A lot about Wales, Margaret Oliphant’s tales of the unseen, Jack London and the Abyss…
White Castle, Gwent, Wales
Yesterday I finished the latest Dan Foster’s World, which is a series of articles about the historical background to the Dan Foster Mysteries. This one was for The Contraband Killings and is about travel and travellers in eighteenth-century Wales. It was quite an adventure back then, what with terrifying mountain roads where a rock fall might dash you into the sea, and perilous ferry crossings. (Dan Foster’s World: A Journey to Eighteenth Century Anglesey is on my website https://lucienneboyce.com/book/the-contraband-killings/)
I finished reading Magaret Oliphant’s A Beleaguered City and Other Tales of the Seen and Unseen, which are absolutely brilliant – weird, unsettling, unpredictable. Then I read the introduction by Jenni Calder (in the Canongate Classics edition), which was very interesting, but I disagreed that The Land of Darkness isn’t as good as the others. In fact, I thought it was the best one. It reminded me of William Hope Hodgson’s wonderful 1912 novel The Night Land (Hodgson is one of my favourite writers – I particularly love the Carnacki stories), in that it is a perilous and confusing journey through an alien, menacing, baffling landscape, though the premises of the novels are very different.
I’d read several Oliphant stories many years ago, and very much enjoyed them, and I’ve just bought her autobiography. The blurb of the Broadview edition, which has restored passages cut by her relatives, tells me Oliphant was a woman of “scathing irony, anger and grief”. This I have to read.
While walking home from the shops this morning, I stopped to chat with the “pond on the wall” woman. The pond on the wall is a couple of bowls – one an old washing up bowl, the other a fish tank – which contain miniature ponds. At the moment they are full of tadpoles. The woman had come out of her house to clean out the bowls. She told me they came from her bigger pond in the back garden, where they have newts as well as frogs. Our pond only has newts; no frogs have appeared. She asked me what I thought tadpoles ate: I guessed insects, or weeds. Apparently they like cucumber.
It’s a lovely idea to put these little ponds on the low wall where people can stop and look at them. And the sun was coming out and it was feeling warm, so I had a pleasant walk.
Later, though, it turned cold and rained. There was even a rumbling or two of thunder. And, weaving in and out of the grey clouds, I saw my first swift of the summer.
I baked a cherry cake for tomorrow’s picnic.
But I did manage to do a bit on the novel too.
Tuesday 7 May
I got up early and worked on the novel before breakfast. After breakfast Gerard made sandwiches and coffee, and sliced cake, and we set off to look at the Three Castles in Gwent – Grosmont, Skenfrith and White Castle, built by the Normans.
Grosmont Castle
It was a very hot day, Gwent was beautiful, and the castles fantastic. Grosmont Castle is in the middle of a pretty village, and opposite a lovely church. We called in the post office which advertised guide books for sale, but they had run out. We had our lunch at the castle, sitting under an oak tree, looking at wonderful views of hills and woods, and here and there old grey roofs of the village.
Skenfrith lies next to the River Monnow and was full of martins, and White Castle has a wonderful moat.
We stopped in Abergavenny in the hope of getting a cup of tea on the way home, as I remembered going to a nice café at St Mary’s Priory ages ago. Unfortunately the café was closed. I don’t know if it’s a permanent closure.
Wednesday 8 May
Nik the Wild Gardener came and put in some new plants. I did some Women’s History Network stuff for the Conference, then worked on the Biography.
I’ve been reading Jack London’s People of the Abyss: it’s very powerful, especially the photographs. I look at them and wonder what became of those bleak-faced men, women and children, of each one of them, each with their own story.
Thursday 9 May
Who are Book Excellence? I’ve been bombarded with emails from them selling their book marketing services for longer than I care to remember. I’ve unsubscribed (not that I ever remember subscribing in the first place) and I’ve blocked them but still their emails turn up in my spam folder every few days. They tick many warning boxes (eg high entry fee, emails soliciting entry), get a mention in a 2019 post on the Writer Beware website, and they are marked as ones to approach with caution by the Alliance of Independent Authors watchdog. What’s more, I don’t want their marketing services. And still their bloody emails keep coming.
Anyway today I continued working on my award-winning biography happy in the knowledge that I can enter it for the Book Excellence Award whenever I’m ready. If I win I can then buy stickers to put on my books, and medals, certificates, a lovely medal presentation box, a book review, and more.
Friday 10 May
Up early again to work on the novel, than worked on the Biography and the suffragette interviews. This afternoon I went to another Pilates reformer session. It was very good, quite intense even at my humble level.
Saturday 11 May
The starlings arrived mob-handed in the garden, bringing their grey, fluffy young with them, making a screeching racket and scrapping around the feeders. Yesterday we saw a baby blue tit. Gerard had seen one the day before, so it seems at least two have fledged from the nest box.