Graduation Day!

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It doesn't seem two minutes since we were packing the car to take Lizzie to Warwick for the first time, but - unbelievably - today was graduation day!

Well done, lovely one. So proud of you.


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Hot - and a WOOHOO!

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I like the heat. True, it is nicer dry than muggy, but even hot and damp is better than cold and wet.

My poor cats, however, have been suffering a bit. Here they are in the perfect place to catch a draught.

It's also the perfect place to cause maximum awkwardness as we manoeuvre around them...

And in other news ... my brilliant daughter got a 2.1 in her Physics Finals from Warwick!!!!!
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Crashes and bangs

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Quick blog post today to remind myself to do it more regularly.

Lovely presentation yesterday at the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds on the famous Mr McCready's four-day visit to the theatre back in 1826. There were tiny scenes throughout capturing the goings on at the theatre (he was rather forthright on the subject of provincial acting, but didn't object to trousering the profits from the plays), and also a talk on special effects, Georgian style.

This is a reproduction wind machine - a beautiful thing made of wood and canvas. When I turned the handle it sounded rather like a sick banshee, but in the hands of a professional it produced everything from a gentle zephyr to a full-blown storm. There was also a thunder sheet. Interestingly, the term "stealing my thunder" came from an actor whose own tempestuous play folded, was replaced by Macbeth complete with storm scene, and the actor complained very loudly that the Scottish play had - quite literally - stolen his thunder.

And this is a star-trap for those beloved sudden appearances. Or occasionally not - they were famed for often being real star traps, with the actor being pinioned firmly around their middle!

Roses and Chocolate Ginger

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The 4th of June 2010 would have been my mother's 80th birthday. Five years ago she wasn't very well, so instead of us all going out, daughter and I took her up a proper birthday tea with scones, thin crustless sandwiches and chocolate birthday cake with candles (but not 75 of them!). It was a faff, but I'm so glad we made the effort because she really enjoyed it and it was the last one she had.

Since then, the 4th June has always been a bit of an odd day, but this year especially so, perhaps because it is so sunny and plain nice outside, which it isn't always at this time of year. Mind you, with the best will in the world, no one would ever have described my mother as anything but a glass-half-empty person, so it would probably have been too hot for her and she'd have had me scurrying around watering all the plants.

Still, she loved flowers and she dearly loved treats, so I bought these in Waitrose for her this morning. I would have got her favourite freesias, but her voice in my head (anyone else get that?) pointed out that the roses were 25% extra free and the orangey-yellow would look much nicer in my kitchen than pale purple. That was the other thing about Mum, she was incapable of resisting a bargain and she would always buy something for me or her grandchildren rather than herself.

In the spirit of which, I also bought her favourite chocolate gingers to nibble (2 bags for £4; I think she'd have approved) while I read the latest Medical Romance - her favourite reading matter - by my good friend Kate Hardy. (It's Neurosurgeon... and Mum and she'd definitely have loved it.)

So, Happy 80th Birthday. I hope it's just the right temperature for you up there.

Rosemary Coulson 4.6.1930-30.9.2005

An entire day later...

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And following on from the previous post, this is what 160 collated conference packs look like.


And an awfully long time after that, they've all been individually personalised as to when-people-have-booked-for ... and are in their envelopes.

Oh, I do still need to put the stamps on. Tomorrow, I think.
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RNA Conference Pack 2010

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Where have I been for the last couple of weeks? Writing a masterpiece?

Erm... yes, in a way...

Ta-dah! The component parts of the first 160 Romantic Novelists' Association Conference Packs 2010!

And from another angle, just to get the height of those piles.

I suppose I'd better collate them and put them in the envelopes now.
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Diet Bread

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"What's that?" I hear you all say, ears pricking up in anticipation. "Bread that you can actually eat on a diet instead of crossing the room to avoid?"

No, sadly. This is Georgian 'Diet Bread'. In those days, there wasn't the phrase 'to go on a diet' like there is today. It had a much wider meaning than simply to lose weight. This recipe incorporates fennel and sage in the dough to aid digestion and, er, movement. In other words, it was a bread that helped with your general diet.

