat more defined in the mirror than I usually am. Though whether that's a good or a bad thing is anyone's guess.
Finally, tomorrow from 8am I intend to be glued to the Event of the Year and I wish the happy couple, and indeed everyone else celebrating tomorrow, every joy in the occasion. Must rush and dust off my wedding hat ...
Anne Brooke
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
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
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Happy Easter!
Had a great time at the work conference in Nottingham Monday to Wednesday with David & Carol from the office - it's certainly much better going with people you know, though it was also nice to catch up with those I've met before from other universities. It was even nice travelling up the M1 on Monday morning as when I joined it at Junction 6 it was gloriously empty, what with it being shut from Junctions 1 to 4. I've never seen such a clear road ...
So, the weather was marvellous and the seminars and live debate sessions almost equally so. Heck, I even said something in all my seminars (brave me!) though I'd never dare to in any of the plenary sessions. Mind you, for some reason, I had a room on Nottingham campus the size of a button - and had to move the bin and the fridge (a fridge, in a room - heck, the students don't know they've been born!) in order to sit on the chair, ah well. I also woke up in the middle of the night on the first night wondering why my stomach was so terribly gurgly even though I felt fine, and then realised it was the fridge, not me. Phew ...
Meanwhile, while I've been away, our house situation has moved on rapidly in one area at least - our buyer would like to move into our flat in mid-May so it's now all systems go to try to find somewhere in the area to rent on a short-term basis (two or three months, I would guess) some time over the next two weeks - which is basically all the time we have, as we're on holiday the week commencing 7 May and then back at the beginning of potential completion week. Heck, if it wasn't Lent I might be panicking, but I am trying to remain calm & logical, hey ho ...
Today, I've also viewed, as a buying option, a house in Bisley, and tomorrow K and I will view another in Knaphill. We're still keeping the Woking house option open as that slowly trundles through, but really we can't be bothered to chase any more. It's too exhausting. If something else comes up that we prefer, so be it, but if we do manage to get somewhere to rent, at least that gives us a breathing space. Come what may, it will be fantastic to be out of the flat ...
Whilst waiting for the estate agent to turn up at Bisley, I also heard my first cuckoo of spring, which was great. Everything's just so early this year, it seems. I hope summer doesn't end up being over by June! And I've had my last haircut with Lynda, who's cut my hair for 18 years but who doesn't travel as far north as Woking to do business. So I do indeed look lovely (trust me on that one) but will have to look for another hairdresser at some point - though of course it's not top of my To Do List right now.
Oh, and I thought last night's episode of Midsomer Murders was something of an improvement, at least in the realms of the relationships between characters - though the bitchy Barnaby definitely needs to treat poor Sergeant Jones a damn sight better before I'm any way near convinced ...
Finally I'm pleased to say that A Woman like the Sea gained a 5-star review at Goodreads - thanks, Jesse.
Happy Easter - hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
Anne Brooke
So, the weather was marvellous and the seminars and live debate sessions almost equally so. Heck, I even said something in all my seminars (brave me!) though I'd never dare to in any of the plenary sessions. Mind you, for some reason, I had a room on Nottingham campus the size of a button - and had to move the bin and the fridge (a fridge, in a room - heck, the students don't know they've been born!) in order to sit on the chair, ah well. I also woke up in the middle of the night on the first night wondering why my stomach was so terribly gurgly even though I felt fine, and then realised it was the fridge, not me. Phew ...
Meanwhile, while I've been away, our house situation has moved on rapidly in one area at least - our buyer would like to move into our flat in mid-May so it's now all systems go to try to find somewhere in the area to rent on a short-term basis (two or three months, I would guess) some time over the next two weeks - which is basically all the time we have, as we're on holiday the week commencing 7 May and then back at the beginning of potential completion week. Heck, if it wasn't Lent I might be panicking, but I am trying to remain calm & logical, hey ho ...
Today, I've also viewed, as a buying option, a house in Bisley, and tomorrow K and I will view another in Knaphill. We're still keeping the Woking house option open as that slowly trundles through, but really we can't be bothered to chase any more. It's too exhausting. If something else comes up that we prefer, so be it, but if we do manage to get somewhere to rent, at least that gives us a breathing space. Come what may, it will be fantastic to be out of the flat ...
Whilst waiting for the estate agent to turn up at Bisley, I also heard my first cuckoo of spring, which was great. Everything's just so early this year, it seems. I hope summer doesn't end up being over by June! And I've had my last haircut with Lynda, who's cut my hair for 18 years but who doesn't travel as far north as Woking to do business. So I do indeed look lovely (trust me on that one) but will have to look for another hairdresser at some point - though of course it's not top of my To Do List right now.
Oh, and I thought last night's episode of Midsomer Murders was something of an improvement, at least in the realms of the relationships between characters - though the bitchy Barnaby definitely needs to treat poor Sergeant Jones a damn sight better before I'm any way near convinced ...
Finally I'm pleased to say that A Woman like the Sea gained a 5-star review at Goodreads - thanks, Jesse.
Happy Easter - hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
Anne Brooke
Sunday, April 17, 2011
On reaching the end ...
Book News:
Fabulous news twice over on my Gathandrian Trilogy series: I've completed the final proof edits for The Gifting and sent those back to Bluewood Publishing so I'm looking forward to that one coming out in due course. At the same time, I've actually finished (yes, finished!) the first draft of the final part of the trilogy, The Executioner's Cane, which came in at 126,500 words, well gosh. I can't believe I've actually got a whole book I can edit and play around with at some stage. And now, having completed the story in full, it's surprising how very empty I feel, in spite of the fact that I've been longing and dreaming about this moment for months, my dears, months. I do still feel as if writing a whole trilogy is, for me, a huge personal achievement, but I swear I'm never going to write another one. Never, never, never ... But hell, I'm really going to miss thinking about those people, and the cane, and the raven, and, well, the whole dang thing actually. Lordy, but I'm confused. 'Twas ever thus.
