We’re breaking records here in Chesham.
December 2010 saw the mercury famously drop to minus 17 (I think it made the One Show), and last night we plumbed the depths to minus 11. It’s something to do with the microclimate that our dear little Chiltern valley creates: sheltered and protected from the wind, temperatures plummet in certain wintry conditions.
This is bad news for the commuter community. The poor old Metropolitan line from Chesham creaks along at the best of times but during a cold snap, it positively cries for help. The trepidation when I leave the house to set off on my epic journey to work in London is tangible. Will I or won’t I make it?
Apart from falling on my btm in treacherous ice outside the station last year (resulting in a bruise the size of a dinner plate), these snowy mornings don’t bode well if you have any self respect or fashion sense. My friends and colleagues arrive at work in neat little coats and ankle boots, having made their way via the toasty Tube or more reliable/convivial train services. I, meanwhile, have left my home attired in layer upon layer as advised and shivered for an hour on an un-heated Met line train to arrive eventually: ruddy cheeked and dressed like a yeti.
Saturday, 4 February 2012
Tuesday, 31 January 2012
I'm back in the room...
And I can’t believe it’s been so long. For those of you who’ve missed me while I retreated into my hermit’s cave, from now on I will try not to be such a lazy blogger.
I’m here to tell you that, despite a rather prolonged radio silence, it’s all been happening behind the scenes.
The good news is I that have a new two-book deal with Allison & Busby (small publisher of big books is their pleasing tagline), which means my second novel The September Garden will at last see the light of day. Publishing date will be this summer (I will of course let you know the exact time and place as soon as I do!).
My retreat from the world of blogging gave me the time to nurture The September Garden (spending a week in blissful Cornwall - read about this in my blog Return to the Honey Pot), reworking the story and bringing it back to life. The result is a novel set in London during the Blitz, in Occupied France and amid the rolling Chiltern hills of Buckinghamshire. It is the story
of two cousins who, as squabbling rivals, are thrown together by the outbreak of war. And they fall for the same man, with devastating consequences. As I like to say, if you love romantic,
war-time fiction, you have come to the right place.
I am just finishing off the copy editor’s corrections now and this exercise highlighted quite acutely to me my inability to translate English into French properly. As you can guess, it has been a while since I took my French O Level. And the fact it was an O Level gives the game away just that little bit more…
I’m here to tell you that, despite a rather prolonged radio silence, it’s all been happening behind the scenes.
The good news is I that have a new two-book deal with Allison & Busby (small publisher of big books is their pleasing tagline), which means my second novel The September Garden will at last see the light of day. Publishing date will be this summer (I will of course let you know the exact time and place as soon as I do!).
My retreat from the world of blogging gave me the time to nurture The September Garden (spending a week in blissful Cornwall - read about this in my blog Return to the Honey Pot), reworking the story and bringing it back to life. The result is a novel set in London during the Blitz, in Occupied France and amid the rolling Chiltern hills of Buckinghamshire. It is the story
of two cousins who, as squabbling rivals, are thrown together by the outbreak of war. And they fall for the same man, with devastating consequences. As I like to say, if you love romantic,
war-time fiction, you have come to the right place.
I am just finishing off the copy editor’s corrections now and this exercise highlighted quite acutely to me my inability to translate English into French properly. As you can guess, it has been a while since I took my French O Level. And the fact it was an O Level gives the game away just that little bit more…
Wednesday, 16 June 2010
Return to the honey pot
Childhood holidays are always rose-tinted or, in my case sea-blue-tinted, with a touch of golden sand, sweet green pastures and woolly white lambs.
The Cornish farm and seaside holiday is a classic, and it had been mine all the years of my childhood. I will never forget the unconstrained thrill at the first sight of the sea – that surreal blue triangle between a dip in the land. And this was always after a long journey in the back of the car with two older siblings in pre-seatbelt times on the trunk roads of the early 1970s. In those days, we had to leave the London suburbs at two in the morning to get anywhere fast.
Decades later, I was desperate to go back. Cornwall has always been my promised land. But I wasn’t kidding myself. I knew it would be different this time round: they have theme parks and holiday parks and proper by-passes now. But in need of peace, quiet and time to contemplate, I booked myself into a little cottage near Polperro to see if past memories could still cast their spell.
I felt delighted as I drove over from Devon on the Tamar bridge but then had a moment of doubt. Cornwall was all grown up and, contrary to my dream, seemed at first glance to be no different to any other place.
But this feeling didn’t last too long.
