Word Wenches

To the Regency Races!

Nicola here. I live near a racing village and today I’m reflecting on the pleasures of race going in the Georgian and Regency periods in my local area. I’ve been researching this not for a book I’m writing but for a talk I gave yesterday for the National Trust on gambling in the early 19th century.  In 1836 one member of the Craven family of Ashdown House bet 8000 pounds (about the equivalent of 400 000 pounds or 625 000 dollars in modern terms) against the favourite, Bay Middleton, in the Derby race. He lost. All that money lost on one horse in one race…

 

Arriving in Style

 

First you had to get to your racecourse, and a spectator’s means of transport, mode of arrival and accommodation was defined by his class. The nobility and gentry, naturally, had their own carriages whilst families slightly lower down the social scale would arrive at the racecourse in a hired post-chaise which could travel at up to eight miles per hour and cost between sixpence and one shilling per mile.

 

The vast majority of spectators, however, arrived at a racecourse on foot and thought nothing of walking up to 15 miles to get there. The cheapest carriage that offered a public service was the covered wagon. The horse was led by a wagonner on foot and the vehicle travelled at walking pace. There are plenty of records of racing crowds travelling to the races at Newbury and Reading by stagecoach as well. These were drawn by four horses, carried six people inside and up to eleven clinging to the outside and in the late 18th century they charged fourpence per mile for the inside passengers and twopence for the outside ones. At seven to ten miles an hour travel by stage could be both dangerous and nausea-inducing, particularly at night on the downhill sections of the road.

 

The diligence was smaller and more comfortable than the stagecoach, carrying only four passengers inside and drawn by two horses. This also operated to a public timetable. Prices depended on whether it was a two wheeled variety or the more superior four wheeled one. 

 

The other alternative for some racecourses, depending on situation, was to arrive by water. Many rivers were navigable in the period. The Oxford races were served by the river Thames and with the opening of the canal system from the late 18^th century onwards race-goers might have the option of a public boat service.  From 1810 the Kennet and Avon Canal ran a twice-weekly passenger barge which had priority over the slower goods barges.

 

There was no charge for entry to the racecourse for those who arrived either on foot or on horseback but carriages paid for the privilege of parking where there was a good view of the track. By 1800 most courses had grandstands where for the sum of five shillings the middle classes, and ladies in particular, could buy a comfortable view of the course away from the common crowds. The other benefit of the grandstand was that it was covered, which gave some protection against the weather, either stifling heat or a downpour of rain.  In her letters Jane Austen mentions the Basingstoke Races of 1813 as being a complete washout and at Abingdon in 1828 the fashionable ladies were drenched (presumably they had not bought grandstand seats) and the horses were apparently running knee deep in water.

 

Coaching inns in towns such as Marlborough, Newbury and Reading did extremely well for custom during race weeks when they were usually full to overflowing. The other alternative for accommodation was to rent a house in the town for the period of the race meeting and some enterprising homeowners would either let their entire house or would rent out individual rooms. The inns offered special fixed price meals for race-goers during the period, rather like booking in for dinner, bed and breakfast these days. Usually the gentlemen and the ladies ate separately, though in 1829 the Star Inn at Oxford introduced mixed tables which must have caused quite a stir!

 

The Bet

 

The Georgian age was characterised by excessive gambling by the upper classes on just about anything that moved and some things that didn’t: horse races, beetle races, raindrop races, cards, cockfights, prize-fights, billiards and pedestrianism were a few of the events or sports that could be bet upon. Gentlemanly wagers at the races were initially conducted on a credit basis, one to one, off the course but in response to the demand for some fixed premises for these deals, Richard Tattersall, a horse auctioneer, set up the first betting shop at Hyde Park Corner in 1815. The entry conditions for Tattersalls were both financially and socially stringent, demanding as good a breeding in the customer as in the horse, as well as financial liquidity. Nor was gambling on the horses confined to men. A poem by Lord Abingdon called Adieu to the Turf makes reference to creditors circling Lady Bampfylde who was a racehorse owner and prominent patron and gambler.

 

Further down society, wealthy farmers were showing an interest in field sports and gambling. They would think nothing of losing £40 a day (several thousand pounds in today’s terms) at one race meeting. And amongst the working classes a day at the races was also popular. In 1784 La Rochefoucauld commented that: “a great number of people economise all through the year for the pleasure of risking the product of a year’s privation on one five-minute fling.”

 

In the beginning, racing wagers were unwritten and were settled the following day at the local coffee house. However by 1805 betting stands had become a feature of most racecourses with bookmakers called blacklegs. These were generally men from humble origins whose name derived from the top boots they wore because they could not afford stockings. Many were men of their word when it came to settling betting winnings but it was not unknown for a blackleg to decamp from the course without paying out to his customers.

 

It took some time for race results to become known as there was no mass communication.  Mail coach drivers were crucial in spreading the word of the results of important meetings. For really vital results carrier pigeons and even trail-trained hounds might be used to carry the news to interested parties in the surrounding coutryside. I love the idea of a beagle arriving at your door with the racing results attached to it's collar!

 

Other Entertainments

 

This was of course the age of both national and private lotteries so the opportunities for betting were not confined to the horses. One racecourse ran raffles during race week with valuable prizes such as a “high bred bay mare” one year and a four wheeled post chaise another. There were plenty of other ways to lose your money at the racecourse as well, including gambling sideshows such as the game of pitch and toss for money. Between 1805 and 1815 the town of Newbury in Berkshire banned EO betting (the precursor to roulette) in the town in race week so that gamblers were tempted to spend more on the racecourse. Billiards matches tended to follow the racing calendar as well and heavy bets were placed on the outcome of these.

 

On the course itself, vendors of beer and food could rent a pitch for their booth. There were shooting galleries, musical entertainments, acrobats, high wire dancers, fire-eaters, performing dogs and gypsy fortune tellers. Crime was rife on the racecourse with some booths taken by confidence tricksters intent on taking money off naïve victims. Pickpockets mingled with the crowds, as did prostitutes soliciting for business.

 

Cockfights and prize-fights also took place during race weeks and were popular across the social spectrum. Cockfighting was considered a gentleman’s sport but fell into disrepute by the 1820s. Prize-fighting was technically illegal after 1750 but the ban was widely ignored and after the 1809 Abingdon Races finished a crowd of thousands gathered to watch a 50 round fight which lasted almost two hours.

More salubrious were race week balls. These were held in the local assembly rooms and were priced at five shillings for the ladies and seven and sixpence for the gentlemen, very much an event for the gentry and aristocracy. The Newbury Mansion House Ball of 1805 was described as attracting guests of “the first fashion and distinction.” 

 

Theatres also ran special race week programmes with different plays each night and actors and actresses from London.  At Newbury’s Pelican Theatre the boxes cost three shillings, the seats in the pit two shillings and the gallery one shilling. Henry Thornton’s acting company toured the race towns frequently with a cast that included Dorothy Jordan, the Duke of Clarence's former mistress. Attendance at race balls and theatre performances meant that the ladies required the specialised of services of hairdressers and perfumiers brought in from London. Provincial hairdressers were not considered skilled enough to meet the requirements of their aristocratic clientele!

 

The Newbury Coat

 

One extraordinary wager that I came across when I was reading about gambling and racing was the story of the Newbury Coat.  Newbury was a very famous racing town and the populace of the period well accustomed to gambling. Mr John Coxeter, a cloth manufacturer in Newbury, commented to Sir John Throckmorton that he could take the coat from Sir John’s back, reduce it to wool and turn it back into a coat again all in the space of a day. Sir John was so taken with this idea that he laid a bet of 1000 guineas that at eight o'clock in the evening of June the 25th 1811 he would sit down to dinner in a well-woven, properly-made coat, the wool of which had still been on the sheep’s backs at five o'clock that same morning. (Presumably he didn't want to sacrifice the existing coat and fancied a new one!)

 

Thousands of people turned out to watch the bet take place; there was even a refreshment tent provided. The sheep were shorn, the wool was washed, stubbed, rove, carded, spun and woven. The tailor had already taken Sir John’s measurements and was ready to leap into action. Ten men worked at

cutting out, stitching, pressing, and sewing on buttons and at twenty minutes past six that evening Mr. Coxeter presented the coat to Sir John Throckmorton, who put the garment on before a crowd of over five thousand people. Sir John took dinner with forty gentlemen at eight o'clock in the evening wearing the coat, which was a large hunting coat in the admired dark Wellington colour, a sort of a damson tint. It had been completed in the space of thirteen hours and ten minutes. The wager had been won with an hour and three quarters to spare.

 

If you attended the Georgian races would you be in the grandstand or prefer to mingle with the crowd? Would you enjoy the races or the fortune-teller’s tent or would gambling simply not be for you? I’m giving away an ARC of my new book Whisper of Scandal, which does not feature racing at all, to one person who leaves a comment between now and Sunday morning!

