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 USAmazon 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

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