Much to my delight, Brady's Choice was given a very nice review at Queer Magazine Online, so many thanks for that, Lena. And I'm also pleased to say that my lesbian erotic story, Butterfly Girl, has received over 1040 hits, which is lovely, even though nobody likes it much. Ah well. Mind you, this shouldn't come as a surprise to me after the latest comment on one of my reviews at Vulpes Libris where Gay Reader (Gawd bless 'em) tells me (in so many words) that I'm nothing but an envious, self-promoting, dried-up writer with neither heart nor soul, whose fiction is bland, flat and riddled with cliches, particularly in A Dangerous Man. I felt quite chuffed by those comments, and also impressed by the amount of passion and poetry in them. Mind you, as K says, does this mean I'm now set to win the Booker Prize? Oh goody! Anyway, my new strapline is now: bland, envious and self-promoting but served up with style. I hope you like the new improved image!
Here's some recent meditations:
Meditation 520
Hazzelelponi bears her syllables
with pride and despises
those with humbler names.
She has no need
of children to remember her by
and she walks tall
lifting her head
to the sun
whose warm rays
melt into her skin
and brand her
with a lesser glory.
Meditation 521
I remember Reuben:
I nearly played him once
at primary school
in Joseph
but was prevented
at the last minute
by a badly scheduled
hospital trip.
I’ve regretted it ever since
and forty years on
still have a rare sympathy
for this less important brother
where we share an understanding
of our place on God’s list
and taste the bitterness
of opportunity missed.
The Sunday haiku is:
When my chores are done
one pink shoe lies on tarmac
waiting for the night.
Life News:
Thursday at work was a heck of a long one, but that's always the case on the last day at work before Easter (as I'm on a University conference next week for three days). I got in at 8.30am and left at about 8.15pm. I worked like a Trojan and managed to get done everything I needed to, hurrah! Ah, the satisfaction of an empty desk has to be tasted to be believed, I'm telling you. Mind you, the sad thing was that, because of all that, I didn't manage to get to the performance of Annie Get Your Gun at Charterhouse theatre, starring Ruth's husband Douglas, which I was really sorry for - next time, I promise, both! And there was a hugely embarrassing moment at about 7.15pm when I went to the ladies, and then couldn't get back into the office as the security locks had activated. I had to go downstairs and get the security team, who laughed till they cried (and can you blame them!), to let me back in. Well, I do like to provide a certain amount of entertainment in the office environment now and again ...
Friday, Marian and I had a completely amusing game of golf and were laughing so much we could hardly hit the ball at all. Which may possibly have been a good thing. And it cheered me up greatly from the ongoing drama of our attempts to buy a house. Groan, and double groan. It appears that the lovely package of papers sent to our solicitor by the vendors' solicitors on Wednesday contains nothing but copies of what we've been sent before, and therefore our sixteen unanswered but actually very simple questions remain outstanding. No sign of any exchange date there then. We are therefore going to write one last firm email today, and send it to our solicitors, the selling estate agents and the vendors' solicitors, and if there's no movement by the end of this week, then we will withdraw our offer. It's a shame that a relatively simple process has been messed about so much by the sheer incompetence of the vendors' solicitors, but that is their look-out and not ours. In the meantime, we saw a very nice house in West End Village yesterday which will be empty in June as the tenants move out and the sellers are already living in Scotland, and that seems a very attractive option right now. Plus next week, while I'm away on conference, K will be checking out another couple of good options in Bisley, just to see the lie of the land.
Yesterday, we got away from it all briefly by visiting the Spring Garden Fair at Loseley Park, which was very pleasant indeed. And today we have done our bit for Palm Sunday (big palms! little crosses! all those great processional hymns! though, sadly, no donkey ...) and I've done some packing ready for tomorrow's trip. Golly, how organised I am. I've even managed to complete the ironing, triple gosh.
Tonight it's Lewis on TV, so a pretty good Sunday, really.
Anne Brooke
Fabulous news twice over on my Gathandrian Trilogy series: I've completed the final proof edits for The Gifting and sent those back to Bluewood Publishing so I'm looking forward to that one coming out in due course. At the same time, I've actually finished (yes, finished!) the first draft of the final part of the trilogy, The Executioner's Cane, which came in at 126,500 words, well gosh. I can't believe I've actually got a whole book I can edit and play around with at some stage. And now, having completed the story in full, it's surprising how very empty I feel, in spite of the fact that I've been longing and dreaming about this moment for months, my dears, months. I do still feel as if writing a whole trilogy is, for me, a huge personal achievement, but I swear I'm never going to write another one. Never, never, never ... But hell, I'm really going to miss thinking about those people, and the cane, and the raven, and, well, the whole dang thing actually. Lordy, but I'm confused. 'Twas ever thus.
Much to my delight, Brady's Choice was given a very nice review at Queer Magazine Online, so many thanks for that, Lena. And I'm also pleased to say that my lesbian erotic story, Butterfly Girl, has received over 1040 hits, which is lovely, even though nobody likes it much. Ah well. Mind you, this shouldn't come as a surprise to me after the latest comment on one of my reviews at Vulpes Libris where Gay Reader (Gawd bless 'em) tells me (in so many words) that I'm nothing but an envious, self-promoting, dried-up writer with neither heart nor soul, whose fiction is bland, flat and riddled with cliches, particularly in A Dangerous Man. I felt quite chuffed by those comments, and also impressed by the amount of passion and poetry in them. Mind you, as K says, does this mean I'm now set to win the Booker Prize? Oh goody! Anyway, my new strapline is now: bland, envious and self-promoting but served up with style. I hope you like the new improved image!
Here's some recent meditations:
Meditation 520
Hazzelelponi bears her syllables
with pride and despises
those with humbler names.