Random Acts of Kindness

 Anne here. 
 I recently attended a graduation ceremony. Before I was published I was a high school teacher for years and then taught in the tertiary sector, so I've attended dozens of graduations but to be honest, I never get bored. Behind each award, each graduate clutching their certificate, each parent or relative watching proudly, there's a story. So even though I'm not teaching anymore, when I was invited to this one, I was happy to go.

There's something about graduation, the celebration of people's achievements, the sense of one world closing and a bright new world opening up — whether it's kids finishing up at elementary school, or adults, young and old graduating from university. I love the excitement of awards, the emotion of the speeches, the sense of achievement and the pride in the family and friends watching.   

This ceremony, however, wasn't the usual high school or college graduation; this was a course for disaffected youth — teenagers and young adults who have failed in the school system (or who the school system has failed, depending on your point of view.)

The purpose of the course is to bring these kids back to education and prepare them for further training or work. But it's more, much more. I've worked with kids like this most of my life and I know it's not easy; some of them have years of truanting and trouble behind them.  Many arrive cynical and with a chip on their shoulder. They've usually had tough lives and quite often they don't believe in anything, least of all themselves. And that's the saddest thing of all.

    So the underlying purpose of this kind of course is (I believe) first and foremost to rebuild the kids' belief in themselves. I won't go into the kind of curriculum they studied, or the style of teaching their teachers used. I'm just going to talk about one small part of the course, that began almost by accident and has become a cornerstone of the course's success: random acts of kindness.

(By the way, none of the images used here have any relation to the students I'm talking about. They're just illustrations.)

     I won't go into the incident that started it all. Suffice it to say that it began with a particularly difficult group. Nothing they did was good enough, they were so hard on themselves, so entrenched in their view of themselves as failures—not that they cared (or showed they cared, for of course they did.) 

      However a change grew out of one small random act of unexpected kindness from one of the seemingly unlikeliest of the students.  When the staff discussed it later, they decided they wanted to reward this kind of behavior publicly as well as privately. So an award system was born for random acts of kindness or RAKs.

    Now kids who've been naughty most of their lives are what we in Australia call "bush lawyers" — they can and will argue their way around most things and sniff out loopholes the way a dog sniffs out a buried bone, so the staff developed an elaborate set of rules for these awards. The acts of kindness could not be deliberately performed to earn award points.  "Sucking up" behavior would earn nothing, acts of kindness could be performed anywhere on anyone — neighbors, cleaning staff, other students. They had to be witnessed and awarded by a staff member freely and unsolicited. Points were really hard to get, but the appreciation that came from staff when a point was earned was warm and unfeigned and sincere.   

    Frequently the kids were shocked when awarded points for some RAK they hadn't even realized they'd performed.  It shocked (and sometimes embarrassed) them that anyone noticed. It surprised them that anyone cared. It prompted much individual thought and some discussion within the student group. And slowly it changed them.

    I was actually there when one was awarded. One lunchtime, a staff member had just had some bad news on the phone. One of the most difficult boys noticed she was on the verge of tears, and without knowing what the problem was, quietly sent the other students away, then got her a cup of tea and fetched another staff member. 

    The head of the organization (who is tiny, tough and a powerhouse of energy) saw the whole thing from her office. She'd been about to go out to the staff member when she witnessed this random act of kindness from a boy she'd only seen make trouble.

    After the problem was sorted, she found the boy, hugged him (to his public embarrassment and secret pleasure) thanked him, and awarded her first ever points for a RAK. He gained great kudos from "finally cracking the boss."

    Random acts of kindness.  Praise. Respect. Small words. Huge concepts.  

    At the graduation ceremony this boy went up to receive a number of different awards, academic and non-academic. Nobody was there to applaud him, no family, no friends except the ones in his class. But he walked tall. 

        Yep, I love graduation ceremonies. There's a story behind every award.

So have you been to any graduations lately? Any stories to share?  Or a random act of kindness to tell us about?

Interview with Dougie MacLean, Songmaker

We are thrilled to welcome a special guest today, renowned Scottish singer-songwriter Dougie MacLean! Recently I phoned Dougie at his home in Scotland, just after he had returned from a concert tour in England and Wales, to ask a few questions on behalf of the Wenches. We spoke about music, creativity and songwriting from the perspective of Dougie's abiding love of things historical, particularly fitting for his first visit to our historical fiction blog... so please sit back and enjoy a chat with this talented and charming songmaker.

One of Scotland's most successful, respected and popular musicians, Dougie MacLean is highly acclaimed as a singer, songwriter, composer, performer, masterful guitarist, and fiddle player, and his songs are known worldwide, sung in pubs and at sporting games, and covered by other artists. From his home base in the village of Butterstone in the beautiful Perthshire hills of Scotland, he tours the world both as a solo performer and with his band. His moving songs, especially "Caledonia" and "The Gael" among others, have been recorded by hundreds of artists and some have been featured in movies and TV advertisements. His newest release, "Songmaker," is a DVD of several of his best-known songs, filmed in Butterstone. In September, Dougie will be touring the east coast of the USA, and in October he will host the sixth annual Perthshire Amber-Dougie MacLean music festival in Scotland. "A festival with vision and imagination...and great momentum!" -- The Scotsman

"...a Scottish phenomenon...with his exquisite guitar style, expressive voice and honest performance, his songs conjure up remarkably vivid imagery of our world." -- The Performing Songwriter, USA

Dougie, welcome to Word Wenches! You're probably best known for your contemporary songs, yet your music has strong ties to history, too. For example, you've done a CD of the songs of Burns and Tannahill, and you've recorded some traditional Gaelic songs as well as some 18th century fiddle tunes. And some of your songs have historical associations, including the very well-known "The Gael" (featured in the movie "Last of the Mohicans" -- as well as a Nike commercial!).

Can you tell us a little about how you came to write "The Gael" ?  (click here to see Dougie performing his original composition.)

Dougie: I wrote the song for the Loch Ness Monster Centre-– it was a commission for them. The monster in the loch goes way back to ancient Gaelic myths of seahorses (kelpies), and to write this little tune, I imagined a Gaelic community on the banks of Loch Ness, believing in such myths, and I thought about how real that would have been to them. I wrote several songs for “The Search,” the CD that contains “The Gael” and other songs about Loch Ness, including a song about the vigils on the loch in the 1960s. At the time I got right into the whole Loch Ness monster thing. I’m fascinated by man’s search for myth, and I was inspired by thinking of the Gaels back in ancient times, waiting for the monster to appear.

The movie—they were looking for a contemporary Scottish piece with atmosphere to suit the movie, and they had listened to a lot of dance tunes and that. “The Gael” is an ominous sort of piece, with ominous chords, dramatic. Michael Mann (the director) tuned into the emotional feeling of the song, and he must have felt the mood I had felt when I had written it. If it comes from the right place, the music encapsulates a feeling—Michael Mann tapped into that, with the tragedy of this story of the early Native Americans and so on. You have to get into that place for the emotions, the mood, to work in a song. (click here for the movie version of "The Gael.")

When I wrote "Caledonia" that was a much simpler thing, kind of communicating that sense of belonging, of home, and that’s kind of historical too, as you can’t live in a place like this without the history being part of what makes it home for you. I love this part of the world because I know there’s thousands of years of history here. In Scotland, we have a sense of our history, we’re emotionally connected to it, we’re aware of being part of the continuity of the place -- like a higher sense of belonging. I’m in love with this place, and it’s historical memory that helps make you feel part of a place (click here to watch a live performance of "Caledonia").

Susan: Your music often evokes the deeper connections to our ancestors and historical legacies-- do you consciously set out to accomplish that?

Dougie: Oh yes. I wrote a song about Mary, Queen of Scots after visiting Fotheringhay Castle, the remains of Fotheringhay where she was beheaded, and where her coffin lay for a year, as they didn’t know what to do with it, wanting to avoid her becoming a martyr and so on. There’s such a mood in that place, an amazing sense of history there. I was standing in what had been the great hall of the castle, where the platform had been set up for her execution. Terrible dark mood there. Fotheringhay is one of the spookiest places I’ve ever been, where a terrible thing in history happened--I mean, cutting off the head of someone else's queen! For the song, I wanted to communicate the mood I felt there.

Susan: Have you absorbed traditional music techniques and styles in your own songwriting and performing?

Dougie: Yes! My grandfather used to sing in the pubs and at home, and when he’d get enough whisky in him he’d sing in Gaelic and the tears would roll down his cheeks. I come from a musical Gaelic family, very much so, and I absorbed the patterns and the sense of melody in Gaelic tunes. My mother played the mandolin and my father the fiddle, and my grandfather was a singer--and I consider myself more a singer, as he was. When he would sing and cry, drinking the whisky, we children would ask what was wrong with Seanair (grandfather in Scottish Gaelic) and we were told oh, he was all right, it was just the mood of the song got to him. And that’s with me now as I make my own music. Sometimes I’ll try something new for Jenny and them here, and I’ll play the new bit and burst into tears. When you can tip the emotions over into that place, that’s good.

Susan: Your personal interests in history are varied -- you dig your own peats for fuel and you've done a little excavating on your property on the Isle of Lewis. You've been involved with bottling your own whisky brand at Edradour, one of the most historically authentic small distilleries in Scotland. And you've explored MacLean genealogy (and were featured on the BBC for your work!). Can you tell us something about your interests outside of music?

