Word Wenches

Wooden Spoons

Anne here, and today I'm blogging about a very humble, yet often beautiful implement many of us will have in out homes. I'm talking about wooden spoons.

I have quite a collection of wooden spoons. I love the look and the feel of them, but also the practicality of them. Wooden spoons don't scratch your pans or bowls, they don't conduct heat, they don't react with your food or leave harmful chemicals, or change the cooking temperature. The photo on the right is of some of my wooden spoons I keep in a metal egg basket. I keep it on the bench top beside the stove and I like it because I can see whichever spoon I want at a glance.

Some of my spoons are beautifully carved, some are simple but hand-made, and others are probably machine-made. Some were gifts from people who know I like lovely wooden spoons. A few are souvenirs.

Wooden spoons are pretty much universal and reflect the domestic life of ordinary people. They have a very long history, probably starting from the earliest times of human cooking, when sticks were used to stir or cook food. Spoons predate forks by thousands of years, going back as far as the Paleolithic Era. Wooden spoons have been uncovered alongside gold and silver versions in the tombs of ancient Egyptians, indicating that their owners saw them as useful enough to be considered essential even in the afterlife.

Ten Favourite ... Pieces of Viking Jewellery

Christina here with a new feature on Word Wenches, where we will list favourite objects in a category of our choice. Today I have chosen Viking jewellery, because I find it fascinating and beautiful to look at, and there is so much to choose from!

As part of my research into the Vikings, I have obviously visited an awful lot of museums to view artifacts from that era. I am always especially drawn to the jewellery and although it was incredibly difficult to choose, below is a list of my top ten favourites so far. The Vikings were superb craftsmen and I would happily own any/all of the following:-

No 1 has to be the ring that inspired the first of my Viking stories. It is kept at the Historical Museum in Stockholm, and as I’ve mentioned previously I own an exact replica of it. Some jewellery company was given the right to reproduce part of the treasures kept in Scandinavian museums and I was lucky enough to be given this by my parents. The ring is a stylised snake or dragon with two heads, and I love the intricate design as well as the overall simplicity.

An Amazon Adventure

A Return to the River Sea

By Mary Jo

The Mayhem Consultant likes a good warm weather winter getaway, so when I studied some possibilities, I saw that Viking was doing cruises between Manaus, Brazil and San Juan, Puerto Rico.  (The picture at the left was taken as we took a tender out to the Viking Sea when we arrived in Manaus at sunset.)

Manaus is on the mighty Amazon river, a thousand miles from the Atlantic Ocean.  In 2014 we did a cruise of the Upper Amazon coming from Peru and it was great.  We were on a very small ship and spent much of our time on skiffs going into the jungle to see sloths and giant lily pads.

The Amazon is the largest river in the world in terms of water flow.  (The Nile might be longer, but that question is debated.)  This cruise on the Brazilian Amazon was very different from the upper Amazon.

The Amazon watershed is vast and many rivers flow together to make a river so mighty that it has been called the river sea. (The image of the Amazon watershed on the left is from Wikipedia.)

Manaus is the capital of the Amazonas province, and it's smack dab in the middle of the Amazon rain forest.  Driving from the airport to the riverside, I was struck by how any land that wasn't covered with buildings or asphalt was being claimed by the jungle. Intense bursts of greenery were everywhere, such as the picture on the right.  I took that when we were on the bus to the river to show the rain forest exuberance.

At the height of the late 19th Century rubber boom, Manaus was one of the richest cities in the world and many great singers and dancers performed at the dazzling neo-classical opera house.(Picture of the facade is on the left.)

One reason I was intrigued by the idea of Manaus is because it's the setting for most of Eva Ibbotson's wonderful A Company of Swans, the tale of Harriet Morton, the shy, dance-loving daughter of a rigid Cambridge academic who runs away from home to join the chorus of a Russian ballet company

A Company of Swans is Eva Ibbotson at her witty, romantic best, and I couldn't resist the thought of visiting the opera house where Harriet and her friends performed.  But the end of the rubber boom was hard on the city, and there are still signs of poverty. 

The picture of the colorful banner on the right was taken from the opera house garden and a dark and rather rundown building is visible between the banner and the opera house. The opera house was closed for most of the 20th century, but has now reopened as a performing arts center, and the city has developed a sizable industrial economy.  It's also a major port for shipping on the river.

We got home just last night and I'm very travel fatigued, so I'll say more about our journey later.  For now, I'll suggest reading A Company of Swans so you can fall in love with Eva Ibbotson's magical Amazon!

Mary Jo

Ask A Wench: Young Wench Writers

Susan here. For our usual AAW (Ask-A-Writer) feature, we asked each other -- Were you a young writer? What was your first story? Was there a book (or books) that made you love stories so much that you wanted to write your own?  Here's what we said . . .  

