May in the Greek Mani

May began as a chilly month with occasional beautiful spring weather. The wild flowers here are stunning throughout this season. Rain has made them endure and today as the month closes they remain vivid. I spend my summers in the southern Peloponnese, in a rented house situated between Neohori and Agios Nicholas. Stoupa lies below me and Kardamyli is just fifteen minutes along the coast.

wild flowers near me

My husband journeys back and forward from England as we own a solid surface company www.counterproduction.co.uk. We employ fifty craftsmen, fitters and office staff. Our more interesting projects have included kitchen work in Kensington Palace, Windsor Castle and Heathrow airports. It is a twenty plus year old successful and progressing bespoke company.

On my way here in April I visited The Milan Design Fair

However, I am a writer and that for me is more important than anything, well, apart from family. Whilst Patrick is back in England I have my author friends out to our Mani rented property and then we treat it as a writing retreat. The first week of this May saw visits from Jenny Barden, writer, Charlotte Betts ,writer and Barbara Alderton, writer, otherwise known as our own Busy Bee. This summer we took trips to the caves at Diros and to Monemvasia, a medieval citadel situated on the third finger of the Peleponese and which dramatically overlooks the sea.

with Charlotte, Busy Bee and Jenny above Limoni

 We did write too, honest we did. Jenny is organizing the RNA Conference in July at which I shall be presenting a course session on fictionalizing selected stories of medieval women. Jenny is also involved in planning The Historical Novels Conference in September, which sadly I am going to miss this year. She is writing her third novel set in Elizabethan England, a story about the Spanish Armada. Charlotte is editing her fourth novel The Chateau by the Lake, a brilliant story set during The French Revolution. She won the RNA historical novel award in the RNA's Romantic Novel of the Year Awards in 2013 for The Apothecary's Daughter. Barbara has been spending her time sending out her slip novel (set in 21st C and in the 17thC) out to agents. To our delight several selected agents want to read her complete manuscript. I , of course, am currently writing The Betrothed Sister, third in The Daughters of Hastings Trilogy.

Momenvasio

There have been other visitors this month. I entertained an old school friend mid-month and, although the weather was poor, we went on a trip to Olympia. It was a superb day and I recommend this trip. None the less, a visit to Messini with last week's visitors, Gail and Sally, was best of all the trips this May. The site is an archaeological project in progress. It is fabulous. If you ever come to this part of Greece do not miss it.

Messini

The weather is better now, hot too, so visits to mountain villages near me are enhanced by lemon drinks in antique cafes. We ploughed through the long grass outside Hora to visit Bruce Chatwin's grave. For us it was a small pilgrimage to a secret tucked away peaceful place that discreetly lies by a tiny, now unused, Orthodox Church overlooking the coast.

Fun on Friday night at Greg's Plateria

This week, the final week of May is very special and deserving of celebration. I now have dates for the Swan-Daughter's publication. It will be published first an e book on 18th September and placed in bookshops as a paperback in December, just in time for Christmas! It remains for me to say that I hope that your summer is beginning too. Love to all my readers. Carol.

April 2014

The first week of April involved traveling. I rent a house in Greece for the summer months near Kardamyli and Stoupa in the Greek Mani. The area is inspirational. It is also my personal writing retreat situated close to where the famous travel writer Paddy Leigh Fermor had his beautiful home. This house features in the movie Before Midnight. My rented house may not be as beautiful as Paddy Leigh's home, but, of course, I love escaping to this over-grown stone cottage with its three bedrooms and huge open plan downstairs. Writing friends visit during the summer so I am not lonely; nor am I isolated. People here are friendly.

local beach in May 2013

 Last week I settled in. It was unseasonably cold, akin to Donegal in Ireland. We have had lots of rain this April and at night we ( my husband, Patrick and I) have the perfect excuse to light log fires. I think that, since April is drawing to a close, there may be hope on the horizon for an improvement in the weather. May is a month of sunshine, showers and during May wild flowers are at their most beautiful. This is the preferred month for walkers and, as a consequence, many foreign visitors come to walk the coastal paths, and, indeed, through the mountain villages and the deep-valleys of the close-by Taygetis mountains.

A Church medieval decoration from one of The Mystras Churches

I am currently writing a blog for a blog tour about my work in progress. My article will be up on www.scribbling-in the margins.blogspot.co.uk.  on Monday 28th April. This particular post concerns my new novel,The Swan-Daughter, which has just entered the final stage of editing. The overall thrust of the post is 'how' I have written this novel.

We have SONOS music system which wirelessly connects to radio worldwide and gives access to unlimited music streaming. I really enjoy listening to the radio. As I type today, I am listening to Radio 4. We may be two hours forward but it is always interesting to keep in touch with English stations. We also love watching films. My current DVD series of choice is The Game of Thrones. Nothing like a fire if cold, a glass of wine and escapism into that peculiar but well defined other world. I leave you all this evening for the final episodes of DVD series 2 of this story, wishing you all a Happy Easter Monday. Tomorrow, with a chill and stormy Easter holiday behind me, I shall be back to work on chapter 4 of the third novel in The Daughters of Hastings, The Betrothed Sister.