Meticulously following the step-by-step directions, I turned off the A road, turned off the B road and immediately found myself in another world entirely. I journeyed along a tiny unclassified lane, trundling between high hedges from which birds darted quite recklessly in front of me. Every now and then I’d catch glimpses of sublime views through farm gates, driving like a nun out of courtesy to the pure beauty of my surroundings. The air grew sweeter, bird song louder, the 21st century receding with every yard I travelled. The lane narrowed, winding tighter, as if it had been laid out for the little people. I found myself deeper and deeper within a secret wooded valley. Trees embraced the lane, meeting overhead; thick moss, ferns and ivy clothed the dry stone walls that reared up either side, threatening to scrape the paintwork. Yet on I went, plunging through the green darkness of an ancient verdent tunnel.
And then I burst back out into sunlight. I stopped at the crossroads; a tiny settlement of granite-built cottages perched on the valley side. I was looking at a scene that had not changed for centuries. And around the corner, my destination: Old Lanwarnick, a Domesday Book-listed farmhouse and its cluster of converted cottages and barns.
I pulled up outside my cottage, named the Honey Pot, by a patch of wild pink foxgloves and switched off the engine. The first thing I heard, apart from the silence of deep countryside settling down like a comforting quilt, was the gentle buzzing of the bees. Life will be sweet in the honey pot.
The Cornish farm and seaside holiday is a classic, and it had been mine all the years of my childhood. I will never forget the unconstrained thrill at the first sight of the sea – that surreal blue triangle between a dip in the land. And this was always after a long journey in the back of the car with two older siblings in pre-seatbelt times on the trunk roads of the early 1970s. In those days, we had to leave the London suburbs at two in the morning to get anywhere fast.
Decades later, I was desperate to go back. Cornwall has always been my promised land. But I wasn’t kidding myself. I knew it would be different this time round: they have theme parks and holiday parks and proper by-passes now. But in need of peace, quiet and time to contemplate, I booked myself into a little cottage near Polperro to see if past memories could still cast their spell.
I felt delighted as I drove over from Devon on the Tamar bridge but then had a moment of doubt. Cornwall was all grown up and, contrary to my dream, seemed at first glance to be no different to any other place.
But this feeling didn’t last too long.
Meticulously following the step-by-step directions, I turned off the A road, turned off the B road and immediately found myself in another world entirely. I journeyed along a tiny unclassified lane, trundling between high hedges from which birds darted quite recklessly in front of me. Every now and then I’d catch glimpses of sublime views through farm gates, driving like a nun out of courtesy to the pure beauty of my surroundings. The air grew sweeter, bird song louder, the 21st century receding with every yard I travelled. The lane narrowed, winding tighter, as if it had been laid out for the little people. I found myself deeper and deeper within a secret wooded valley. Trees embraced the lane, meeting overhead; thick moss, ferns and ivy clothed the dry stone walls that reared up either side, threatening to scrape the paintwork. Yet on I went, plunging through the green darkness of an ancient verdent tunnel.
And then I burst back out into sunlight. I stopped at the crossroads; a tiny settlement of granite-built cottages perched on the valley side. I was looking at a scene that had not changed for centuries. And around the corner, my destination: Old Lanwarnick, a Domesday Book-listed farmhouse and its cluster of converted cottages and barns.
I pulled up outside my cottage, named the Honey Pot, by a patch of wild pink foxgloves and switched off the engine. The first thing I heard, apart from the silence of deep countryside settling down like a comforting quilt, was the gentle buzzing of the bees. Life will be sweet in the honey pot.
Tuesday, 5 January 2010
Love letter to the city of Sydney
Dear Sydney,
How do I love you? Let me count the ways:
1. Inside your magnificent harbour, your sheltered beaches are shaded by gum trees and shallow waves lick gently at soft sand. Boats bob and set sail in the calm waters of inlets and bays, while ferries chug languidly from point to point.
2. Outside your magnificent harbour, along the rocky Pacific coast, your beaches are crashed by ferocious breakers and surfers float on their boards and wait, wait, long into the sunset for that last, longed-for exhilerating rip curl.
3. Your terraced houses of Paddington and Darlinghurst, with their pretty ironwork balconies, are cute, compact and very desirable. Palm and jacaranda trees line the narrow cobbled streets and trumpet-shaped peachy flowers drop onto pavements.
4. Your Federation houses of Randwick and Clovelly resemble Edwardian villas, slumbering in sleepy suburbs amid parakeet-song, the symphony of cicadas, and the splash of a thousand swimming pools.
5. Your Opera House and Bridge are icons to the world. Back-lit by fireworks exploding with Aussie confidence and optimism on New Year’s Eve, the spectacle brings smiles of wonder all round and tears to my eyes.