Dougie: Well I haven’t cut peats yet this year! But making our whisky with Edradour, that’s been a great thing. It’s one of the finest small historical distilleries that we have here in Scotland. And it was interesting to recently learn that during prohibition in America, that the Mafia were in cahoots with small Scottish distilleries, Irish too. Edradour was shipping whisky to Newfoundland, and it was being smuggled to Chicago. The Irish and Scots were making fortunes during the American prohibition. Scottish ties to the Mafia--amazing!

Here near my home, there’s a wee burn called the Drouthy Burn, where my dad as a boy saw the remains of a very old still back there hidden among the trees. "Drouth" means thirsty or dry in Scots, and I can imagine the folks way back then saying, Oh, I’m off for the thirsty burn! And the still would be up there.

Susan: If you hadn't become a musician, would you have become a historian or an archaeologist?

Dougie: An archaeologist! I’d love to have been that. Though I continue to get into trouble on the Isle of Lewis, where I have a house, for rooting around old sites! I like to go to some of these places and take a few moments to visualize what was there before. Around here we have some remains of Roman camps in the hills above Butterstone and Dunkeld, and you can stand above and see the straight lines they built. The Romans got up this far, not much further. Here as I’m talking to you on the phone, I’m looking out the window at an old mound, the remains of Bishop Sinclair’s castle, back in Wallace and Bruce days. My dad remembered seeing ruins there and now it’s houses and cottages called Craigie Wallace and other references to Wallace. Archaeology is about trying to understand the past from what is left behind, bits and pieces and mounds and that. I love that.

Susan: What's next from Dougie MacLean?

Dougie: Well, there's the new DVD, "Songmaker," which was filmed here in Butterstone Studios in our school (note: Dougie’s home in Butterstone was once the village schoolhouse, where his father and uncles went to school, and which Dougie purchased several years ago to make into his home and a recording studio—a triumph for his Dad, who was a bit of a rascal in his boyhood and wished the teacher could have known who would own that school in the future!). We’ve got a film company now for videos, and it’s a great thing to do when I'm at home and not on tour. I’m writing songs with my son now and it’s an opportunity to concentrate on creativity. For creative projects, you know, you must keep yourself happy and not compromise what you do.

Dougie's new DVD "Songmaker" focuses on acoustic versions of some of his better known songs, filmed at Dougie's home in Butterstone and performed with various members of his band. There are also two bonus videos--one filmed in the Perthshire hills and one on the Isle of Lewis. To purchase the video along with CDs and other items, visit www.DougieMacLean.com.

Dougie will be touring around the UK in August (including in Edinburgh at the Festival Fringe on Aug. 14) and he will be performing on the east coast of the USA in September (see his concert schedule here).

Please take a moment to welcome Dougie by posting a comment below -- and you'll have a chance to win some of Dougie's music! We'll draw a name at random from among those who post a substantive comment before midnight eastern time (US) on Friday, July 30.

~Susan

Guest Dougie MacLean; Winner

DOUGIE MACLEAN

On Monday, July 26, Susan King will interview Scottish music legend, Dougie MacLean.  MacLean has a large following in the UK, Australia and the US.  He performed "The Gael" from "Last of the Mohicans" and also "Caledonia." Monday's interview will center on MacLean's deep interest in history, so he'll fit right in with the Wenches! Join us on Monday for a little bit about Celtic music and a lot about history!

WINNER

We have a new book winner! Keira Soleore submitted a blog topic suggestion which Pat used, and as a result, Keira won a book from Pat. Congratulations, Keira!

Dreaming of Djellabas

Cara/Andrea here,

Are you ready to go on a little journey to . . .

The Red City.

Actually, it’s more of a rich terra cotta hue, which shifts from subtle shades of buttery pink to burnt brick in the luminous Moroccan sun. And like its color, its name is tinted with a mysterious magic. Marrakech. A melting pot of rich history and contrasting cultures, where over the centuries Berbers, Moors, Turks, Europeans and Sub-Saharan Africans have created a unique spot where a whirling dervish of ancient traditions and modern flare dance together in sinuous harmony.

I love visiting historic places. There’s an energy and inspiration to them that seems to resonate in the buildings, the people, and, indeed, in the very air. Last month, I was lucky enough to spend four days in Marrakech, a city that has long captured my imagination. Beautiful, exotic, with an edge of raffish danger—how could a writer of historical romance not feel attracted to such a place! And from the very first glimpse of the old medina walls, it did not disappoint.

You approach Marrakech through groves of silvery-gray olive trees, some of which are over 800 years old.  The hot, dry wind rustles softly through the leaves, while in contrast, the snow capped Atlas mountains rise in the distance, framed by a cool blue sky. An ancient palmeraie, or oasis of palms, fringes the city. Once inside the gates, or babs, (there are 10 main ones set in over six miles of winding walls—which, by the by, are made of a mixture of mud, straw and lime known as pisé, which becomes as hard as brick when it dries) you notice the lush green plantings with fountains and pools. Marrakech  is famous for its gardens—after World War II, Winston Churchill came often to stay at the storied La Mamounia Hotel and paint the local flora. He called it “the most lovely spot in the whole world.”

The city was founded in the 11th century by the Almoravids, and through the centuries it’s changed hands many times—Almohads, Merenids, Saadians, Turks, and French are among the people who have ruled. The people of this region are Berbers, not Arabs, and though they are Muslim, they have always had a great tolerance for other religions. As a crossroads of the legendary trading caravans, Marrakech became a center of commerce and a confluence of cultures. This mix of East and West, north and south has created a fascinating blend of traditions.

One of the city’s landmarks is the Koutoubia Mosque, built in the 12th century. (The muezzin still calls the faithful to prayer five times each day from its beautifully decorated tower, albeit by a taped recording broadcast via loudspeaker.) Another architectural gem is the Bahia palace, a 160-room walled enclave built in 1880. The craftsmanship is breathtakingly beautiful. Mosaics, intricately carved stone, painted cedarwood and graceful calligraphy—all cornerstones of Islamic art—grace room after room. The effect is mesmerizing.

From the outside, however, you would never guess that the drab, unadorned walls surround such a treasure, and it was fascinating to hear our guide, Abdel, explain why. He told us that one of the tenets of Islam is modesty, in order not to embarrass a less wealthy neighbor, it is traditional to build an exterior that gives no hint of what lies inside. A gate can hide a tiny dwelling, a riad (a house with an interior garden) or a sumptuous palace. The same principle applies to clothing. A burka or voluminous cloak often hides richly decorated caftans or other dress—and the outer layer is removed when one is in private, among friends.

But Marrakech is much more than museums and shrines. It’s alive with vibrant energy. The sounds of music, the cries of the snake charmers, the sizzle of exotic spices and the swirl of bright patterns fill the famous  Jemaa el Fna, which is said to be the busiest square in all of Africa.

From morning to very late at night, it’s bustling with people who shop, who stroll, who stop to eat a quick meal at one of the many food stalls (roasted sheep’s head is their version of McDonald’s. I was not brave enough to try it, but my friends Jason and Lyman said it was very tasty! Er, they passed on a side order of brains.)

Acrobats and jugglers weave in and out of fortunetellers who gain a modicum of privacy for their readings by hunkering down under a large umbrella. And the snake charmers are quick to drape their wares around unwary tourists. (I ran as fast as my feet would carry me, but again, the intrepid Jason showed no fear.)

So where did my flight take me? Why, to the souks, of course! In keeping with its rich trading heritage, Marrakech features rambling covered markets that are some of the largest in Africa. Talk about a shopper’s paradise! The choice of merchandise is staggering (quite literally if you are in the market for fine carpets!) It ranges from the usual junky souvenirs to fine antiques, and everything in between. Scarves and djellabas swirl above tall cones of colorful spices and dates. Fanciful leather slippers rub up against polished inlaid wood. Pierced metal lanterns cast a winking light over tribal silver and terra cotta tangine pots. The list is endless, and as I wove through the narrow twists and turns it was hard to know where to look next!

Merchants were aggressive—but in a very nice way. They ended up smiling when I said no, and more often than not they would offer a cup of the ubiquitous sugared mint tea and want to practice their English anyway. “No” was a word I used a lot, yet I still came away with bags of wonderful swag.

Argan oil, which is unique to Morocco is a special treat to take home. It made from the pit of the argan tree fruit, and is used for cooking, cosmetics and as a traditional medicine. Nutty in flavor, it’s very rich in Vitamin E and is said to have potent anti-aging properties. The oil has become something of a cult ingredient in Europe, and I’m sure it will soon be turning up on shelves here.

Reflecting its French influence, Marrakech is also a hotspot for fine dining, and after a long day spent poking through the dazzling wares, one can choose from among regional dishes like tangines, couscous and vegetable salads or opt for a wide range of international cuisines.