The diet-bread rolls shown were made by Pat as the refreshments for last week's lecture. She has many historical recipe books and likes to treat us to something authentic each week. This time she spread half the rolls with butter (above) and the other half with potted cheese (below), giving a completely different taste. The potted cheese was made by mixing grated cheese, butter, mace, cinnamon and a dash of sherry, then pressing the mixture into a pot before spreading. A sort of upmarket Ploughman's to go with the subject of the talk - "The Inns, Taverns and Alehouses of Georgian Suffolk"!
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Simple Supper

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After wrestling with Summer Party timings and Conference timetables (they put up a heck of a fight, you know) all evening I fancied something simple and quick and nice to eat before doing some of my own work.

This is my staple Roast Pepper Medley, which I serve straight from the pot:

Mixed peppers, de-seeded and sliced (Why do recipes always say that? Does anyone ever not de-seed them first?)
Onions, sliced
Garlic, peeled and chunked
Cherry tomatoes, halved
Chestnut mushrooms, quartered
Splash of oil
Extra good shake of oregano

Mix all in an open casserole, put into hot oven of Aga for 40 minutes, stirring from time to time.
Then lift out and add chopped, cooked chicken. (Vegetarians: it's still good on its own)
Leave medley to rest in its own juices (and also because the peppers burn the roof of your mouth if you eat them straight out of the oven)
And that's it, no salt, no pepper, nothing.

If you have to share with someone else (are you there, daughter?), you also need to add pasta twirls. But it was just me tonight. Yum.

What are other people's favourites when it's late and they're hungry?
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Good Luck, Lizzie!

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Good luck to my lovely Lizzie who begins her Physics Finals with THREE (count 'em!) exams this Friday.

[*ranty Mum* How ridiculous is that? Three years of working towards a degree and they slam you with THREE exams on the same day???]
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At the Sign of the Pestle and Mortar

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I do love the local history talks at the Bury St Edmunds record office. Today's was about apothecaries, of which I knew not a lot until this morning.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, apothecaries occupied the middle ground in the medical hierarchy, below the physician who would diagnose and prescribe, but well above the surgeon. The thought was that anyone could chop a leg off, but it took someone really clever to stop the pain.

A late Stuart/ early Georgian apothecary would make up all the pills and draughts himself from his extensive stock of herbs, spices and opiates. His most valuable book would have been his Herbal (Pat had got out John Gerard's exquisite 1633 and 1636 Herbals for us to read and lust after), followed by his own recipe book for medicines and potions. Frequently these were a 'work-in-progress' with notes as to their efficaciousness. They would also be passed down from master to journeyman or father to son. Apprenticeship lasted seven years, after which you were free to start up on your own.

This print shows a standard apothecary shop interior with a giant pestle and mortar on the left, an alembic (or still) on the right, jars on the shelves and lovely graduated drawers for ingredients and ointments. The pestle&mortar was so useful it was the standard advertising device. The photo at the top shows where an original apothecary's shop stood in BStE - pestle&mortar still there above the door.

Apothecaries didn't only supply medicines, they were also much in demand as a source of food flavourings. Inventories show vast quantities of items such as caraway seeds that would make their potions palatable as well as having a medicinal effect. They also used plenty of sugar (various kinds) and, er, senna. One really weird ingredient was gold-leaf: to coat the pills of the better-off patients. (I can just see that catching on with the NHS)

Blood letting was a favourite remedy, and all apothecaries had a leech jar. One eminent BStE citizen apparently used to fish out a leech and clap it to his forehead whenever he had a headache!

All in all, good apothecaries with a fine client list had high social standing and were able to amass a reasonable degree of wealth. Both the apothecaries, Thomas Macro senior and junior, were members of the Corporation of Bury St Edmunds - a very prestigious position indeed.

One last photo: Pat always makes us authentic Georgian snacks to go with our tea. These are "jumballs" flavoured with cumin and caraway. Delicious. They are also quite, er, firm, so we were given permission to dunk!
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Distracted by the shiny

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So, the 50th Anniversary RNA Conference is at Greenwich this summer, and last week was full of meetings to Make It Work.

Like sorting out timetables (don't hold your breath). And accommodation. And food. And, er, Gala Dinner table decorations. (Look, these things are important.)


So this morning - aided by daughter who should have been revising for her finals - has been largely spent distracted by the shiny. There's something so gleeful about running beautiful sparkly sequins through your fingers...
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Show, not tell

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I've been busy this week editing my People's Friend serial, which is why I've not been blogging. There "wasn't a lot to do" said lovely editor Shirley, apart from "pick up the pace a bit" in the final part.