She has no need
of children to remember her by
and she walks tall
lifting her head
to the sun
whose warm rays
melt into her skin
and brand her
with a lesser glory.
Meditation 521
I remember Reuben:
I nearly played him once
at primary school
in Joseph
but was prevented
at the last minute
by a badly scheduled
hospital trip.
I’ve regretted it ever since
and forty years on
still have a rare sympathy
for this less important brother
where we share an understanding
of our place on God’s list
and taste the bitterness
of opportunity missed.
The Sunday haiku is:
When my chores are done
one pink shoe lies on tarmac
waiting for the night.
Life News:
Thursday at work was a heck of a long one, but that's always the case on the last day at work before Easter (as I'm on a University conference next week for three days). I got in at 8.30am and left at about 8.15pm. I worked like a Trojan and managed to get done everything I needed to, hurrah! Ah, the satisfaction of an empty desk has to be tasted to be believed, I'm telling you. Mind you, the sad thing was that, because of all that, I didn't manage to get to the performance of Annie Get Your Gun at Charterhouse theatre, starring Ruth's husband Douglas, which I was really sorry for - next time, I promise, both! And there was a hugely embarrassing moment at about 7.15pm when I went to the ladies, and then couldn't get back into the office as the security locks had activated. I had to go downstairs and get the security team, who laughed till they cried (and can you blame them!), to let me back in. Well, I do like to provide a certain amount of entertainment in the office environment now and again ...
Friday, Marian and I had a completely amusing game of golf and were laughing so much we could hardly hit the ball at all. Which may possibly have been a good thing. And it cheered me up greatly from the ongoing drama of our attempts to buy a house. Groan, and double groan. It appears that the lovely package of papers sent to our solicitor by the vendors' solicitors on Wednesday contains nothing but copies of what we've been sent before, and therefore our sixteen unanswered but actually very simple questions remain outstanding. No sign of any exchange date there then. We are therefore going to write one last firm email today, and send it to our solicitors, the selling estate agents and the vendors' solicitors, and if there's no movement by the end of this week, then we will withdraw our offer. It's a shame that a relatively simple process has been messed about so much by the sheer incompetence of the vendors' solicitors, but that is their look-out and not ours. In the meantime, we saw a very nice house in West End Village yesterday which will be empty in June as the tenants move out and the sellers are already living in Scotland, and that seems a very attractive option right now. Plus next week, while I'm away on conference, K will be checking out another couple of good options in Bisley, just to see the lie of the land.
Yesterday, we got away from it all briefly by visiting the Spring Garden Fair at Loseley Park, which was very pleasant indeed. And today we have done our bit for Palm Sunday (big palms! little crosses! all those great processional hymns! though, sadly, no donkey ...) and I've done some packing ready for tomorrow's trip. Golly, how organised I am. I've even managed to complete the ironing, triple gosh.
Tonight it's Lewis on TV, so a pretty good Sunday, really.
Anne Brooke
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Publishers, proofs and paintings
Book News:
I'm happily going through the final proofs for The Gifting and should have those ready to send back to Bluewood Publishing sometime over the next few days, I hope. It's nice to key into the beginning of the trilogy once more and to get back in touch with how things are in Gathandria and Lammas. Some things I honestly can't remember writing at all, but hey somebody must have done. But, in my defence, I did write it quite a while ago.
Other positive book news is that Butterfly Girl, my lesbian erotic short story, is now available for free at Oysters and Chocolate webzine, and has been read about 620 times, which is heartening. Continuing the lesbian theme (though not the erotic one), I'm happy to note that The Girl in the Painting was briefly at No 78 in the Amazon UK charts, so that was nice too.
Other less positive book news is that one of my publishers has, rather dramatically I feel, threatened me with legal action for attempting (wisely, to my mind, since they haven't yet paid me the royalties from 2010, let alone 2011, Gawd bless 'em, and their dealings with me have been sooooo slow as to be virtually non-existent) to extricate myself from their grip. Somehow I can't help but be wryly amused by this, hey ho. I may yet end up in a foreign jail, who knows! However, I've had several offers of cakes by post with files in them, so you may not have heard the last of me yet ... However, if this blog goes suddenly silent, you know where I am! There's a story in there somewhere, my dears - maybe even a movie ...
Today at Vulpes Libris, you can read my review of Robert Goddard's Long Time Coming - in which the end is really way too long in coming. It was an exhausting read - not quality Goddard at all, sadly.
This week's meditations are:
Meditation 518
It seems a shame
seeing he was so evil
the Lord killed him
that the unfortunate Er
couldn’t be granted
a longer name.
Meditation 519
Women from Carmel
are tall and dark-haired.
Their beauty is legendary.
They float like a ship
through the air’s mysterious tides.
They say little
and when they do speak
their words are full of wisdom
whilst their breath
smells of honey and spices.
They make deceitful friends
but true wives
as they walk through the world
in their secretive lives.
Life News:
Whilst selling our flat seems to have ground to a (hopefully temporary!) halt due to our buyer's mortgage not being quite there yet, the news on our house purchase is rather more interesting. It looks like (praise be ...) our vendors' solicitors have finally delivered all the necessary information to our solicitors and it may be that one day in recordable time the issue of an exchange date might be discussed. Watch this space, eh ... In the meantime, we have also booked to see a very nice house in West End Village on Saturday so our options remain, as always, open.
But there is more positively good news, hurrah. In spite of potentially being a known literary criminal of no fixed abode, my doctor tells me that my anxiety levels are officially down a little whilst my depression levels have halved. Hurrah indeed! Keep those little happy pills coming, is what I say.
Anne Brooke
I'm happily going through the final proofs for The Gifting and should have those ready to send back to Bluewood Publishing sometime over the next few days, I hope. It's nice to key into the beginning of the trilogy once more and to get back in touch with how things are in Gathandria and Lammas. Some things I honestly can't remember writing at all, but hey somebody must have done. But, in my defence, I did write it quite a while ago.