6. Your outdoor cinema in Centennial Park forces the film to become the side show. Lying on my bean bag as the sun goes down I watch beyond the screen as the dusky air turns pink and your orange city lights wink to the horizon. Huge fruit bats, black against the sky, flap silently overhead on the balmy evening breeze, becoming temporary citizens as they roost for the night.
7. Your Centennial Park in the dark, where a walk home is scented by fresh, astringent ever-present eucalyptus, the warm air alive with night creatures, their rhythmic chirping and mysterious rustling; and the ponds resounding to the piping, primeval frog chorus.
8. But there’s just one thing… the heat and violence of your sun is like a demon on my shoulder, difficult to cope with and likely to cause an argument. Factor 50 ruins my clothes and makes my face shiny. However, all is forgiven when in the late afternoon, your sun mellows and sinks a degree. Your light turns golden, slants through the leaves and sparkles seductively on the water.
9. Cafes, Cab Sav, markets, parkland, sailing, coastal walks, shops, sushi, swimming, wildlife, bars, Bondi!
Sydney, will our long-distant relationship ever last? No worries!
Love from Catherine
How do I love you? Let me count the ways:
1. Inside your magnificent harbour, your sheltered beaches are shaded by gum trees and shallow waves lick gently at soft sand. Boats bob and set sail in the calm waters of inlets and bays, while ferries chug languidly from point to point.
2. Outside your magnificent harbour, along the rocky Pacific coast, your beaches are crashed by ferocious breakers and surfers float on their boards and wait, wait, long into the sunset for that last, longed-for exhilerating rip curl.
3. Your terraced houses of Paddington and Darlinghurst, with their pretty ironwork balconies, are cute, compact and very desirable. Palm and jacaranda trees line the narrow cobbled streets and trumpet-shaped peachy flowers drop onto pavements.
4. Your Federation houses of Randwick and Clovelly resemble Edwardian villas, slumbering in sleepy suburbs amid parakeet-song, the symphony of cicadas, and the splash of a thousand swimming pools.
5. Your Opera House and Bridge are icons to the world. Back-lit by fireworks exploding with Aussie confidence and optimism on New Year’s Eve, the spectacle brings smiles of wonder all round and tears to my eyes.
6. Your outdoor cinema in Centennial Park forces the film to become the side show. Lying on my bean bag as the sun goes down I watch beyond the screen as the dusky air turns pink and your orange city lights wink to the horizon. Huge fruit bats, black against the sky, flap silently overhead on the balmy evening breeze, becoming temporary citizens as they roost for the night.
7. Your Centennial Park in the dark, where a walk home is scented by fresh, astringent ever-present eucalyptus, the warm air alive with night creatures, their rhythmic chirping and mysterious rustling; and the ponds resounding to the piping, primeval frog chorus.
8. But there’s just one thing… the heat and violence of your sun is like a demon on my shoulder, difficult to cope with and likely to cause an argument. Factor 50 ruins my clothes and makes my face shiny. However, all is forgiven when in the late afternoon, your sun mellows and sinks a degree. Your light turns golden, slants through the leaves and sparkles seductively on the water.
9. Cafes, Cab Sav, markets, parkland, sailing, coastal walks, shops, sushi, swimming, wildlife, bars, Bondi!
Sydney, will our long-distant relationship ever last? No worries!
Love from Catherine
Saturday, 26 December 2009
Letter from Australia 1
Pressing my nose to the window, I took a breath. I was here - transported half a world away from home by a humongous blimp-like Qantas AirBus. I was circling over the brightest city in the southern hemisphere. Night-time Sydney lay below me, sparkling in the darkness of the vast outback like the Promised Land. And I swore I could see Christmas lights blinking in the suburbs.
Day One found Rose and I walking the coastal path past sublime beaches with names such as Bronte and Clovelly, plucked straight from the Old World, interspersed with native Coogee and Tamarama. We didn't wear sunhats because we didn't want hat-hair. Big mistake. In between trying to spot which one was Heath Ledger's house on the cliffs above Bronte beach to insisting on going as far as the headland so we could gaze at Bondi in all its white-wave, white-sand sweeping bonanza, we spent far too long in the sun. Mad dogs and English women? Later, swimming in the sheltered seaweed-streamed lagoon-like waters of Clovelly I was clobbered again by the Sydney sun and paid for it with a day in bed with heatstroke. Heatstroke? But Santa Claus was coming to town!