It was way too short a trip and I really look forward to going back and having more time to explore and get out into the countryside—another thing high on my wish list is to see the Sahara desert. Already I have story ideas percolating inside my head. I’m not quite sure when or how, but I plan on working this historic region into some part of a future book.

I’m not quite sure why I always wanted to visit Marrakech. Maybe it was that haunting Crosby, Stills and Nash melody that made it seem so alluring and exotic. (I almost bought a striped djellaba.) Or maybe it was reading in history books about the spice caravans, the Barbary pirates. Whatever it was, it made me fantasize about visiting the city one day. And now I have—and it was even better than I imagined!

Which brings me to my question—do you have that one Special Place you are yearning to visit? A dream location that tickles at your fancy? And conversely, have you ever wanted to go somewhere and then been disappointed because it didn’t live up expectations. Summer is, after all, the time for travel, so please share where your mind has been wandering!

Museums and such

Sorry I'm a bit late with this, but I'm traveling. It's also going to be light on pictures because I don;t have a way to insert them right now. I may be able to add them later.

First I attended RomCon in Denver, which was excellent. The events and panels were just structured enough to keep things in line, but also allowed a lot of fun interaction between authors and readers

Then I came up to Canada, to Ottawa, to visit family where I spentost of the time polishing off An Unlikely Countess, which had been a bit delayed by the preparations for a month in North America. It is now with my editor, and I'm very pleased with it. It's set in the Malloren World, and follows on in time from The Secret Duke, but it's not strongly connected to any other book. Though I enjoy writing linked books and find it hard to imagine not doing so, it's very liberating to sometimes start with a completely blank slate

I'll be talking more about the book, of course. It's due out in March 2011.

Now I'm in Toronto, and yesterday I went to the Royal Ontario Museum, the ROM, mostly to see the special exhibit on the Chinese Terracotta Warriors. They only have a few of the actual statues, but there's a lot about the China of that time, about 200 BC. I was particularly interested in the weapons, for the clay warriors carried real weapons, and many were in excellent condition because of the addition of some chromium to the bronze. Its anti-corrosive properties weren't known in the west until, I think, the 19th century.

There's a pictrue of the excavation in China of the warriors. Truly amazing. And in addition to those, they're also discovering musicians, artists, gymnasts and a garden with water birds.

I also spent a little time in another special exhibit there about Josiah Wedgwood, 1730-1795. He's part of my Malloren World, though still early in his career then. He rose from being an apprentice potter to one of the great industrial developers. In he 1760s, when my books are set, he had not yet developed his famous innovations, the black basalt ware, and the blue jasper ware that takes the white raised designs.

I have a personal connection there. Back in another life I was a careers guidance officer in Staffordshire, and the Potteries, as Stoke on Trent and area are called, was in my region. I lived in Burslem, where Josiah Wedgwood was born, and if I had access to our old photos, I could share pictures of the bottle kilns there, remnants of a former age.As it is, you can see some here.

Part of my job was to go around workplaces to learn about the work and what would be required of the students leaving school to work there. I visited the modern Wedgwood factory at Barlaston a couple of times, and even tried my hand at molding one of those delicate figures to go on jasper ware. The skilled workers make it look so easy, but I failed completely!

I couldn't help wondering if one of the older workers shown in the accompanying film was someone I'd helped find a job there a long, long time ago.

This is the front left of a gorgeous Georgian waistcoat of the type my better dressed gentlemen might wear.

At the end of the month I'll be at the RWA conference in Orlando, hoping to see some of you there.

Anyone here want to suggest an interesting museum or special exhibit?

Cheers,

Jo

Filling the Well continued

From Pat Rice:

This is my day to blog but I still have some lovely replies left over from Friday's Ask-A-Wench question about filling the well, and well, I'm immersed in so much work and travel that I'm amazed I remembered what day it is. If this gets posted on Tuesday, please be forgiving!

The question was--how do you fill the creativity well?

From Sherrie Holmes: This is a subject near and dear to my heart. I think most writers are artistically creative in other ways than in writing—be it gardening, painting, dancing, etc. For me, it’s making cards and decorating my house (I’m a closet interior designer). (Pat says: I’ve seen the pictures. Sherrie might design closets occasionally, but she also paints every surface in sight and designs rooms with a delightful eye for color. “G”) I no longer have time for oil painting or watercolors, but making cards is a well-replenishing task for me. I have over  1,000 rubber stamps, and an entire rainbow of

miscellaneous accompaniments—ink pads, lace, yarn, colored paper, and other embellishments. I can easily spend 1-2 hours on each card, and the finished product fills me with a sense of pride and accomplishment. (Probably the modern equivalent of a Regency miss talented in embroidery) ~

From Anne:
Once your creativity becomes your work it's very easy to forget to nourish the inner child and play -- especially in writing. I used to write all sorts of silly things for fun, often going to a lot of trouble, but once writing became my work, I thought all my writing should be for work. Big mistake.
Now I'm more careful about replenishing the creative well -- it's a serious reason (excuse?) to have fun.

The thing that most refills the well for me is giving myself time to dream. You don't have to be in a bed to dream — having your hands busy and your mind dreaming is a perfectly satisfactory way to do it. I will chop vegetables or garden or make small things  or walk and dream at the same time. I make things all the time. They're nothing very wonderful, but they satisfy an urge in me and keep my hands busy while I'm watching TV—or dreaming up a story. I make necklaces and bracelets and earrings and paper beads (Pat notes: Anne's beading is no trifling thing! She made all the wenches at RWA last year gorgeous beaded necklaces. I wear mine constantly!) and foist the results on my friends (and occasionally hapless acquaintances,) I make cards (though not as beautiful as Sherrie's) and christmas decorations. Sometimes I make teensy things for dolls houses. Currently I'm decorating berets.

From Barbara Samuel I learned about going on 'artist dates' -- giving yourself an experience that keeps the magic alive and the well refilled. There's a good explanation of it here: http://paperartstudio.tripod.com/artistsway/id4.html
The very best thing I think is travel -- being thrown out of your comfort zone, interacting with new people, places, cultures -- but it's not always possible. Hearing live music always makes me feel wonderful and refills the well; making live music with friends even more so. I also love to soak up beautiful things by going to galleries and museums, and I love to get out of the city and spend time in wild and lovely places. But if I'm pressed for time, even just a walk along a beach at twilight or dawn is enough to set me dreaming.
 
And then, of course, there's reading, which I do everywhere and anywhere and always have. While a new book is percolating in my head I tend to read outside my genre. Currently I'm reading the Kushiel fantasy series by Jacqueline Carey, a very dark, fascinating series set in an alternative medieval European world. Each book has haunted me long after I've read it, and for me, there's nothing like dwelling in a different imaginary worlds to refill the well.

And if you try to live in the moment and appreciate what comes, even routine events can still renew your spirit.  I walked my dog very late the other night, a chilly, dark winter's night, and bumped into a friend walking his dog. We walked along the wilderness path beside the creek in the dark, not talking much, just aware of the sounds of the creek, the breeze stirring the leaves and various sounds of the night, while the dogs darted and snuffled back and forth in search of who knew what, and far in the distance the hum of city life. And then the moon rose and the darkness turned to silver and shadows. A little moment of magic in the mundane.

From Andrea:

Writing is such an intense discipline that on finishing a book, I really do need to replenish the well of mental energy. Because I have to focus so hard on choosing each and every word, and how to fit them all together in sentences and paragraphs,  I find that doing things that are very “physical” or “intuitive” help me relax and recharge. I try to visit a museum or art gallery to look at visual images. Or I walk, bike, or play golf—all things that stimulate non-verbal parts of the brain. “Mindless” activities, like weeding in the garden, are also surprisingly satisfying, as is cooking. Trying a new recipe is always fun because it’s quick, and creativity is so quickly rewarded with a tangible result—especially if it involves chocolate!

I also catch up on my TBR pile, but purely as a reader, not a writer. I take joy in being transported by the magic of someone else’s story. After a few days of puttering, I usually find that my new ideas have percolated long enough in my head that my fingers are itching to once again start the process of capturing them on cyber-paper.  

From Susan:

When the creative energy feels depleted, what works best for me is to try to do something nearly every day to recharge the battery -- such  as listening to music, reading a little, going for a walk, or doing  some tai chi (that and qigong can help center and fuel the creative  effort, and also keep me healthy with the long writing hours!).  Reading can fill the well too, as I feel an urge to write my own stuff, though sometimes reading does the opposite--I tend to stay away  from reading anything similar to what I'm writing when in the midst of a project.
 
 Sometimes I have to recharge and calm down not because the well is so empty -- but because it's spilling over. The brain can get  overstimulated from high intensity writing and researching, and there  are times when the ideas are jumping, but the brain and body are  wearing down. A little downtime is a great remedy for that, and a  quick fix is to watch a little TV or a movie--though for me, the best  antidote for Too Many Words is to do something three-dimensional and  hands on, such as painting (this can be a wall, a room, or just a  small piece of furniture) or moving furniture around, knitting,  beading, whatever is easy and rewarding and doesn't involve written  words at all. Gardening and cooking work really well for filling the  Well, too, though I'm a better painter of walls and shover of > furniture than I am a gardener or a cook. After finishing a book, I've  painted whole rooms, and there is just something so satisfying about  finishing a 3D project in a day or so.
 
