Growing and Going

All those months trying to sell our previous house seem like a different age now. Home, in the end, is where the heart is, but as physical places go, this feels like somewhere to settle. We make bread and bake cakes, there’s homemade marmalade in the kitchen cupboards and we’re gradually sorting out the garden.

A year ago we discovered that seedlings don’t like to go in the ground too early here – the poor runner beans suffered especially in the cold, but now we’ve begun planting out in earnest. I was very excited this week (not sure what my younger self would say about that) to find trays of poor, thirsty, neglected bedding plants at B&Q for 10-50p per tray. We went a bit mad and spent three pounds on what should have been thirty-three pounds worth of plants; not all of them plants I’d normally choose, but we’ve rescued them and they’ll make a lovely splash of colour.

Marigolds to zap the carrot fly.

Bargain bedding plants.

The hedge is busting out all over.

The new shed in the sunshine.

Those red hot pokers are back.

Where the wild things are!

In other news. Tom and I are off to the Millennium Centre this Saturday for a big ol’ chunk of opera. Yes, it’s Tristan und Isolde, payback time for making Tom endure so much Puccini. 

And on Monday, my younger daughter, Rose and I are off to the Hay Festival where we’ll be helping to celebrate twenty-five years of the remarkable Honno Press. I’m so looking forwards to catching up with old friends and meeting lovely Juliet Greenwood there. Hurray!

Success!

Hurray! With a lot of help from the bride-to-be, I’ve managed to find the makings of an outfit for my daughter’s wedding. 

 Basically the secret seems to be to try everything on, something I’m not very keen to do by myself but which was much more fun with Lily to help. 

 Along the way we rejected The Intestine Dress (a dusky pink shade which I love but which drains me of all colour, in a tube design which was probably meant for someone seven foot tall) several Frumps R Us numbers (just because you are the mother of the bride doesn’t mean that you’re ready to look as, only Milla could put it, like a sofa cover) and a couple of Trying Too Hard dresses (just because you can, doesn’t mean you should). In the end I bought a shift dress and jacket in a sea-green colour (which, by amazing coincidence, MiL tells me is just the colour she’s been looking at) that seems to hit the right note between mumsy at one end and mutton-dressed-as-lamb at the other. Now all I’ve got to do is find all the bits and bobs to go with it…

In other news, despite the bug still washing me out, (see picture below!) I had a very enjoyable trip to London for the Romantic Novelists’ Summer Party. 

 I have to say that in the past I’ve been worried about feeling like Billy No-Mates on these occasions, but this year I had a wonderful time catching up with old and new friends (Hi Debbie! ). But what a night it turned out to be for Choc Lit! We’re so proud and pleased for Evonne Wareham, who won the Joan Hessayon New Writers’ Award for her novel Never Coming Home ...

and Jane Lovering who triumphed in the Romantic Novel of the Year Award for her romantic comedy, Please Don’t Stop the Music. 

And as you can imagine the celebrations when the Choc Liteers met up for lunch the next day just kept going!

Today I’m also blogging at the Choc Lit Author's Corner, where I’m waving goodbye – with some relief – to the controversial ‘Wednesday Hottie’ slot and introducing our new Wednesday feature.

Thanks to Tom Tomos for the epainting, Sea Mist (which is what we're looking at this morning!) and to photographer Marte L Rekaa for kindly allowing me to use her wonderful photos of the RNA Summer Party.

Staying In, Looking Forwards

So much for, ‘Oh, I’m never ill!’ I studied enough Greek Lit at school to know all about hubris, the sin of pride, but lately all that boasting to myself about my robust health has come back to bite me. The latest attempt to evict the bug squatting inside my sinuses has seen me leaving the GP with seven varieties of medication and less five phials of blood.

‘This may leave a slight bruise,’ says the kindly nurse, removing the syringe. 

 ‘Oh no, I never bruise,’ I assure her, opening my big mouth again. Sure enough, I wake up the next morning with an arm like an old banana; all black, purple and yellow. 

Tom and I go for a walk to the beach to blow the cobwebs away. On the way home, we attract lots of evil-looking flies, but it’s all right, because, as Dad and I always used to say to each other, confident that our rhesus negative blood repelled all blood-sucking insects, I never get bitten. Naturally, by the time I get in, my right thigh is sprouting a mini Mauna Loa with a gigantic crater in the middle…

The plus side of being Properly Poorly is that I’ve been forced to slow down and catch up with some reading. Briefly:

Two Cows and a Vanful of Smoke, Peter Benson (Kindle edition 2012). What an utter delight this book was. You might think you’d know what to expect from a tale about a young man whose best mate turns up at his door with a van full of stolen weed, but you’d be wrong! It’s beautiful, funny and poignant – great stuff.