Other positive book news is that Butterfly Girl, my lesbian erotic short story, is now available for free at Oysters and Chocolate webzine, and has been read about 620 times, which is heartening. Continuing the lesbian theme (though not the erotic one), I'm happy to note that The Girl in the Painting was briefly at No 78 in the Amazon UK charts, so that was nice too.
Other less positive book news is that one of my publishers has, rather dramatically I feel, threatened me with legal action for attempting (wisely, to my mind, since they haven't yet paid me the royalties from 2010, let alone 2011, Gawd bless 'em, and their dealings with me have been sooooo slow as to be virtually non-existent) to extricate myself from their grip. Somehow I can't help but be wryly amused by this, hey ho. I may yet end up in a foreign jail, who knows! However, I've had several offers of cakes by post with files in them, so you may not have heard the last of me yet ... However, if this blog goes suddenly silent, you know where I am! There's a story in there somewhere, my dears - maybe even a movie ...
Today at Vulpes Libris, you can read my review of Robert Goddard's Long Time Coming - in which the end is really way too long in coming. It was an exhausting read - not quality Goddard at all, sadly.
This week's meditations are:
Meditation 518
It seems a shame
seeing he was so evil
the Lord killed him
that the unfortunate Er
couldn’t be granted
a longer name.
Meditation 519
Women from Carmel
are tall and dark-haired.
Their beauty is legendary.
They float like a ship
through the air’s mysterious tides.
They say little
and when they do speak
their words are full of wisdom
whilst their breath
smells of honey and spices.
They make deceitful friends
but true wives
as they walk through the world
in their secretive lives.
Life News:
Whilst selling our flat seems to have ground to a (hopefully temporary!) halt due to our buyer's mortgage not being quite there yet, the news on our house purchase is rather more interesting. It looks like (praise be ...) our vendors' solicitors have finally delivered all the necessary information to our solicitors and it may be that one day in recordable time the issue of an exchange date might be discussed. Watch this space, eh ... In the meantime, we have also booked to see a very nice house in West End Village on Saturday so our options remain, as always, open.
But there is more positively good news, hurrah. In spite of potentially being a known literary criminal of no fixed abode, my doctor tells me that my anxiety levels are officially down a little whilst my depression levels have halved. Hurrah indeed! Keep those little happy pills coming, is what I say.
Anne Brooke
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Gardens, Gifting and Rosie galore
Book News:
Happily, Rosie by Name has begun to spread her wings a little and can now be found at Amazon US, Amazon UK (where it's actually got a ranking so someone must have bought a copy - many thanks indeed!), All Romance Ebooks and Bookstrand (where it's classified as "steamy" - mainstream with some adult language, in case you're wondering ...). And it looks as if someone might just have bought a copy there too, so thank you for that, whoever you are.
Keeping with exciting packages from Bluewood Publishing, I'm thrilled to have received the final proof copies of The Gifting today, so my main focus over the next days will be going through that and marking down any typos I might find to get it ready for publication. As a result, though I've completed Annyeke's part of the epilogue for The Executioner's Cane (a milestone which actually has made me feel quite sad, even though I've been longing to get there for weeks), I'm leaving Ralph's and Simon's parts of the epilogue until I've finished the proof checks for The Gifting.
My most recent meditation is:
Meditation 517
Methuselah is a name
to conjure with:
fire and wind
and storm,
a wildness to cling to
when the days
are dusty and dry,
and the journey bleak.
And the Sunday haiku is:
When a plastic bag
grows up, it becomes a swan:
feathers and sunshine.
Life News:
After I threw all my toys out of the pram last week in terms of our potential house-purchase and our issues with the vendors, things look set to improve, I hope. The estate agent called yesterday to say that the vendors are both 100% behind selling their house to us, and therefore answers to the two outstanding questions will be with our solicitor by the middle of next week, at which point we can start discussing an exchange date. Plus they apologise for the delay, which is nice. Lordy, if it actually happens as the estate agent promises, it will be bloody brilliant as I am more than desperate to get into the new house.
However, we're keeping a Plan B route open in case that doesn't happen and so viewed three other properties yesterday also. Top of the list is a very nice bungalow in Wood Street Village, with a great garden, which we can both happily see ourselves living in. But we won't make any decisions until next week begins to unfold. Wish us luck, eh - we need it.
Meanwhile, our selling estate agent, the marvellous Lucy of Seymours (may her name be praised) seems to be the only one who really knows what she's doing and has been chasing round in terms of the sale of our flat. She's also beaten everyone over the head with the information (which we keep on telling people but nobody pays a blind bit of attention) that we are not in a chain and can leave here and rent somewhere whenever we need to, and on the other hand occupy the next house without initially selling this one. I hope they have now understood these details from Lucy, when they cannot do so from us. It also appears that the only one left to sign our transfer document is the new middle neighbour, so we hope he begins to be rather more amenable than he has up to now. It's about time he did something positive and pleasant - as so far he hasn't really covered himself in glory. Watch this space indeed ...
Anyway, our trip to the theatre on Thursday to see To Kill a Mockingbird ended up being pretty damn classy. A very slow and rather unnecessary start finally gave way to a stonkingly good finish so it was well worth the wait and the journey. I can only recommend it if it travels your way.
Friday night saw us out for dinner at Robin & Gavin's, along with Liz & John (hello, all!) and it was lovely to catch up before Easter rolls over us. This morning we have pottered along to church where the first two hymns were utterly unfamiliar to everyone and we were desperately struggling with the tune (how I hate it when that happens) but luckily the final two were more familiar though, as a congregation, we were so emotionally drained by the first two hymns that we were barely able to squeak our way through at all. We did our best, but the spirit was willing, etc etc, as they say.