 The important thing is to recharge and refill often, not just when  you're creatively exhausted, in ways that make you feel good and happy, and that lend some balance to your life as well as more  creativity.

From Jo:

Brief answer -- write something different, even if just as a play break. Read different things, fiction and non-fiction. Go somewhere new. Meet someone different. Go on the internet and hang out in a group of people with an interest you can't begin to understand.

Pat back: LOL on Jo's prophetic words--hang out here with people so weird you can't begin to understand!  So, what do you do to "fill the well of creativity"?  Hobbies? I know Jen Stevenson does roller derby. Aggression, anyone?

Ask A Wench--About Filling the Well

  Pat here: It’s that time of the month when the wenches draw a question out of the question box and goof off. Today’s question comes from Keira Soleore who asks:  

What do (the wenches) do to refill the well of creativity? And how often do they do these things? How do they balance the mundane in their lives with the creative side?   

Thank you, Keira, and a copy of The Wicked Wyckerly is winging your way.

The first response coming to my mind is—my well needs filling? <G> I think my subconscious is connected to a natural spring that never stops flowing, threatening to drown me at times. Shutting off the spring so I can actually turn all those ideas into a book is the difficult part. That takes hard work and the wrong side of my brain. I’d much rather fill my computer with fairy tales that would probably never see the light of day if I didn’t edit them.

But on those occasions when I’ve fried my synapses on revising and editing, I take time off to read and garden or take walks through the zoo or botanical garden or maybe historic St Charles.  If I drive any  farther, I’m likely to unplug the spring just watching cornfields passing by! (That's St Charles in the photo)


Mary Jo responds:

I have the advantage of a short attention span, so even when I'm in my Most Serious Book Mode, I'm not all - that- focused.  When the book goes in--well, I Live Life.  Read more books, cook more, travel more.  (But none of those things entirely vanish from my life even when I'm crunching into a deadline.) 
 
I think a key to maintaining the well is the curious mind that just about all writers have.  It's seeing an item in the newspaper and googling for more information and ending up on unexpected websites.  (Pat notes—her IT husband calls this running down rabbit holes) It's looking at a catalog and seeing something like a reproduction gimmal ring and thinking, "I can use that in my next book." 
 
Really, the problem isn't keeping the well filled.  It's keeping it from overflowing. <G>

(Pat--Ha, and I wrote my paragraph before I even saw Mary Jo’s! So, maybe we’re both nuts.)

******

Joanna writes:

I'm going to be corny and say that when I'm feeling about as creative as a medium-sized rock and I do not want to think about the writing deadline that's looming up over the hill like a grinning Tyrannosaurus rex, I take the dog for a walk in the woods.

No people.  Nothing but trees and the stream doing its stream thing to one side and wild flowers and maybe a couple turkey buzzards circling in the sky, wondering whether I'm going to keel over and provide them with a meal, hope springing eternal.

 So it is all very Eighteenth Century European Romantic Movement, except that I don't have Byron and Shelley with me or even Johnny Depp.  I walk along thinking, 'There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,' and poetry of that sort, though if I were really in a pathless woods I'd actually be wondering how I was going to get out of it, but the principle is there, if you see what I mean.

Nicola writes:

I have several tried and tested methods to help nurture creativity. One is to visit a historic house and simply absorb the atmosphere. I usually find that this gives me that tickle down the neck that I associate with coming alive to new ideas and plans. Similarly going to a museum or gallery can stimulate lots of story ideas and I soon find my notebook filling up again. The other thing I do is to take long walks in the country. I always think better outdoors - it's as though there are no limits on my imagination when I am outside. So my poor dog will just have settled down for a snooze and I'll be there in my walking boots, lead in hand, and he'll haul himself upright and we'll be off. As soon as I step outdoors I start to feel more inspired. I'll go for a walk most days but balancing the mundane and the creative can be tricky. If I am absorbed in a book I'll tend to neglect the mundane which is why there will always be an enormous pile of ironing waiting for me at the end of a book!

Since I have several more lovely posts from wenches and I'm inundated with revisions and those ugly details that don't involve letting my mind roam wild, I'm going to continue this blog on Monday--Pat

Walking the Labyrinth

By Mary Jo

Because I'm thisclose to finishing my book and don't have time to write a new blog, I'm invoking Wench Privilege to rework an old one on labyrinths. 

There are two reasons for this. Firstly, I had two friends staying over the weekend so we drove to the nearby Benedictine foundation and walked the labyrinth on their beautiful leafy grounds.  It was peaceful and relaxing even with the Baltimore Beltway and a county road maintenance yard literally a stone's throw away.  Or less.  <G>

Also, a few days ago I reread my contemporary romance, The Spiral Path.  The title comes from a labyrinth that was part of the hero’s healing journey, as well a metaphor for the complexity of the characters’ lives and relationship. (And the reason I reread it now was because when I'm finishing a book, I don't want to be distracted with wondering what happens next in whatever story I'm reading. <G>)   

I discovered labyrinths when I visited my author friend Ciji Ware, who was living in San Francisco at the time.  She and her husband marched us up the hill to Grace Cathedral after dinner and we walked the labyrinth on the cathedral grounds.  There is something immensely soothing about the process—right and left brain being balanced, even if several noisy teens are walking at the same time.

Intrigued, I did some research and found that originally the words labyrinth and maze were used interchangeably, but these days, “maze” is usually used for walkways surrounded by towering hedges with dead ends and an intention to confuse.  The famous maze at Hampton Court in England has a man on a platform in the middle to tell baffled tourists how to find their way out. <g> 

A labyrinth, in contrast, is generally two dimensional and has a distinct pathway through.  You follow the path in to the center.  After contemplation, you follow the pathway out.  The route swings you around so that you can be close to the center and not reach it, then become headed off to the perimeter again.  Rather like life, which is why walking a labyrinth is such a meditative experience.  Here’s a Wikipedia description that will probably tell you more than you really want to know about labyrinths <g>: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labyrinth

It turns out that Grace Cathedral in San Francisco is central to the current revival of interest in labyrinths.  Some medieval cathedrals had labyrinths inside.  People who couldn’t make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem (which most couldn’t), could walk the cathedral labyrinth on their knees, praying all the way.  (And those stone floors were hard!) 

Intrigued by the idea of labyrinths, several staffers from Grace Cathedral went to Chartres in France, couldn’t find anyone to give them permission, so they moved the chairs and rugs and copied the pattern, then took it back to San Francisco. They created both an indoor and an outdoor cathedral.

Now there are labyrinths everywhere, usually at churches.  There are also portable labyrinths on canvas rolls so they can be moved around.  To find one near you, check the Labyrinth Locator.

While the labyrinth was central to The Spiral Path, I included mazes in a couple of historicals.  In Dearly Beloved, the villain tries to hunt the heroine down in a maze so he can kill her.  (I visited Hampton Court’s maze for the research.  It was easy to imagine skullduggery there!  In Silk and Shadows, the hero and heroine find some privacy in the center of a maze.

I’m lucky to have a labyrinth within two miles of my home.  There is another that I've often walked on New Year's Day after attending an annual open house given by friends who live nearby.  It's a good way to balance thoughts of the old year and the new.

How many of you have experienced labyrinths?  Tell me some of your labyrinth experiences.  And if you haven’t—have I whetted your appetite to seek one out?

 

Mary Jo

Fairways and Featheries

Cara/Andrea here,
As some of you know, I occasionally lace on the trainers, sneakers, spikes or cleats as the resident Wench Jock. And as June and July roll around, I can’t help but get the urge to talk sports . . . teamed up with history of course!

In Great Britain, this is the high season for a host of traditional sporting events with a rich heritage and pageantry—Royal Ascot, the Henley Regatta, Wimbledon, and—teeing this week—the British Open golf championship. This year’s rota (the tournament currently rotates among nine courses) brings the Open to the venerable Old Course at St. Andrews, which is hallowed ground for golfers. 

So, seeing as I’ve waxed poetic on tennis, it seems like the  perfect time to take a whack at giving you a brief overview of the game.

 Okay—ready to roll?

Let me begin with a bit of heresy—at least to the Scots. Some people claim that the game originated in Holland, where the Dutch played a game called “kolven.” Old tile paintings do show figures with curved sticks that look very much like golf clubs, and apparently they played in winter, using the frozen canals as fairways. (There were even traveling beer carts that served as the nineteenth hole—an essential part of golf!)

But for the most part, the Scots get credit for inventing the game as we know it. It probably started with some shepherd using his crook to whack a stone at a distant  rabbit hole . . . whatever the inspiration, we do know that by 1457, the game was popular enough that James II had to pass a decree banning golf because it was interfering with the populace’s practice of archery. (Needless to say, that edict probably ruffled a few feathers!)