Christmas Eve found me in better shape, and a trip to the suburb of Matraville where houses in a Ramsay-esque Street compete to Olympic levels to display the flashiest, trashiest of festive lights, from roofline to garden gate. And, streuth, does it draw the crowds. Some families settle for a cruise-by to stare at the spectacle; others stroll amid the chattering, good-spirited mayhem of excited rug rats and indulgent parents in shorts, thongs and t-shirts. How incongruous it felt as tropical winds ripped at the jacaranda trees in the humid dusk, threatening to uproot a big-blow-up Santa emerging from inside a big-blow-up chimney anchored to someone's lawn. It was a fairyland of tackiness where silver reindeer and fake snowmen were there to prompt us - if indeed we had forgotten: Do We Know It's Christmas Time At All?
Christmas morning roused me with chirping cicadas sounding like rice shaken in a cup, and the on-off shriek of a parakeet dawn chorus under balmy skies. I remembered the years I woke as a child in a cold, dark bedroom with brother or sister or even the cat at the foot of the bed but never a wily cockroach zipping about across the floorboards. I was half a world away.
And I remembered my flight in. It must have been the gaudy lights of Matraville I'd seen from the plane, like a great landing strip. It must be impossible for Santa to take a wrong turn Down Under.
Day One found Rose and I walking the coastal path past sublime beaches with names such as Bronte and Clovelly, plucked straight from the Old World, interspersed with native Coogee and Tamarama. We didn't wear sunhats because we didn't want hat-hair. Big mistake. In between trying to spot which one was Heath Ledger's house on the cliffs above Bronte beach to insisting on going as far as the headland so we could gaze at Bondi in all its white-wave, white-sand sweeping bonanza, we spent far too long in the sun. Mad dogs and English women? Later, swimming in the sheltered seaweed-streamed lagoon-like waters of Clovelly I was clobbered again by the Sydney sun and paid for it with a day in bed with heatstroke. Heatstroke? But Santa Claus was coming to town!
Christmas Eve found me in better shape, and a trip to the suburb of Matraville where houses in a Ramsay-esque Street compete to Olympic levels to display the flashiest, trashiest of festive lights, from roofline to garden gate. And, streuth, does it draw the crowds. Some families settle for a cruise-by to stare at the spectacle; others stroll amid the chattering, good-spirited mayhem of excited rug rats and indulgent parents in shorts, thongs and t-shirts. How incongruous it felt as tropical winds ripped at the jacaranda trees in the humid dusk, threatening to uproot a big-blow-up Santa emerging from inside a big-blow-up chimney anchored to someone's lawn. It was a fairyland of tackiness where silver reindeer and fake snowmen were there to prompt us - if indeed we had forgotten: Do We Know It's Christmas Time At All?
Christmas morning roused me with chirping cicadas sounding like rice shaken in a cup, and the on-off shriek of a parakeet dawn chorus under balmy skies. I remembered the years I woke as a child in a cold, dark bedroom with brother or sister or even the cat at the foot of the bed but never a wily cockroach zipping about across the floorboards. I was half a world away.
And I remembered my flight in. It must have been the gaudy lights of Matraville I'd seen from the plane, like a great landing strip. It must be impossible for Santa to take a wrong turn Down Under.
Saturday, 18 July 2009
Some nice things happened on the way to the Forum
Someone told me: the first thing you do when you get to Naples… is leave. A bit harsh, I thought. Yes, it’s as hot as hell there in June: smelly, dirty and the traffic is awful [the advice being: just walk with confidence across the road, and they won’t run you down].
Yes, I agree, it’s all a bit of a shock to the senses. But once I was sat in the shade, up a narrow side street in the old town, eating the most divine pasta outside a non-assuming little restaurant, the bad side of this enigmatic city drifted away. And I relaxed then, as soon as I looked up the Italian for: Can I have the bill please?
What a chattering, noisy, moped-menaced labyrinth Naples is. An intriguing, maze-like medley of streets unravelled before us: ancient, crumbling walls, balcony upon balcony above tight alleyways that revealed hidden bars and cake shops: the best coffee, the best pasta. And there was always time for ice cream.
We took a boat across the huge sweeping bay towards Sorrento, around the rocky and ruggedly beautiful Amalfi coast, watched, as always, by sleeping Vesuvius presiding grumpily over the entire populace. We headed up the giddy heights of Capri where the scent of flowers reached us on warm, silent air and we stared down vertigo-provoking cliffs, far above the azure waves, way above the circling seagulls.
And, next, to Pompeii, which was miraculously devoid of hoards of tourists. We were lucky: it was almost as if we had the place to ourselves. We walked the hushed, eerie streets, and unearthed the way of life of these ancient, ordinary, obliterated people: their order, their law, their desire for bathing, shopping, marketing, theatre and living the high life. They had shops for olive oil, shops for wine. They even had a – very well organised, I must say – brothel. Yes, the Pompeiians had needs, too.