We've had a wonderfully relaxing afternoon strolling round Coverwood Lakes & Gardens, which is open today as part of the National Garden Scheme. Being a working farm, it was really more parkland than garden, but still very pleasant especially in this weather and the tea & cake were lovely. Mmmm.
Tonight, it's the glories of Lewis on TV, and once more I can't wait for it. The perfect end to a Sunday.
Anne Brooke
Happily, Rosie by Name has begun to spread her wings a little and can now be found at Amazon US, Amazon UK (where it's actually got a ranking so someone must have bought a copy - many thanks indeed!), All Romance Ebooks and Bookstrand (where it's classified as "steamy" - mainstream with some adult language, in case you're wondering ...). And it looks as if someone might just have bought a copy there too, so thank you for that, whoever you are.
Keeping with exciting packages from Bluewood Publishing, I'm thrilled to have received the final proof copies of The Gifting today, so my main focus over the next days will be going through that and marking down any typos I might find to get it ready for publication. As a result, though I've completed Annyeke's part of the epilogue for The Executioner's Cane (a milestone which actually has made me feel quite sad, even though I've been longing to get there for weeks), I'm leaving Ralph's and Simon's parts of the epilogue until I've finished the proof checks for The Gifting.
My most recent meditation is:
Meditation 517
Methuselah is a name
to conjure with:
fire and wind
and storm,
a wildness to cling to
when the days
are dusty and dry,
and the journey bleak.
And the Sunday haiku is:
When a plastic bag
grows up, it becomes a swan:
feathers and sunshine.
Life News:
After I threw all my toys out of the pram last week in terms of our potential house-purchase and our issues with the vendors, things look set to improve, I hope. The estate agent called yesterday to say that the vendors are both 100% behind selling their house to us, and therefore answers to the two outstanding questions will be with our solicitor by the middle of next week, at which point we can start discussing an exchange date. Plus they apologise for the delay, which is nice. Lordy, if it actually happens as the estate agent promises, it will be bloody brilliant as I am more than desperate to get into the new house.
However, we're keeping a Plan B route open in case that doesn't happen and so viewed three other properties yesterday also. Top of the list is a very nice bungalow in Wood Street Village, with a great garden, which we can both happily see ourselves living in. But we won't make any decisions until next week begins to unfold. Wish us luck, eh - we need it.
Meanwhile, our selling estate agent, the marvellous Lucy of Seymours (may her name be praised) seems to be the only one who really knows what she's doing and has been chasing round in terms of the sale of our flat. She's also beaten everyone over the head with the information (which we keep on telling people but nobody pays a blind bit of attention) that we are not in a chain and can leave here and rent somewhere whenever we need to, and on the other hand occupy the next house without initially selling this one. I hope they have now understood these details from Lucy, when they cannot do so from us. It also appears that the only one left to sign our transfer document is the new middle neighbour, so we hope he begins to be rather more amenable than he has up to now. It's about time he did something positive and pleasant - as so far he hasn't really covered himself in glory. Watch this space indeed ...
Anyway, our trip to the theatre on Thursday to see To Kill a Mockingbird ended up being pretty damn classy. A very slow and rather unnecessary start finally gave way to a stonkingly good finish so it was well worth the wait and the journey. I can only recommend it if it travels your way.
Friday night saw us out for dinner at Robin & Gavin's, along with Liz & John (hello, all!) and it was lovely to catch up before Easter rolls over us. This morning we have pottered along to church where the first two hymns were utterly unfamiliar to everyone and we were desperately struggling with the tune (how I hate it when that happens) but luckily the final two were more familiar though, as a congregation, we were so emotionally drained by the first two hymns that we were barely able to squeak our way through at all. We did our best, but the spirit was willing, etc etc, as they say.
We've had a wonderfully relaxing afternoon strolling round Coverwood Lakes & Gardens, which is open today as part of the National Garden Scheme. Being a working farm, it was really more parkland than garden, but still very pleasant especially in this weather and the tea & cake were lovely. Mmmm.
Tonight, it's the glories of Lewis on TV, and once more I can't wait for it. The perfect end to a Sunday.
Anne Brooke
Thursday, April 07, 2011
Rosie by Name
Book News
I'm delighted to say that my comic and just a little bit naughty short story, Rosie by Name, is now available at Bluewood Publishing, and what a totally fabulous cover that is. I love it. So if you want some springtime laughter, do pop along and find out more. Rosie's quite a gal!
On a rather different tack, I've just found out that my lesbian erotic short story, Butterfly Girl, has been accepted for publication by Oysters & Chocolate webzine, so I'm thrilled about that one too.
In terms of reviews, A Dangerous Man has been doing well though, sadly, royalties for the paperback version are continuing to be very poor, which I'm sorry about really - I feel rather guilty for my paperback publisher as they've taken a risk on it and I fear it's not paid off ... Still the ebook is doing okay so that's some consolation for sure. Anyway, at Goodreads, it gained an interesting 4-star review (thanks, Kate) and a fascinating 5-star review (thank you, Sonya), so both of these were lovely.
Meanwhile, I'm happy to note that 5 copies of The Secret Thoughts of Leaves have been borrowed from libraries during April, so I hope the borrowers have enjoyed that. Call me old-fashioned but actually having someone take one of my books from a library always gives me a thrill. It's almost like being a real writer, you know.
And my review of Andy Frankham-Allen's magnificent fantasy novel, Seeker, is now up at Vulpes Libris, so please ignore that quite dreadful new cover it has (!) and go along and find out more. It's a work I can thoroughly recommend for all.
Meditations so far this week are:
Meditation 514
A long, bleak path
from the place you know
to one you do not;
with every slow step
the chance for life
fades away
and you know you will not
make the journey back
one day.
Meditation 515
Great power
brings greater risk
so do not choose
to seek it.