 The first golf club—The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers—was formed in 1744 and established the first “official” rules of the game. There were 13 in all . . . for those of you who are wondering, today’s list fills a rather thick book. Some of the more amusing modern rules deal with things like whether it is a stroke penalty if you hit a fish out of the water while playing your ball from a hazard and then put it back. (It all depends on whether the fish is dead or alive—I kid you not.) 

 The Society of St. Andrews Golfers was formed several years later. In 1834, in honor of King George IV becoming its patron, it changed its name to the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews. Those of you who watch the tournament on television will notice an elegant honey-colored stone building overlooking the ocean and strand by the first tee. That is the R&A clubhouse, which is probably one of the most recognizable buildings in all of sport.

The first golf clubs were made of beech, holly, dogwood, pear or apple, with shafts crafted of hickory, ash or hazel to add extra whip.  They had wonderfully evocative names—cleeks, mashies, spoons, niblicks, to list just a few. All were designed to hit a certain type of shot, and as the game evolved, people came up with some pretty unusual-looking implements. (Today, titanium, steel, polymers and graphite are the main components.)

The first clubmaker on record was William Mayne, who in 1603 was appointed to craft clubs for King James I of England. A few other notable Scottish craftsmen from the 17th century are Andrew Dickson of Leith and Henry Mill of St. Andrews. In Regency times, Hugh Philpp, also of St. Andrews, was considered the Stradivarius of his field. (I actually wrote a Regency golf romance under my Andrea Pickens pen name,entitled  A Diamond In The Rough, in which he makes a cameo appearance.)

Golf balls were originally made of tightly stitched leather stuffed with feathers. These “featheries” were used until 1848 when another St. Andrews resident experimented with gutta percha, a substance from India (the dried sap of the Sapodilla tree) which could be heated and formed into a hard round ball. At first, the “guttys” weren’t popular because their flight was erratic. Players noticed that they played better as they became nicked, and it was soon discovered that adding a pattern with a saddler’s hammer vastly improved the performance. (and thus we have the forerunner of modern dimples.) In 1903, the Haskell ball, which features a rubber core and a gutta percha cover, flattened the competition. Nowadays . . . oh, don’t ask.

Club design and ball design are regulated by the game’s international governing bodies (head size, grooves, number of dimples, trampoline effect, etc.) And players may only carry 14 clubs in their bag . . .yes, it’s another penalty if you have more. Golf, as you see, plays strictly by the rules.

There are many different styles of course design—mountain, desert, parkland, heathland—but for most purists, links golf is the heart and spirit of the game. The name “links” traditionally meant the land, usually scrubby, windswept sandy soil, that “linked” farmland to the sea. It’s now loosely used, but true links courses run along the ocean, where wind is a big factor in how shots are played. If you watch even a little of the tournament at St. Andrews you will see what I mean. Sandy dunes and the tall fescue grasses also come into play, as do bunkers, or sand traps, which originated because sheep tend to hollow out a protective shelter in a hill or a dune to shelter from the winds.

  Old Tom Morris, a legendary champion player who helped create the first British Championship in 1860, was also a noted course designer. Considered the father of modern greenskeeping, he made alterations to the Old Course at St. Andrews, as well as created his own designs throughout Great Britain. If you want to impress a golfer friend, here are some other notable golf architects. Classic designers from the early 20th century include Charles Blair Macdonald, Alister MacKenzie, Donald Ross and A. W. Tillinghast. Today’s stars include Robert Trent Jones (Sr. and Jr.), Tom Fazio, Pete Dye, Jack Nicklaus and Tom Doak.

So why, you might ask, do people spend a few hours trudging around in rain and sleet hitting a little ball into a hole? (Mark Twain is famous for calling it “a good walk spoiled.) Well, as someone who came to the game only recently, I wondered that myself. Growing up, I always played “action” sports like or tennis. (John McEnroe once remarked that golf wasn’t really a sport because one didn’t sweat  . . . he has since become an avid golfer and admits that he made a bad call.) However, I’ve really come to love the game.

As you walk a course, you have to really look at the land, and see the subtle contours as you plan where you want to hit a shot. You have to be aware of the wind and the humidity in the air. In other words, you really pay attention to nature and feel connected to the surroundings. In this day and age that’s something special. Also, it’s competitive in that for the most part you are playing the course, not an opponent. So as you walk with friends, you chat, you laugh . . . and you occasionally pause to hit your ball. I find that there is a very relaxing camaraderie among golfers, and when traveling, it makes a wonderful bond when you get to play with interesting people who share your love of the game. (This is a picture of me playing with the Duke of Roxburghe at the course he built on his lands in Scotland, which as you can imagine was quite a thrill)

Who will hoist the Claret Jug this year? (Another way to impress your golfing friends is to ask that question—the British Open trophy is one of the most distinctive trophies in sport. For the first years of competition, the prize was a belt made of silver and red morocco leather, but in 1873, after Young Tom Morris had won four times in a row and got to keep the belt, a new trophy was made, modeled on the wine carafe of the 19th century.) It’s anyone’s guess, but if you watch any of the tournament, keep an eye on the landscape and the weather as well as the players to truly appreciate the nuances of the game.

Now we’ve come to the end of the round, and I hope you have enjoyed a brief—and highly selective—stroll through the game’s history. Now it’s your turn. Do you have a favorite sport, especially in summer? And what makes it special for you? Or are you one of those people who find games just aren’t your cup of tea.

Let Them Eat Brioche

Joanna here.

One of the minor disappointments of life is that there are no croissants in the Regency.  My characters can enjoy flaky rolls, buns, sliced bread, tarts and all sorts of pastries for breakfast, but croissants didn't arrive in Paris till the late 1830s.  They're as anachronistic on the Regency table as cornflakes.

Regency folks can chow down on brioche though.  We got brioche. 

Brioche is a light yeast bread, eggy and somewhat sweet -- though the recipes tell us it was less sweet in 1800 than it is nowadays -- frequently carrying a nice surprise of nuts or raisins.  It was a veritable breakfast cliché in Paris in the Eighteenth Century.  Brioche would have been comfortable and familiar on any wealthy English breakfast table, those being the ones influenced by the French way of cooking.  By 1820, brioche was so common in England it was standard in cookbooks.

Which brings us to the question, how did a cook in a London or Paris household knead up a brioche for the gentility upstairs?

Carl Sagan said, "If you want to make an apple pie, you must first invent the universe."  Somewhat less ambitiously, if we wish to set brioche before our Regency lady and gentleman, we must invent some Regency cookery.

We start the universe with hydrogen.  
We start the brioche with flour, of which there were many kinds.  'Grist' was the most ordinary sort, flour with only the bran removed, used for making common bread.  But our urban household buys their day-to-day bread from a bakery.  They keep only fine white flour in the house for cakes and pastries and special puddings. 

Flour would have been delivered to the house in a big barrel.  In fact, a 'flour barrel' was a standard measure that held fourteen stone or just shy of 200 pounds, (ninety kilos,) of flour.  That would be the size of forty modern bags of flour, stacked. That would be a bit of a tight fit in my kitchen. 

Our Regency cook -- she's a formidable woman wearing a big white apron with the bib pinned up high on the shoulders -- is monarch of a substantial domain,  including some extensive food storage in the pantry, which is where they roll that flour barrel.  When she sets out to make brioche, she sends some hapless underling -- the kitchenmaid -- to pop up the lid of the barrel and scoop out an earthenware bowl of flour. 

Our flour is sifted through a round sieve at this point to remove any ambitious wildlife that might have found a way in. 

Then -- Take four pounds of very dry flour.  Lay the flour on the table after you have sifted it, says an 1828 recipe. 

The cook would take part of that flour to mix up a 'sponge' of flour, water and a dollop of yeast from her yeast-on-go supply she has back in the pantry.  She'd cover the bowl of sponge and set it to keep warm next to the fire.  This gives the yeast a kickstart and makes  sure it's working. 

Cook keeps her own little farm of yeast going, stored in a jug on a cool shelf in the pantry, covered with a cloth.  She might stick a quill through the cloth to let gases escape.

Here's how she makes yeast:
Mix two quarts of soft water with wheat flour, to the consistence of thick gruel, or soft hasty pudding; boil it gently for half an hour, and when almost cold, stir into it half a pound of sugar, and four spoonfuls of good yeast. Put it into a large jug, or earthen vessel, with a narrow top, and place it before the fire, so that it may, by a moderate heat, ferment. The fermentation will throw up a thin liquor, which pour off and throw away; the remainder keep for use in a cool place in a bottle, or jug tied over. 

The water our Cook uses in Mayfair comes from twenty miles away in Hertfordshire by way of a reservoir in Islington.  From there, it travels in iron pipes to the west of London. 

In Paris, in the Regency era, water is still delivered by water carriers.  Drinking water in Paris would be stored in a copper cistern in some handy spot in the kitchen.

Our cook has set the sponge aside to do its frothing while she performs other useful and interesting culinary tasks.   After an hour or so she comes back and sets herself up at the big working table.  All the ingredients are at hand.  Flour.  Eggs.  A bit of salt.  A bit of sugar.  Raisins.  The yeast is in its bowl, all sprightly and blowing off bubbles in the sponge.  We're ready.