March 2014

We are half way through March, almost. So far, I have had a busy month researching medieval Kiev in The Slavonic Studies Department in Oxford. I was fortunate enough to be able to read The Russian Primary Chronicle which is the best primary source relevant to this period. I have tweeted about it, enthused about this subject on facebook and dutifully and enthusiastically compiled a veritable feast of notes. I keep all of these in notebooks which I label carefully.



Medieval Kiev









It has been very wet here in the South Midlands but none the less I have taken Oscar the brown lab for many walks. He actually is my daughter's dog. The best time is early morning when the hedgerows are filled with bird song and the trackways are peaceful, if muddy. It is great thinking and planning time for me. This walk clears my mind and renews me. Oxfordshire is a beautiful county with many echoes of the past.

The Picture used for The cover of The Swan-Daughter purchased by Accent Press

My publishers have sent me covers for my next two publications. The Swan-Daughter will be as shown on My Books page. The Betrothed Sister is beautiful but as yet must remain a secret.


Finally mid-month I have been to The Viking Exhibition at The British Museum. It is wonderful and without doubt the best exhibition I have seen there to date. You can see pictures on my Daughters of Hastings Facebook page and an article on my blog
 www.scribbling-inthemargins.blogspot.com.

The link is on My Blogs Page. Do take a peep.



Monday 17th March was the RoNA date of decision. We discovered which of the shortlisted six best historical stories listed won the historical category. All the novels there are well-written and all are worthy. But the winner was Christina Courtney with The Gilded Fan. The overall winner was A Night on the Orient Express by Veronica Henry. Congratulations to both.

From left to right myself, Charlotte Betts, Joanna Hickson, Annie Murray, Liz Harris, Christina Courtnay

 On 18th March Choc-Lit author Liz Harris and myself had a date with Radio Oxford to talk about romance and our own novels. This programme is available for a week on BBC i player. It was at 9.10 am on Tuesday 18th March.
 

And now after that wonderful night on the 17th March at The RoNA Awards Ceremony back to normal and the penultimate Swan-Daughter edits.

February

On this page I try to update my news monthly.


So...this month began for me with a visit to Kennington Library where I gave a talk on how the Bayeux Tapestry influenced my writing of The Handfasted Wife. The talk developed into a discussion of how to read the scenes in The Bayeux Tapestry and its hidden messages. If you are interested in this topic there is much information on my blog:


 scribbling-inthemargins.BlogSpot



Kennington Library





 You can find links on My Blogs here. Another interesting question concerned how I used herbal medicine in The Handfasted Wife. I used Bald's Leechbook amongst other research books for this research and well as many books available on the subject of medieval medicine such as The Tortula. The Tortula concerns women's medicine for this period and is one of my most useful research books. Kennington Library orders in novels recommended by visiting authors. I suggested two of my favourite books:


Katherine by Anya Seton
The Queen of Silks by Vanora Bennett





Both novels are set in the later Middle Ages. Both are inspiring. They inspired me! 

This month The Handfasted Wife was shortlisted for the Historical Category of The Best Romantic novel of the year. It is a terrific award and just to get to the shortlist is an accolade. It has invited press interest and so I was asked to give an interview to the local papers.


This month, too, The Swan-Daughter is at publisher edit stage. Now, I am writing The Betrothed Sister, the third novel in The Daughters of Hastings Trilogy. This story concerns King Harold's eldest daughter Gytha whom I name Thea because Gytha, Harold's mother, returns to the Trilogy in this novel. The narrative takes place in Denmark and Russia. Whilst in Iceland in the middle of the month I was fortunate enough to research Viking ships and farm life, which probably was not terrifically changed by 1070. Both are important in The Betrothed Sister. I have written a blog in scribbling-inthemargins on the topic of Viking Ships. I had also hoped to visit Kiev. It was to be a fabulous research trip. Sadly, now I think it may be some time before this journey is possible.

The Viking Ship I saw in Iceland and which is similar to those on The Bayeux Tapestry

Finally, as the month enters its final week, we still face very marshy territory here in England's South Midlands. I have been walking Oscar, my daughter's Labrador. He has generally been a very muddy dog and has ploughed through swamp infested fields but then he is a Labrador and water is their friend. Fortunately to date we have not been flooded.


Spring may be just approaching but where ever you are, do look at the skies when the night is clear and just imagine that nothing up there is much changed in hundreds of years. The sky world remains mostly the same as it was in the period my novels embrace, even if how people perceive the heavens above is different. Yet, the sky is always beautiful to behold for us as for them.  

February