Walk the quieter path
and mark your step
on the earth most suited
to meet it.
Meditation 516
Freedom comes by being open
to the day’s surprises
which often arrive
in strange disguises.
Life News:
Difficult news on the house front, alas. It appears that our vendors might be having second thoughts about selling us their very nice house, groan. I appreciate they're in the middle of a tricky divorce and have every sympathy for that, but we've got so far down the road that I can't bear the thought of our second attempt at purchase falling through. We're getting zilch information from their solicitors or their estate agents, though the solicitors did tell us their clients were probably too busy divorcing to pay us much attention or words to that effect (nice, eh!...), so we're really none the wiser. K sent a firmly worded email earlier in the week, which has been ignored. And today I've rung up the estate agents - actually to ask them if we can view another house on their books, which put the wind up them rather, but frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn - who got terribly panicky and promised to ring back asap. Which they have now down, so hopefully someone's on the case ...
Anyway, in the meantime, we're keeping our options open and I've arranged three other house viewings for Saturday and, if we find one we like and they're actually willing and able to sell it to us, we'll seriously consider withdrawing our offer and starting afresh, with a keener vendor. The one good thing that comes out of this is our solicitor is likely to make a fortune from our misfortune (glad someone is!). A few more situations like this and we won't be able to afford to move at all. Hey ho, you've got to laugh, I suppose. Thank goodness for anti-depressants! Though, understandably, I've had a bit of a relapse this week and have been supplementing them with Quiet Life pills, which seem to have helped a little.
However, all is not lost as nice things have happened too, hurrah. I had a totally lovely reflexology session with Helen at work on Wednesday which was bliss. I even fell asleep twice so it was great to feel that relaxed. What with Easter in the way, I've made my next appointment in May, and I can't wait. Today, I've popped in to see the ground-floor neighbour now in Woking and was delighted to find him in much better form than during my last visit. We talked about politics, the environment, gardens, war and tea, so a great time was had by all. I swear that, between the two of us, we could probably change the world.
The world of television has been a fascinating one this week. The Model Agency was as grippingly shallow and socially horrid as ever but, now it's over, I shall miss it, I fear. It was, I imagine, much like watching a Victorian freak show - the freaks being the agency bookers, definitely. Something one is fascinated by but never wants to connect to ...
However, it was wonderful to have Lewis back on Sunday nights and I wallowed in its classiness, bliss. Sooooo much better than the increasingly wretched Midsomer Murders. Talking of which, I'm told that the Jack Russell now taking the main role in Midsomer is the same dog as the one in the recent series of adverts (advertising what, I really don't know) who's attempting to find a home by doing the washing-up and the gardening etc etc for its potential new owners. Give that animal an Equity card - it could go far ...
And I watched (again, as the same episode was on last year, I think) the pilot episode for the utterly surreal, terribly rude and strangely accurate university comedy series, Campus. Ah, that Vice-Chancellor - how I loved him. It's bold, brutish and takes some breathtaking risks, but I laughed out loud several times, particularly at how well it portrayed some of the current issues of universities (though in a larger-than-life way, I hasten to add!), and I'll definitely be watching again.
Tonight, K and I are off to the theatre to see To Kill A Mockingbird, so that should be ... um ... fun. Sort of! Well, classy anyway. Which should round off the week nicely, hey ho.
Anne Brooke
I'm delighted to say that my comic and just a little bit naughty short story, Rosie by Name, is now available at Bluewood Publishing, and what a totally fabulous cover that is. I love it. So if you want some springtime laughter, do pop along and find out more. Rosie's quite a gal!
On a rather different tack, I've just found out that my lesbian erotic short story, Butterfly Girl, has been accepted for publication by Oysters & Chocolate webzine, so I'm thrilled about that one too.
In terms of reviews, A Dangerous Man has been doing well though, sadly, royalties for the paperback version are continuing to be very poor, which I'm sorry about really - I feel rather guilty for my paperback publisher as they've taken a risk on it and I fear it's not paid off ... Still the ebook is doing okay so that's some consolation for sure. Anyway, at Goodreads, it gained an interesting 4-star review (thanks, Kate) and a fascinating 5-star review (thank you, Sonya), so both of these were lovely.
Meanwhile, I'm happy to note that 5 copies of The Secret Thoughts of Leaves have been borrowed from libraries during April, so I hope the borrowers have enjoyed that. Call me old-fashioned but actually having someone take one of my books from a library always gives me a thrill. It's almost like being a real writer, you know.
And my review of Andy Frankham-Allen's magnificent fantasy novel, Seeker, is now up at Vulpes Libris, so please ignore that quite dreadful new cover it has (!) and go along and find out more. It's a work I can thoroughly recommend for all.
Meditations so far this week are:
Meditation 514
A long, bleak path
from the place you know
to one you do not;
with every slow step
the chance for life
fades away
and you know you will not
make the journey back
one day.
Meditation 515
Great power
brings greater risk
so do not choose
to seek it.
Walk the quieter path
and mark your step
on the earth most suited
to meet it.
Meditation 516
Freedom comes by being open
to the day’s surprises
which often arrive
in strange disguises.
Life News:
Difficult news on the house front, alas. It appears that our vendors might be having second thoughts about selling us their very nice house, groan. I appreciate they're in the middle of a tricky divorce and have every sympathy for that, but we've got so far down the road that I can't bear the thought of our second attempt at purchase falling through. We're getting zilch information from their solicitors or their estate agents, though the solicitors did tell us their clients were probably too busy divorcing to pay us much attention or words to that effect (nice, eh!...), so we're really none the wiser. K sent a firmly worded email earlier in the week, which has been ignored. And today I've rung up the estate agents - actually to ask them if we can view another house on their books, which put the wind up them rather, but frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn - who got terribly panicky and promised to ring back asap. Which they have now down, so hopefully someone's on the case ...