A period recipe says: Make a great hole in the flour, put four small pinches of salt on as many different places, with a good pinch of sugar to correct the bitter taste of the yeast, and a little water to melt the salt. Then take two pounds of butter, which you break into small pieces with your hand, and put in the middle of the flour: next break the eggs, and smell them successively to ascertain if they are good: mix the whole well together. 

Salt she probably bought in a grocery.  This would be a small shop by modern standards, the place to pick up coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar, raisins, and spices.  This is a modern and forward-looking, brioche-eating Regency  household, so our cook probably bought 'basket salt' that came from the salt springs in Cheshire instead  of the common sea salt.  Basket salt was considered superior for its whiteness, purity and fineness of grain.  In the kitchen, the store of salt would be a saltbox, a small, square, lidded wood box that stayed dry next to the fireplace.  The saltbox might rest on a shelf, or have a niche by the oven designed to hold it, or hang from a nail in the wall.  Our cook would take a small bowl of salt from the box and put it handy on the table, ready to dip a pinch out when needed.

On to the sugar. 

I always wondered, in a desultory manner, why 'sugar loaf' mountains don't look like loaves.

In the Regency, sugar came to the household as a big tall cone.  This was because, out in the Caribbean, the end of the process of sugar making was to pour thick sugar syrup into cone-shaped molds and let it harden.  The little hills of Vermont look like those cones.

We buy bags of granular, free-running sugar.  We pay extra for hard sugar formed into cubes. 

Our Regency cook, on the other hand, just naturally expected sugar to come in a rock-hard cone.  To get pouring sugar she had to chip or saw pieces off the cone, pound them into submission and grind them up fine in a mortar and pestle.
Grind, grind.   More work for the kitchenmaid.

 

This here is a 'sugar nipper', not a Medieval torture instrument.  They use sugar nippers to nip off handy-sized bits for putting in tea.  'One lump or two' was the result  of this artistic handwork. 

Can you see a fussy Grande Dame looking over the sugar bowl and trying to decide whether the sugar lumps are running kinda puny before she commits herself to how many she wants?

Milk was brought to the kitchen door at the crack of dawn by clear-complexioned  and buxom -- buxom means having big breasts, but it's a really polite way to point this out -- milkmaids.  They carry a pair of cans suspended from a yoke over their shoulders and dole out a helping into the kitchen jug, using various measuring dippers.  Cream was sold separately from the milk.
The cook would strain the milk one last time before using it.

Our cook buys her butter in the open air markets of the city when she's going from booth to booth, comparing freshness of all those lettuces and carrots.  She probably goes to a farmer's wife she knows whose butter costs a little more and whose product is superior.  This would be butter that was never let go rancid and then 'refreshed' by kneading it through  many washes of water.

Mistress Farm Wife molds her butter into fancy shapes using a wood butter mold.  The top comes out stamped with the unique design that tells the knowledgeable what farm the butter came from.

The cook might buy her eggs right from the same market. 

Talking about  eggs . . . 
I had this mistaken assumption that brown-shelled eggs were traditional, old-fashioned eggs and white eggs were sorta modern.  I guess I assumed they came up with white eggs in the Fifties to be hygienic and streamlined. 

Not so much.  If you go searching back through the visual record of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,  all the eggs are white.  Yup.  White eggs everywhere. 

Now it might be all that preponderance of white eggs used in paintings could be because they're more -- to steal a modern idea -- 'photogenic'.  But I'm inclined to  think the eggs the cook broke into the dough were white.

Flour, water, yeast, salt, sugar, eggs.  At this point, much kneading is proceeding.

The final ingredient this morning is raisins, because this is a somewhat festive brioche, a gay and debonair brioche to cheer everyone up.

Before the mid-Nineteenth Century, just about all grapes had seeds in them.  Recipes call for 'stoned raisins' which means they'd had the seeds removed, not that the raisins were inebriated.  To get the seeds out, you'd cut each raisin open with a small knife or split them apart with fingers and pop the seeds out, a process that must have been tedious in the extreme.    

One kind of naturally seedless grape of the time is the small, dark, sweet raisin, grown in Greece and exported all over Europe.  They're called currants, after Corinth in Greece. 
These currants are grapes, though, and not to be confused with the 'black currants' that grow on a bush and are related to gooseberries. 

Why they decided to call two entirely different and unrelated fruits the same word I cannot imagine.  It's not as if we are short of words.

I mean, sometime you look at the language and just wonder, 'why?'

Raisins come to the household still on the vine, as it were.   They're dried in the sun as bunches and sold attached to the twigs and branches, from which they must be removed before they are washed and rolled in flour and kneaded into the dough.

We're at the finish line.  Our brioche dough makes a firm sphere. Cook adds one fanciful flourish.   A small ball of dough is pressed into the very top to make that cap that is the traditional Brioche experience. 

The brioche is tied into a paper and ready to bake.  Later on, in Victorian times, they'll get around to using distinctive, fluted baking dishes. Now it's paper cookery.

And so, to the oven.

creative commons photocredits starter sponge chatirygirl, brioche dessertfirst, sugar cone felix.   

When Marie Antoinette was not saying, 'let them eat cake' --
which she didn't say because the phrase was around before poor Marie Antoinette arrived in France --
what she didn't say was, 'Let them eat brioche.' 

Which I will now leave my Regency ladies and gentlemen to get down to.   

Thinking back, I find I have set my characters down to eat breakfast in all three books.  Annique has a bowl of milky coffee and a flaky pastry in The SPYMASTER'S LADY.  Jessamyn is offered toast and tea in MY LORD AND SPYMASTER.  And Maggie toys with surprisingly good coffee and a slice of bread at the café in THE FORBIDDEN ROSE. 

What does a hero eat for breakfast?  (Villains.  Right.  I set myself up for that.) 
No, really.  Roarke and Eve just finished French Toast for breakfast.  When you picture a heroic character just rolling out of bed, what does he have for breakfast? 

In the hands of hairdressers...

 Anne here. Thinking about Nicola's blog about what she does when she's finished a book, I realized one thing I invariably do when I've completed a book — or indeed, any big, long-term task, is go and get a haircut. 

    I love the feeling of going into the hairdresser's tired and a bit dreary and coming out feeling transformed, even if it's not a transformation that's terribly visible to others. I enjoy the pampering, the scalp massage, and the final result — the slightly new-and-better me I have to present to the world.   

    At the same time there's also a certain level of anxiety — I'm sure we've all experienced it, haven't we — the baaaaad haircut or the nasty dye job. The time when you emerge from under the towels and the goop and the blow-drying and stare appalled into the mirror and realize there is nothing that can be done except go home and stick a paper bag over your head for a week or two. (OK, you can also wear a hat, but hey, where's the drama in that?) 

    For most of my life, hairdressers were a non-event for me — I had long hair and all it needed was an occasional trim across the bottom, and I always got a friend to do it.   It was easy to manage — I could leave it loose, plait it, braid it, or knot it. I could even stick a chopstick through it and the knot would stay all day.  But when I finally cut off my long hair the world of hairdressing opened up.

    The thing about hairdressers, is you need to shop around to find one who suits you. That means each time you try a new one, you risk your hair —and your ego.

      One time I went into the hairdresser's with overlong, shaggy hair — I'd decided to go for a longer look, so had grown it out. I asked for a cut and blonde highlights. I was born a blonde and was naturally silvery blonde until my late twenties, when my hair started to darken — in all the pictures on my life story on my website, the hair is untreated, apart from summer sun-bleaching. These days it's just plain mouse brown, so now I pay money to return it to what I think of as my natural color.

    So there I was with my hairstyle and color grown out, and I told the stylist what I wanted: a longer style and creamy blonde highlights — subtext: a fresh new gorgeous me, please. 

    I came out of that place with very short hair (about an inch all over) dyed an ash gray, feeling and looking a lot older than I'd gone in, and wishing I'd brought a large paper bag with me. I know I could have demanded they fix the color, at least, but I don't much trust people who've ruined your hair once. So I never went back and now I've found me a new hairdresser and so far have been very happy.  

    I originally went in there because I was going on TV the following day, and the only other time I'd been on TV the make-up department had teased my hair up into a style I'd never in my life wear — I call it Helmet o' Hair and I felt like an escapee from the 1960's. Ghastly. So I went to my new hairdresser with the brief that I wanted a hair cut which would render a Helmet o' Hair-do impossible. I'm glad to say he succeeded. It's the cut in the picture on the sidebar.

    A good haircut or hairdo is, I think, essential to feeling good. In my upcoming (October) book my heroine has a friend who's a dairymaid — the worst dairymaid in the world — she hates cows. Her aim in life is to become a lady's maid, and she practices creating hairstyles on my heroine. It's a period of time out and pleasure for both of them.

What fascinates me is how wildly hair fashions change from period to period, and the huge time, expense and money we women go to to achieve it. And at any one time, the current fashionable style looks hideous on a good proportion of the population.

    Think how it would have been to go from this:
 

    To this.
 