Eden’s Garden, Juliet Greenwood (Honno Press 2012). This book really cheered me up when I was feeling particularly grim.  Beautiful setting, strong female characters and so much more than a ‘country house’ novel - move over Kate Morton!

Run Rabbit Run Kate Johnson (Choc Lit 2012), I’ve just started reading this, but I love Kate’s punchy delivery and the combo of a feisty heroine and sexy men.

Next up, I’ve got two more Choc Lit novels to look forwards to; The Penny Bangle, the third in Margaret James' Dorset trilogy, and Linda Mitchelmore’s To Turn Full Circle.

As well as books to look forwards to (ahem, do you notice the Choc Lit catalogue for the London Book Fair nonchalantly left open in the photo?) I’ve got some exciting events coming up, including an invitation from those lovely people at Honno Press to their 25th Anniversary Party at the Hay Festival in June. Hurray!

But before then, I’m in Cardiff this weekend to spend some important time doing weddingy things with my daughter which will be very exciting. Next week I’m off to town for the Romantic Novelists’ Association Summer Party. With fellow Choc Lit authors in the running for the Romantic Novel of the Year Award and the Joan Hessayon New Writers’ Scheme Award, we’ve decided to prolong the party and meet up for lunch the next day… probably not the best time to be winding up a long course of antibiotics, but hopefully I’ll be fighting fit to cheer everyone on!

Through the Woods to the Sea

Bugs and bad weather have resulted in a certain amount of cabin fever here at Hotel H, but the lovely month of May has arrived so it's time to get out and about.  


We live in a secluded wooded valley that slopes down to the sea and late this afternoon when the rain had eased, we followed the path through the woods ...

A purple haze of violets...

... and bluebells

A waterfall cascading into the stream

One bridge I'm not crossing!

The path changes from mud to sand and suddenly there's the sea.

A strange creature on the beach.








Then it's time to watch the waves before heading home.

Sickness and Sevens

Many thanks to my charming and entertaining guest, Toni Sands, for visiting Home Thoughts Weekly. Actually, you had quite a long stay, Toni… I hope you managed to find the coffee and biscuits whilst you were here. 


The reason I’ve been such a poor hostess is that my normally rude health took a battering from the most debilitating sinus infection and industrial-strength antibiotics, both of which have left me feeling pretty wrung out. Home Thoughts? Mainly, ‘Ooooh, I feel soooo ill.'

It’s lucky, then, that new Twitter friend @voula invited me to join in a game for writers, published and unpublished. The instructions for Lucky 7 are:

• Go to page 7 or 77 in your current manuscript 
• Go to line 7 
• Post on your blog the next 7 lines, or sentences, as they are – no cheating 
• Tag 7 other authors to do the same 

‘Current manuscript’, for me at the moment, could apply to the several levains fermenting on my desktop, including a novella and my third novel. I’ve mentioned before that I’m quite a secretive writer. I’m reluctant to talk about work in progress, but only because I believe that giving too much air to the mix at this stage can make it flat and stale. This is also the stage where my manuscript is subject to some pretty brutal culling as scenes and characters are taken out and thrown into a limbo file where they may languish forever or be resurrected when their proper place becomes apparent.

That said, I’ve gone to page 7 of what, hopefully, will be my third novel, Clearing the Decks. To set the scene, kind, responsible May Starling has had enough of clearing up after everyone else. Acting on impulse, she responds to a personal ad on a yachting internet site for a female cruising companion to assist with a delivery trip. May’s plans change tack the moment she arrives in Little Spitmarsh. The retired gentleman she’s expecting to sail with is far younger, twice as big and much angrier than she anticipated. In fact it’s his nephew, Bill Blythe, who meets her from the train with some unwelcome news.

May longed for the ground to swallow her. How many more double entendres had her drunken brain found amusing?
    ‘Since this boat means so much to Henry, I’m going to make sure that it’s waiting for him as soon as he’s better,’ he continued. ‘It’ll give him an incentive to get well.’
    ‘That’s kind of you.’ May was relieved Bill sounded so sure of Henry’s recovery. He might even give her a lift back to the station instead getting her charged with attempted manslaughter.
So, by page seven, I know that May’s unhappy with her old life and wants a change, but how big a change is she seeking? Will she accept that her attempt to breakaway has failed and get on the next train home? Or does Bill have something else in mind?  I guess I’ll just have to finish the book to find out.

Now the next part of the game requires me to pass it on to seven more writers, but I’m struggling to find friends who haven’t already played, so this is where I throw it over to you. Anyone out there like to join in? Come on, don’t be shy…

 The epainting's by Tom Tomos and very nice it is too.        