Anyway, in the meantime, we're keeping our options open and I've arranged three other house viewings for Saturday and, if we find one we like and they're actually willing and able to sell it to us, we'll seriously consider withdrawing our offer and starting afresh, with a keener vendor. The one good thing that comes out of this is our solicitor is likely to make a fortune from our misfortune (glad someone is!). A few more situations like this and we won't be able to afford to move at all. Hey ho, you've got to laugh, I suppose. Thank goodness for anti-depressants! Though, understandably, I've had a bit of a relapse this week and have been supplementing them with Quiet Life pills, which seem to have helped a little.
However, all is not lost as nice things have happened too, hurrah. I had a totally lovely reflexology session with Helen at work on Wednesday which was bliss. I even fell asleep twice so it was great to feel that relaxed. What with Easter in the way, I've made my next appointment in May, and I can't wait. Today, I've popped in to see the ground-floor neighbour now in Woking and was delighted to find him in much better form than during my last visit. We talked about politics, the environment, gardens, war and tea, so a great time was had by all. I swear that, between the two of us, we could probably change the world.
The world of television has been a fascinating one this week. The Model Agency was as grippingly shallow and socially horrid as ever but, now it's over, I shall miss it, I fear. It was, I imagine, much like watching a Victorian freak show - the freaks being the agency bookers, definitely. Something one is fascinated by but never wants to connect to ...
However, it was wonderful to have Lewis back on Sunday nights and I wallowed in its classiness, bliss. Sooooo much better than the increasingly wretched Midsomer Murders. Talking of which, I'm told that the Jack Russell now taking the main role in Midsomer is the same dog as the one in the recent series of adverts (advertising what, I really don't know) who's attempting to find a home by doing the washing-up and the gardening etc etc for its potential new owners. Give that animal an Equity card - it could go far ...
And I watched (again, as the same episode was on last year, I think) the pilot episode for the utterly surreal, terribly rude and strangely accurate university comedy series, Campus. Ah, that Vice-Chancellor - how I loved him. It's bold, brutish and takes some breathtaking risks, but I laughed out loud several times, particularly at how well it portrayed some of the current issues of universities (though in a larger-than-life way, I hasten to add!), and I'll definitely be watching again.
Tonight, K and I are off to the theatre to see To Kill A Mockingbird, so that should be ... um ... fun. Sort of! Well, classy anyway. Which should round off the week nicely, hey ho.
Anne Brooke
Sunday, April 03, 2011
Butterflies, Brits and bestsellers
Book News:
Sad to say, this weekend sees the end of British Fortnight at Brief Encounter Reviews, and what a fantastic fortnight it's been. I've learnt a heck of a lot about my fellow UK gay fiction writers and, if you missed my slot (as it were), you can find it on 22 March. Many thanks, Tam & Jen, for arranging it all, and thank you to everyone who took part.
Good news this week is that I've broken the 120,000 word marker in The Executioner's Cane, with only the last chapter to go, plus the epilogue. Lordy, but it's been a mammoth task and I was beginning to think I'd never reach this point. Once I've finally written "The End", I shall collapse for a month and not write a thing, and certainly not another trilogy, please God no. Though, hell, but I'm going to miss Simon and the Gathandrians, not to mention the mind-cane - they've been part of my ruddy life for so damn long, I can't think what I shall do without them ...
Also today, you can find an interview with me at The Accidental Author, where I discuss art, handbags and the vital importance of coffee. Many thanks to Jesse for arranging it and asking such great questions. Meanwhile, I'm happy to say that The Girl in the Painting is once more in the Untreed Reads bestsellers' list - for March it came in at Number 3, so I'm very pleased with that. I have no idea why that particular story continues to be quite so popular, but I'm glad it is! Thank you to everyone who's bought a copy, and I hope you enjoyed it.
At Amber Allure Press, all my books can be found at a 25% discount during April, so don't forget to treat yourself to a scintillating shopping experience for spring. You know you want to ...
Recent meditation poems are:
Meditation 512
The last thing he sees
is the royal garden
wrapped in night-time quiet,
the scent of daylight flowers
still hinted on the faint breeze
that lifts his hair
as the distant stars look down,
majestic and unaware.
Meditation 513
It’s a history
not of kings
or people
but of objects:
bronze columns and carts,
tanks, shovels, lamps,
sacrificial bowls and coals
and incense.
All the paraphernalia
of rich and poor
who in this, their story,
live no more.
The Sunday haiku is:
The duck stalks my bench:
expectation on her beak,
water off my back.
Life News:
The middle neighbours seem to be playing silly devils again, sigh, and this time not with us. They've apparently laid claim to both sheds and their contents in the garden, even though only one of them belongs to them, and the other one is the ground floor neighbours'. Also it appears that the new middle neighbour might (if he ever arrives ...) consider (from what he's been told by them) that all the garden belongs to him, when in fact he only has the rear section of the back garden and nothing whatsoever of the front. Another deep sigh, eh. The upshot is that I've advised the tenants of the ground floor to let the ground floor owners know this is happening, and of course we're prepared to help them hang onto what is theirs if we need to! Lordy, when will it all end? I do so wish I was out of here ...
On the up side, I enjoyed golf on Friday with Marian, and she beat me by one shot on the last hole, oh the shame of it! Still we were neck and neck up to that point so the crowds (should there ever be any) were going wild with excitement, hey ho. And The Mentalist was great in the evening so rounded off the week quite well. Not only that but I've started wearing earrings again - when I'm depressed I just can't bring myself to care enough to change them (I think I've actually worn the same fall-back pair for about two or three years now, which should really have told me something, if I'd bothered to listen ...), but yesterday and today I have put different pairs in. Maybe the anti-depressants are working? I do think they might be and I hope it continues, hurrah.