Pick up the pace.

Oh, God.

So off I hared to the phone and had a nice chat with her. It transpired she thought that while the final part (it's a four-part gentle mystery) obviously needed to include a lot of denouement and explanation, the last third felt a bit flat. Could I perhaps inject some action into it?

It is a sad fact of life that editors are rarely wrong, so I sat down and re-read the episode. And yes, she was right. Could I see how to fix it? Could I heck.

So I wrote down the sequence of the last third: Penny goes to the boat, Penny listens to one side of Leo's phone call, Penny sees the point at which Leo regains his memory, Penny listens to Leo telling her what happened, Penny and Leo solve the final mystery together.

Oops. All Penny's viewpoint. But if I rewrote the middle three segments from Leo's point of view it should suddenly become much more alive because the information is coming to the reader first-hand instead of second-hand.

This is the gist of the original (with some spoilers removed)
Penny saw memory hit Leo with almost physical force. His face drained of colour. “I’ve got a meeting. I’ll ring you back.” He turned off the phone, dropped it with a clatter and slumped forward, covering his face with his hands.

"You've remembered, haven't you?"

"I'd had a terrible night and was still going over what she’d said next day. I drove around a bend on a road that I must have travelled a thousand times before - the sun was low, it dazzled off the wet tarmac and I went off the road into a tree."

And this is the revised version
Why did he still have this gap around the time of his accident? They reached the bottom of the road, Penny started to make the turn and the sun glanced off the wing mirror straight into Leo’s eyes. A kaleidoscope of images rushed at him. A bend. A quiet suburb. The road slick with rain and the sun dazzling off it. The steering wheel jumping. The scream of tyres...

“Stop!” he yelled, covering his face with his hands. “Stop!”

The car braked to a halt. “Leo, what is it?” said Penny. “Are you ill?”

Leo opened his eyes. A child skipped down the pavement with her mother. Seagulls screeched overhead. “I’ve remembered,” he said.


And guess what? It works. Just as I've always known and had temporarily forgotten. And that is Show, not Tell.


PS: the photos are of the hellebores that I transplanted from my mother's shade-garden so I'd always have a permanent reminder of her. I could have told you that today (top photo) they are bushy and thriving and twice the size they were two years ago... or I could show you (bottom photo). I know which works best for me.

Spring!

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Well, it's taken a while, but it's finally here. Just as British Summer Time kicks in.

2010 RNA Awards Lunch

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Last week was the Romantic Novelists' Association Pure Passion Awards Lunch. Every previous year I have arrived early and scurried around putting out place names or tying balloons on books or doing anything else I was asked to in order to get the room ready.

This year was different. Yes, I arrived early - but then was ushered into the Author's Room and given tea and hugged the other shortlisted authors and had my photo taken. [Shortlisted Love Story of the Year authors shown with lovely chairman, Katie Fforde] It was all a bit surreal, really. At any moment I was expecting someone to draw me apologetically to one side and tell me there had been a mistake and I wasn't supposed to be there after all.

Once all the photos had been taken and we had caught up with one another, we were released into the wild - sorry, the anteroom - for a glass of champagne and even more catching up with masses of pals. The Royal Garden Hotel was jammed! Amazingly, my editor managed to find me (they are such a clever breed) and we moved into the gorgeously decorated main room for lunch.

Fair Deception didn't win - that accolade went to Nell Dixon's deserving Animal Instincts, published by Little Black Dress - but it was such a wonderful day the awards seemed the least of it. And one of the very best bits was this dessert: 'Pure Chocolate Passion'. created especially for the 50th Anniversary.
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Procrastinating, moi?

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I have a novel, a revision, a serial, three short stories and a raft of critiques to get on with. I have a To Do list rather longer than my arm. I desperately need to decide whether to wear sensible apricot or swirly scarlet to the Pure Passion Awards Lunch (I have mentioned Fair Deception is shortlisted for Love Story of the Year, have I?).

So I thought I'd ignore all of them and go to a nice soothing lecture on "Historical Bury St Edmunds through Paintings and Prints" instead.

These photos are of the remains of the old Precinct Wall in Bury St Edmunds. Look at the thickness of it! I just love the way all the buildings butt onto it and have grown around it.

The past in the present.
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