    All in a generation or so. (The pics are of Queen Marie Antoinette of France and Lady Caroline Lamb, by the way)

    Not all that different to this, in scope, I suppose, in just a few years. Anyone own to any of these styles in their past?

       
 
       But if I thought the torture of a tipping cap (like being pecked by a hundred birds) was bad (thank goodness for foils) imagine what these women would have had to endure to achieve these styles. created over frames of wire, and with loads of fake hair and curls and all kinds of interesting ornaments and combs and decorations attached. The weight of it! The balance! The heat! The neck-ache!

    Of course, the more extreme styles would have been wigs, and they'd probably have short cropped hair underneath, but even so, imagine walking or dancing or eating with such towering edifice on your head. I can just imagine sitting down to a bowl of soup and splash! there goes my expensive hairdo into the soup and me left bald and blushing. 

    So glad my heroine and her friend only have to cope with regency hairdos and not these monstrosities. And very glad I was born when I was.
 
   So let's talk hair — did any of the styles shown in the pics ring a bell for you? And what's the worst bad hair experience you've had?

Five Ways to Celebrate!

  Nicola here. I've sent in the revisions to my latest manuscript and I'm celebrating! I plan on doing some cooking, catching up with the gardening and taking Monty the Labrador for some lovely long walks in the countryside. And then there's the reading and the TV viewing, some for research and some for pure pleasure. Here are some of my indulgences:

The Books:

Yes, there's a big pile of books that have been sitting on my desk trying to tempt me away from my writing and now at last I can fall on them and gobble them up! First up is The Immortal Dinner by Penelope Hughes-Hallett. I heard about this when I was reading Penelope's obituary and it immediately intrigued me. At the end of December 1817, Benjamin Hayden, history painter of gigantic canvases, gave a dinner party to which he invited his young friend the budding poet John Keats in order for Keats to meet his hero William Wordsworth. The other guests included the essayist Charles Lamb and the explorer Joseph Ritchie and the evening was such a party of brilliance and wit that it became known as The Immortal Dinner. (Mind you, that was Hayden describing his own dinner party and he never knowingly undersold himself!) Not only does Penelope Hughes-Hallet give an account of the dinner itself but she also sets it against the wider backdrop of the Regency and it is fascinating.

Next is Dressed to Kill, British Naval Uniform, Masculinity and Contemporary Fashions 1748 - 1857 by Amy Miller. I have to say that it was the cover of this book that first hooked me. I am a sucker for uniforms and this one doesn't even have a hunky looking man inside it but it still looks great. I love the idea of exploring issues of masculinity and the social messages encoded in clothing through looking at Navy uniforms. As the book says, male dress, particularly something as heavily regulated as uniform, illustrates the shifting standards of masculinity and provides insight into what British society in the 18th and 19th centuries valued as "the ideal man." The illustrations are sumptuous too!

Finally something a bit different: Up and Down Stairs, The History of the Country House Servant by Jeremy Musson. This is a great book filled with lots of gems of information about life in the servants' hall, from the insight into a butler's duties: "must be able to shoot and shave well," one advertisement of 1775 declared, to the requirements for a lady's maid: "She must not have a will of her own in anything...She must not have a great appetite and had better drink nothing but water." Lady Dorothy Nevill dismissed her lady's maid when she discovered that the woman had been making free with her wardrobe as costumes for amateur dramatics!

The documentaries:

From reading to viewing, and I have two programmes recorded that I am particularly looking forward to watching. The first is The Untold Battle of Trafalgar which reveals that 1400 men in Nelson's fleet at Trafalgar were foreign sailors of 25 different nationalities including Swedes, Danes, Portuguese, Americans and even the French themselves. Drawing on the records of the HMS Bellerophon, the programme tells the story of the foreign sailors, how many were lured into the British Navy by the prospect of sharing a bounty of £1.5 million but ended up with only £7 each, and how they were dismissed from the service in 1815 when many ended up begging on the streets.

From war to art, and a programme called Rude Britannia exploring British traditions of satire and bawdy humour. I'm most excited about the episode on the 18th century which explores the cartoons of Gillray, Cruickshank and Hogarth. Alongside the political satire there is also an examination of bawdy street ballads, the earthy theatrical productions of Henry Fielding and scandalous literature, from Lawrence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy to the priapic adventures of Byron’s Don Juan. A must see!

The Films:

I'm getting very self-indulgent now but part of my treat has to be to watch (again!) some of my favourite costume dramas. It's all good for research, of course... St Ives or All for Love, based on the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson is one of my top 10 costume dramas. The plot has several improbable coincidences that I'm sure none of us would get away with today but who cares, because it's such fun! Handsome aristocratic French prisoner of war falls for gorgeous Scots girl who helps him escape. He sees off the threat of his villainous brother and is restored to his rightful inheritance, getting the girl, the fortune and the stunning country house!

As if that wouldn't be romance enough, it's time for another outing for my DVD of The Abduction Club. Set in 18th century Ireland this is the "true" story of a group of handsome but penniless young men who abduct heiresses to try to persuade them into marriage. Everything goes wrong when our two charming heroes abduct two very spirited sisters and end up on the run. Fabulous dialogue, great chemistry, one of my all time favourites.

The Historic House:

There's also time to squeeze in a visit to an historic house and I'm off to Uppark House in Hampshire, which has an elegant Georgian interior with a famous Grand Tour collection including paintings, furniture and ceramics. One of the highlights is an 18th-century dolls' house with the original contents that I can't wait to see. The collection was accumulated by Sir Matthew Fetherstonhaugh between 1749 and 1751 and augmented by Sir Matthew's son Sir Harry, who lived a prodigal life at Uppark entertaining lavishly and included the Prince Regent among his frequent guests. At the age of over 70 Sir Harry married his dairy maid and he left the entire estate to her on his death in 1846.

The RNA Conference:

And finally at the end of the week I'm off to the Romantic Novelists Conference in Greenwich, London. It's our Golden Jubilee year so there will be plenty more celebrations as well as the opportunity to visit the National Maritime Museum, the Royal Observatory and The Cutty Sark.

So those are some of my end-of-book celebrations! When you treat yourself, what is your favourite indulgence?

Sunday Announcements

Happy Independence Day to our American readers! May you have a sunny day with friends or family (or both!) and lots of good food.

COVER CONTEST

Cover Cafe just published the results of its annual cover contest and two Wenches made the grade with their book covers.  Nicola's cover of The Scandals of an Innocent won top prize in the Two Images category. According to contest officials, Nicola's cover won by a wide margin. The judges especially loved the gown flowing from the front cover to the back.

In the Historical category, Jo's UK cover for Lady Notorious won 4th place.  The judges chose the cover because of its simplicity and richness, praising it for the lack of fussiness. Several of the judges liked the cover model's beautiful hair and mysterious expression.

 

 

 

WINNERS

And speaking of winners, we have more new book winners chosen from those who left comments to our recent blog posts.  Guest Pam Rosenthal awarded a book to Brenda Hill, and Virginia Campbell and Liz Montgomery won books from Patricia Rice.  Congratulations, winners!

The Lewis Chessmen

I can only do a short blog because I'm rushing to finish off An Unlikely Countess before leaving for a month in North America next Wednesday. My first stop will be the new readers' conference, RomCon, in Denver. If you're in the area  you may want to check out the events. There are day tickets and a book signing.

At the end of the month I'll be at RWA in Orlando, or to be more precise, Disneyworld. :) There's a big signing there, too. In the middle of my trip I'll be blogging from Toronto, so who knows what I'll have to share?

I'm constantly amazed at the programs on BBC Radio 4. This morning a caught a bit about the Anglo-Saxon ruler, Athelstan, and just now, something about Caravaggio. Excuse to share the almost naked young Sean Bean from our infamous "naked blog" a few years back. It's from a film about the artist.

For some time now, BBC 4 has been running The History of The World In 100 objects, (from the British Museum) which is always interesting. One of this week's programmes was on the Lewis Chessmen.

You can see them here on the BBC web site, but here's one line drawings   This is the queen. The website says she looks worried about the weather, but to me that's the precise pose of a woman seeing a disaster. We see it again and again in pictures of warzones, natural disasters and such. I don't know why we do it, but it seems universal. That's an example of how the chess pieces capture humanity.

I first really paid attention to them when I was writing Lord of My Heart, my first medieval, where the hero is torn between Norman and English heritage. The Lewis Chessmen seemed to say a lot about the culture of the time, and especially war. That's the original cover.

You can listen to the 15 minute segment on the Lewis Chessmen at the above page, or read the transcript here. There's a lot of interesting information about chess around the world, including changes in the queen.

You can listen to, or download, back segments. If you do, please comment below on any you find particularly interesting.

You could also look at the items shared by the public. Click here. Do you have anything you'd share as reflecting a moment in time?

I hope you're having a wonderful summer. Here's a picture of a 16th century in Barnard Castle, a town in County Durham. (Not Durham County. One of those English oddities!) We visited friends there recently, and also checked out Darlington and Northallerton, which play a part in An Unlikely Countess.

Jo