Yes, I agree, it’s all a bit of a shock to the senses. But once I was sat in the shade, up a narrow side street in the old town, eating the most divine pasta outside a non-assuming little restaurant, the bad side of this enigmatic city drifted away. And I relaxed then, as soon as I looked up the Italian for: Can I have the bill please?
What a chattering, noisy, moped-menaced labyrinth Naples is. An intriguing, maze-like medley of streets unravelled before us: ancient, crumbling walls, balcony upon balcony above tight alleyways that revealed hidden bars and cake shops: the best coffee, the best pasta. And there was always time for ice cream.
We took a boat across the huge sweeping bay towards Sorrento, around the rocky and ruggedly beautiful Amalfi coast, watched, as always, by sleeping Vesuvius presiding grumpily over the entire populace. We headed up the giddy heights of Capri where the scent of flowers reached us on warm, silent air and we stared down vertigo-provoking cliffs, far above the azure waves, way above the circling seagulls.
And, next, to Pompeii, which was miraculously devoid of hoards of tourists. We were lucky: it was almost as if we had the place to ourselves. We walked the hushed, eerie streets, and unearthed the way of life of these ancient, ordinary, obliterated people: their order, their law, their desire for bathing, shopping, marketing, theatre and living the high life. They had shops for olive oil, shops for wine. They even had a – very well organised, I must say – brothel. Yes, the Pompeiians had needs, too.
Wednesday, 27 May 2009
The lazy blog - it's the 8 Things thing
8 Things I Like
Talking bunnies, cats and baby birds with Amy and Charlotte.
Ritter Sport chocolate. Scrub that, all chocolate.
Cycling through the Chess valley – sublimely beautiful – even when a fly goes up my nose.
Curry with Jane, Terry and Kane.
Planting my garden.
Sharing wine with friends and family.
Coming home.
Waking up from a good deep sleep with Noodle next to me.
8 Things I Did Yesterday
Went for my twice weekly session with my shrink. Hey, analyse that.
Went to local hardware store – love the smell – for drain cleaner.
Bought some fresh crusty bread from the bakers. Yes, really - I know it sounds like Miss Marple.
Phoned the cycle shop about a much-needed new tyres for my bike.
Ate some strawberries.
Popped into DIY store to browse for garden benches, and found a good offer on some box plants.
Wrote 1,500 words of novel number two, Tides of the Moon. We're getting there.
Shooed the neighbour’s cat out of my house - twice.
8 Things I Wish I Could Do
Sing (and I think everyone else wishes I could do this too).
Concentrate.
Stop worrying.
Run further.
Not be quite so addicted to Earl Grey.
Not have to have the house spotlessly clean before I can start writing.
Impressions.
Know a little bit more about computers.
8 Things I Don’t Like
Losing my mojo.
People treading on the back of my flip-flops while I’m walking – how close do they want to get?
Bad service in restaurants and pubs.
Smelly commuters.
Big hairy spiders.
Running out of tea.
Not getting any post.
Jumpers slung casually around shoulders.
Talking bunnies, cats and baby birds with Amy and Charlotte.
Ritter Sport chocolate. Scrub that, all chocolate.
Cycling through the Chess valley – sublimely beautiful – even when a fly goes up my nose.
Curry with Jane, Terry and Kane.
Planting my garden.
Sharing wine with friends and family.
Coming home.
Waking up from a good deep sleep with Noodle next to me.
8 Things I Did Yesterday
Went for my twice weekly session with my shrink. Hey, analyse that.
Went to local hardware store – love the smell – for drain cleaner.
Bought some fresh crusty bread from the bakers. Yes, really - I know it sounds like Miss Marple.
Phoned the cycle shop about a much-needed new tyres for my bike.
Ate some strawberries.
Popped into DIY store to browse for garden benches, and found a good offer on some box plants.
Wrote 1,500 words of novel number two, Tides of the Moon. We're getting there.
Shooed the neighbour’s cat out of my house - twice.
8 Things I Wish I Could Do
Sing (and I think everyone else wishes I could do this too).
Concentrate.
Stop worrying.
Run further.
Not be quite so addicted to Earl Grey.
Not have to have the house spotlessly clean before I can start writing.
Impressions.
Know a little bit more about computers.
8 Things I Don’t Like
Losing my mojo.
People treading on the back of my flip-flops while I’m walking – how close do they want to get?
Bad service in restaurants and pubs.
Smelly commuters.
Big hairy spiders.
Running out of tea.
Not getting any post.
Jumpers slung casually around shoulders.
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