Yesterday, K and I had a lovely lunch out at and a walk round Wisley. The orchid display in the Greenhouse was particularly stunning and is well worth a visit if you have time - it last until the end of April. We also loved the sense of spring coming to the garden - with the camellias, rhododendrons and daffodils out in all their splendour, and huge amounts of butterflies. We saw in one half-hour a brimstone, an orange-tip, a tortoiseshell and a peacock butterfly. So many out so early in the year - it was astonishing really. Wisley also have a brand-new bird-hide and, though we didn't see many birds there, we did see a grass snake about two foot long (enormous!) swimming along the river. I've never seen any snake swim so that was a first for me. It stayed quite a time too which was wonderful. The yellow collar behind the head was very obvious.
Today, of course, it's Mothers Day - and Mother (Gawd bless 'er!) woke us at 8.45am when we were enjoying a much-needed lie-in to thank us for our presents. Still, I only have myself to blame for being a lazy stop-in-bed - as a farmer's daughter I should be ashamed of myself as my inheritance is that I should be up at 6am daily and working out in the fields. Dream on!... Anyway, Mother is off to London with her theatre group for a concert and I hope she has a fabulous day. Tonight, it's the joys of Lewis on TV, and I can't wait. It's got to be better than the new Midsomer Murders, that's for sure.
Anne Brooke
Sad to say, this weekend sees the end of British Fortnight at Brief Encounter Reviews, and what a fantastic fortnight it's been. I've learnt a heck of a lot about my fellow UK gay fiction writers and, if you missed my slot (as it were), you can find it on 22 March. Many thanks, Tam & Jen, for arranging it all, and thank you to everyone who took part.
Good news this week is that I've broken the 120,000 word marker in The Executioner's Cane, with only the last chapter to go, plus the epilogue. Lordy, but it's been a mammoth task and I was beginning to think I'd never reach this point. Once I've finally written "The End", I shall collapse for a month and not write a thing, and certainly not another trilogy, please God no. Though, hell, but I'm going to miss Simon and the Gathandrians, not to mention the mind-cane - they've been part of my ruddy life for so damn long, I can't think what I shall do without them ...
Also today, you can find an interview with me at The Accidental Author, where I discuss art, handbags and the vital importance of coffee. Many thanks to Jesse for arranging it and asking such great questions. Meanwhile, I'm happy to say that The Girl in the Painting is once more in the Untreed Reads bestsellers' list - for March it came in at Number 3, so I'm very pleased with that. I have no idea why that particular story continues to be quite so popular, but I'm glad it is! Thank you to everyone who's bought a copy, and I hope you enjoyed it.
At Amber Allure Press, all my books can be found at a 25% discount during April, so don't forget to treat yourself to a scintillating shopping experience for spring. You know you want to ...
Recent meditation poems are:
Meditation 512
The last thing he sees
is the royal garden
wrapped in night-time quiet,
the scent of daylight flowers
still hinted on the faint breeze
that lifts his hair
as the distant stars look down,
majestic and unaware.
Meditation 513
It’s a history
not of kings
or people
but of objects:
bronze columns and carts,
tanks, shovels, lamps,
sacrificial bowls and coals
and incense.
All the paraphernalia
of rich and poor
who in this, their story,
live no more.
The Sunday haiku is:
The duck stalks my bench:
expectation on her beak,
water off my back.
Life News:
The middle neighbours seem to be playing silly devils again, sigh, and this time not with us. They've apparently laid claim to both sheds and their contents in the garden, even though only one of them belongs to them, and the other one is the ground floor neighbours'. Also it appears that the new middle neighbour might (if he ever arrives ...) consider (from what he's been told by them) that all the garden belongs to him, when in fact he only has the rear section of the back garden and nothing whatsoever of the front. Another deep sigh, eh. The upshot is that I've advised the tenants of the ground floor to let the ground floor owners know this is happening, and of course we're prepared to help them hang onto what is theirs if we need to! Lordy, when will it all end? I do so wish I was out of here ...
On the up side, I enjoyed golf on Friday with Marian, and she beat me by one shot on the last hole, oh the shame of it! Still we were neck and neck up to that point so the crowds (should there ever be any) were going wild with excitement, hey ho. And The Mentalist was great in the evening so rounded off the week quite well. Not only that but I've started wearing earrings again - when I'm depressed I just can't bring myself to care enough to change them (I think I've actually worn the same fall-back pair for about two or three years now, which should really have told me something, if I'd bothered to listen ...), but yesterday and today I have put different pairs in. Maybe the anti-depressants are working? I do think they might be and I hope it continues, hurrah.
Yesterday, K and I had a lovely lunch out at and a walk round Wisley. The orchid display in the Greenhouse was particularly stunning and is well worth a visit if you have time - it last until the end of April. We also loved the sense of spring coming to the garden - with the camellias, rhododendrons and daffodils out in all their splendour, and huge amounts of butterflies. We saw in one half-hour a brimstone, an orange-tip, a tortoiseshell and a peacock butterfly. So many out so early in the year - it was astonishing really. Wisley also have a brand-new bird-hide and, though we didn't see many birds there, we did see a grass snake about two foot long (enormous!) swimming along the river. I've never seen any snake swim so that was a first for me. It stayed quite a time too which was wonderful. The yellow collar behind the head was very obvious.
Today, of course, it's Mothers Day - and Mother (Gawd bless 'er!) woke us at 8.45am when we were enjoying a much-needed lie-in to thank us for our presents. Still, I only have myself to blame for being a lazy stop-in-bed - as a farmer's daughter I should be ashamed of myself as my inheritance is that I should be up at 6am daily and working out in the fields. Dream on!... Anyway, Mother is off to London with her theatre group for a concert and I hope she has a fabulous day. Tonight, it's the joys of Lewis on TV, and I can't wait. It's got to be better than the new Midsomer Murders, that's for sure.
Anne Brooke
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