Wednesday, March 04, 2009

The Changing Garden and Short Silences

There was a dramatic change in the weather, yesterday – after the last few calm days, a horrible windy day that flattened many of my crocuses. And the purple colour looked sad and dark, without the sun opening the petals and showing off the flowers to advantage. Still, there are daffodils waiting in the wings for their time to show off, and this morning has been brighter. I heard on the radio, yesterday, that rhododendrons can produce disease in oak trees; I have a whole bank of rhododendrons which is a feature of the garden in May. I should hate to have to remove them.


We went to Cambridge at the weekend to see the Son&H, and his harem, staying the night at the B&B we have been using for several years – Rose Corner. As her website says, you do get personal and friendly service; we much prefer it to the hotel where we stayed a couple of times.


Alas, when we got home, I found I had lost a contact lens, and have no idea at what point it disappeared. One of my eyes has almost normal vision, and that’s the lens that was lost. I ransacked a drawer to find an old one, and discovered at least two dozen empty lens cases and eventually just one lens. So I can see OK until my new one is ready.


GD1, now 10, is only a millimetre shorter than me, and GD3, 7, only 5 inches shorter than that. (millimetres – you work it out.) GD3 was pre-occupied with raising funds for an animal sanctuary – and all set to do a sponsored four lap run round the children’s playground. I produced the money for this effort, but she got interested in something else, when we were there, and only did one lap in the end. She also earned 25p for five minutes of silence. The prospect of making a pound for a longer period was tempting, but not tempting enough. I could see her brain was ticking away with money-making endeavours, though, and wouldn’t have been surprised to find that all the family belongings were set out on a stall at the front of the house for others to purchase.



I, in the meantime, have been working on a talk, which we Golden Girls were hoping to give at the Guildford Museum on Saturday, 3.45 p.m. for International Women’s Day. It’s entitled, ‘Women of Substance – Three women writers talk about their feisty female characters.’ There’s now some doubt about whether it will go ahead or not, so if you’re interested, contact the museum now. It was to be the first of a programme of events planned up till the summer, which we hope will bring us more attention and – of course – sales. We are also exhibiting our book covers at the museum. Do come along and see them, if you’re in the neighbourhood.


I received my three-monthly statement from Virtual Tales this week, showing further sales of my novella, Have Wine Will Travel, known in the UK as A Bottle of Plonk. If you’re not a Guildfordfordian, or in fact, if you live outside the UK, you can buy this as a print or e-version, easily and cheaply through Amazon.com.






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