Anne says:

I don't remember writing stories when I was a child. Most of my childhood memories are about being out of doors, with a dog or some other animal in tow. Even if I had written any, we moved so often, and so much was thrown out between every move, that if I had, it wouldn't have been kept. School reports? Gone. Special projects? Gone. Favorite clothes? Gone. (I was growing, and I was the youngest, so . . . )  I was lucky to hang onto my teddy. But I might have been a storyteller back then. Family legend has me sitting in the sand pit telling long involved stories to the dog, the cat, the horse and any other animal I could entice. We left that place when I was four, and moved every year or two after that until I left home to go to university, moved into a student share house, and settled down.

But throughout my childhood I read, insatiably. Every new town we moved to, one of the first things I found was the local library, and I joined up and devoured the books there. So I probably absorbed a lot about story structure and writing techniques just by reading. When I was older and travelling overseas a lot (backpacking) I wrote letters home and to friends all the time, and people used to say they found them very entertaining. I think I was storytelling then, too. And when I went backpacking again, many years later, I still wrote lots of letters home, but other stories started to spin in my head as well — fictional stories.  I bought a large A4 notebook in Quebec and started writing. And I haven't stopped since.

What a Quiz!

Nicola here. This weekend we took part in our local village charity quiz, fifteen teams trying to answer questions on everything from the names of Disney princesses to Olympic swimming champions. Amazingly, we won - as a team we knew a lot of obscure, random general knowledge! - plus we raised some money and enjoyed an evening out with friends and neighbours. It was all very good humoured, unlike some of the quizzes I've been involved with where professional teams got very irate if they didn't win!

I’ve always liked the word “quiz.” It's got a fun feel to it, and, being a writer, I've often wondered where the word originated from. I remember it featuring in Georgette Heyer, but as a description of a person rather than an activity. So I set out to find out more.

Perfume Unmasked

Pat here: As I may have said before, one of the fun parts of writing historical novels is the dive down research bunny holes. I’ve just spent a lovely few hours scrounging around in the insane details of British law, how magistrates were appointed and criminals brought to court, when there was essentially no police force in rural environs. And along with that, I followed a side trail into manorial law, an entire blog by itself. Suffice it to say, my hero, as heir to a manorial estate, is a law unto himself. He doesn’t like it much, though. (above photo is manor and accompanying village--not quite the one I imagine as I write but pretty anyway. See the manor way in the background?)

Celebrating Romantic Fiction

Christina here. You know that saying, “It’s not the winning but the taking part that counts”? That’s a hard lesson to learn when you’re little. How many times have we said it to ourselves, our children or our friends when someone lost at something or didn’t win some competition or sport? I know I repeated it to my daughters until I was blue in the face, but it didn’t stop the disappointment on their faces as they came away emptyhanded from yet another school sports day.

“Mummy, can’t we buy a medal?” my oldest asked once, obviously not having grasped the whole concept of such competitions at all. And clearly, she had already learned that a lot of things in life can be bought, which wasn’t a lesson I wanted her to absorb at such a young age. Thankfully, we eventually begin to understand the saying as we grow up and it makes perfect sense.

When In Rome

Anne here, and today I'm diving right back into the past — my past and actual ancient history — sort of.

If you'd asked me, I probably would have said that my fascination with the Roman era began with the superb book and TV series I Claudius — but I'd be wrong.

When I was a student, I fell heavily for the Asterix and Obelix comic book series by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo. If you don't know it, it's a very funny satirical French series about a village of indomitable Gauls during the Roman Occupation. The stars are Asterix (the small smart one) and his friend the huge and not-too-bright Obelix, who delivers menhirs (giant stones). And of course their tiny dog, Dogmatix.

The Romans haven't been able to conquer this village because they have a secret weapon — a magic potion created by their druid, Getafix.  Yes, Get-A-Fix — the series is full of puns of this sort. The names are hilarious. There is a bard called Cacofonix, an ancient called Geriatrix, the chieftain's wife is called Impedimenta, the fishmonger is Unhygienix, and his wife is Bacteria. 

The Roman names are also hilarious — centurians with names like Armisurplus, Ignoramus, Crismus Bonus, Dubius Status and Nefarious Purpus, Vitriolix, an architect named Squareonthehypotenus and so-on. It's all beautifully silly and fun.

Whenever the Romans try to conquer them, the villagers line up for their potion and POW! Roman soldiers go flying in all direction. Only Obelix needs no potion — he's permanently invincible, having fallen into a cauldron of potion when he was a baby.

Winners!

Anne here.

We ended up choosing two winners for Mary Jo Putney's giveaway of her book, Lady of Fortune.

They are Jane I. N. and Michele H.

They have been notified by email.

Thank you to everyone who read the post and left a comment.

Dutch Treat

Andrea here, I recently saw a very entertaining article in the New York Times on a reality show—not something that would usually catch my fancy. But in this case it was about art, and an artist who fascinates me, so I took a closer read.

 In celebration of a mega-blockbuster exhibit currently on view at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam (alas, currently sold out, but more slots may become available) Dutch TV decided to create a challenge for both amateur and professional artists to “reinvent” some of the lost works of the famous painter. The judges are Vermeer experts the Rijksmuseum and the Mauritshuis, in The Hague. The results are absolutely delightful—you can view them here on the station’s website. Isn’t it fun to see such creativity in bloom?