A Warm Welcome to Toni Sands

By way of a very refreshing change, I’m delighted to welcome as my guest this week fellow Carmarthen RNA member Toni Sands, an accomplished short story writer, whose debut e-novel Orchid Pink has recently been published by Xcite Books… oo-er! Here’s Toni sharing her thoughts about writing romantic fiction and why you don’t necessarily need to wear six-inch stilettos and black velvet to write erotica!

My mother regularly borrowed Mills and Boon romances from the library. For me, an inquisitive pre-teen, these books sparked an interest in love and relationships that still hooks me. But after my father found me engrossed in a sizzling story about a landlady and her lodger, I had to make do with the Chalet School books for a while.

My own writing progressed from boarding school tales to romance and gentle supernatural stories, some of which appeared in women’s magazines. Years later, at the first writers’ group I joined, the organiser told me he recognised a sensuous quality in my work. Editor Elizabeth Coldwell published my first stories then I met a well-known author at a library presentation and she recommended I pitch to Black Lace. I still recall jumping for joy when Xcite Books accepted my story Marie, Marie. Since then, Xcite has published much more of my work and Hazel Cushion and my two lovely editors are very supportive and great to work with.

One of last year’s highlights, apart from attending the Romantic Novelists’ Conference at Caerleon, was being asked to appear on a panel, hosted by the bubbly Jane Wenham-Jones, author and presenter. In her view, confided Jane to the audience, erotica writers looked just like librarians. Well, I have received the comment, ‘I’d never have thought it of you,’ when mentioning my erotic publications. But I confess to a slight attack of the vapours when I find myself semi-apologising for boldly going where others fear to tread. Do readers really believe crime authors go out to slit throats and throw dismembered corpses into bottomless pits in the cause of plotting a darkly murderous novel? I don’t think so. Yet, the mention of writing erotica brings a ‘naughty’ frisson especially when a member of the opposite sex is involved.

I don’t set out to shock. My characters dictate the pace and if the writing’s flowing, who am I to complain? I always like to create a happy ever after or at least the promise of one and it’s difficult for me to write anything unless it’s tinged with a smidgeon of humour.

Chris has kindly mentioned my debut e-novel and first historical romance, Orchid Pink, set in the late Victorian era. I’m chuffed that my other half has created a Facebook page for my heroine, Adelaide Beauchamp, who communicates from 1900. 

I’m also one of a team of Xcite authors commissioned to write for The Secret Library, a sumptuous new imprint. My story of Rebecca and sexy smuggler Jac is called Traded Innocence  also the title of a collection of three novellas, each by a different author, launching 16th April. I used material from my 2006 dissertation for this story set on the beautiful Gower Coast of Wales.

Currently I’m pitching a women’s contemporary novel and preparing to run some creative writing workshops. Next project is a gentle WW2 romance, aimed at the pocket novel market. What, not erotica, I hear you say? I think writing only erotic fiction would be rather like living on a diet of chocolate and mangoes!

Thank you, Chris, for inviting me to drop by. And thank you anyone who’s taken time to visit. Now I shall paint on another coat of scarlet lipstick, wrap myself in black velvet, smooth on silver lace fingerless gloves and teeter off in my six-inch stilletos to drink champagne. I wish! 

Mind how you go in those heels, Toni!  Thank you so much for being my guest here today.

There’s more about Toni on her website: www.tonisands.co.uk and you can follow her tweets on Twitter @tonisands

Everything Stops for Tea

Look at these beauties!  

When my daughters were little, I used to collect odds and ends of china. Some of it was given to me and some, like a pair of very beautiful ’thirties vegetable tureens, I had to save very hard for. Then life took a difficult turn and I had to part with some of my treasures and I lost heart in my collection. 

When Tom and I set up home, I was about to put what remained of my china safely in the back of a cupboard when Tom said, ‘why don’t we just use it?’

Use it?

Once I’d got over the shock, I realised what an utter joy it is to use beautiful things rather than look at them. Yes, sometimes they get broken, but at least they’ve had a life rather sitting unused where no one ever sees them.

It was for that reason, at the weekend, that MiL presented me with this incredibly pretty tea set that’s been stored in her loft for too long. There’s six of everything, except for a missing cup and, since I also have a bit of a tea fetish - especially when it’s accompanied by a slice of cake - they’re going to be well-used.

And as for everything stopping, well our car, The Biscuit Tin, is currently roaring like a Ferrari thanks to a broken exhaust so we’re off to Carmarthen at Crack of Doom tomorrow hoping that the very expensive and very rare (apparently) exhaust the garage has ordered actually does the job. Wish us luck!