Word Wenches

The Fictional Cities

Joanna here.

I was writing the other day, trying to get a picture of the scene so I could decide just how close everybody had to be. My mind wandered off, thinking about how writers use scenery and all the nifty useful things they do with it. This did not, you understand, help me actually write, but it was a nice sneaky bit of procrastination.

Writers add scenery to a story so the characters are not floating around in an undifferentiated, moist white mist, which would be annoying for all concerned. We describe what the character sees and hears and touches and smells because it helps us reveal the interior of that person we're creating. It makes them real.

“When good Americans die, they go to Paris.” Oscar Wilde

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But then, if you’re lucky, the scenery goes off and acquires a personality all in itself.

 

When I put my people in Paris, I want the reader to feel the city all around. I want bakeries in the Marais with the smell of bread on the wind. I want cafe tables on the Left Bank.

“We'll always have Paris.”

I want London with its East End slums and the smell of dank fog rolling off the Thames. London with intimate, small alleys and cobbles underfoot.


London is too full of fogs and serious people. Whether the fogs produce the serious people, or whether the serious people produce the fogs, I don't know. Oscar Wilde


But I want more.
I create my people, hoping readers will like them and be intrigued by them. I spin them out of men and women I've known and fiction I've read and from little parts of myself. I make my cities the same way, from history books and old paintings, from fiction, from walking down their streets and from my imagination of them.

I grow fond of the cities I make. My fictional London with its Secret Spy Headquarters at Meeks Street and its Den of Thieves. My Paris with its winding alleys and places of stark and dangerous beauty. 

And in the end, when I give my characters to my readers, I find I also want to bring readers to my fictional city and the real city and say, “Dearest Reader, meet Paris. You two have so much in common. I’m sure you’ll have a lot to talk about. Paris, my dear, meet Reader.”

 

Do you know a city or town that seems almost alive? A place you’d like to set a story in so other folks could learn to love it?

What We Are Reading

Andrea/Cara here, with our first report on what we've been reading in the new year. As usual, it's an eclectic array of genres with a variety of voices. So without further ado, let's look inside the covers!

Pat:
Just like the title, Just One Damned Thing After Another (Book 1-The Chronicles of St Mary’s) by Jodi Taylor, is fast-paced, action-oriented, and smart-mouthed. And funny. And horrible. And amazingly well-written and a treat for history nerds. The book is about historians. Who knew historians were a laugh-a-minute kind of tribe? Well, when they’re always living on the brink of extinction and everyone around them is dying, one has to find some way of facing the day, I guess. This is not for the weak of heart, but it does have a lovely, dry romance, several, in fact. And a whole lot of people die, some of them in a literal sh*t storm. But the historians are desperately seeking to save history, and I can relate. The first half of the book is actually a slow world-building hill so you can settle in comfortably. After that, all bets are off. I will admit, after a while, I skimmed the battle scenes just as I skim the sex scenes in romance, but I was well-satisfied just the same. For the adventurous among us!

And for a totally different change of pace in this horrid political season, how about uproarious political satire—although in this case, it’s more like judicial satire. In No Way To Treat A First Lady by Christopher Buckley, the First Lady is accused of assassinating the president by beaning him with a Paul Revere spittoon. Does that give you an idea of the humor? The amazingly fun part of this book is that every time the reader thinks s/he has a grasp of the story, the author turns the whole thing on its head and spins off in another hilarious direction. The ending is totally satisfying.

Mary Jo:
I’ve really been enjoying The Innkeeper Series by Ilona Andrews. Ilona Andrews is actually a husband and wife team that writes several very successful urban fantasy series.  The Innkeeper books were more of a play project, with Ilona writing chapters of the story and posting them on her blog for her fans to read.  At the end of the novel, she edited them and published the result as an e-book.

A Gentle Stranding

Susan here …  after the last few weeks, I am more than ready to be stranded on a desert island for a long, long time. I want quiet, simplicity, sunshine (so drizzly and dreary here), and lots of peaceful solitude. You can come too –there are plenty of uncharted islands and remote spots to go around for all of us. We could find our own archipelago.

What would you bring with you? A stack of keeper books, of course, but what else?

You've been gently stranded – you know that a rescue helicopter or ship is on the way, but it will take a while to reach you, perhaps a week, a month, a year (trust me, I'm tempted!). 

Where is this? It's like a paradise. You've washed up on an island with soft white sands, palm trees, lush plants, sunlight and warm, balmy winds, the shushing rhythms of the sea filling the air along with birdsong. This is a special, almost magical place with plenty of fresh water in trickling springs and lots of easy, enjoyable food sources - coconuts, berries, bananas, mangoes and other fruits, nuts and seeds, veggies too, enough to sustain for a long time. No need to fish, but you can if you want to deal with that (no thanks!).

Someone has been here before - there's a roomy hut, solidly built and beautifully fitted out in the shade of a palm tree grove. It’s a perfect glamping getaway, with fresh linens and soft carpets, a comfy chair, a table, a few dishes. (The outhouse is glamorous too!) The campfire is already laid out with lots of dry kindling. There are candles and a lantern. And lots of silky pillows on the soft bed.

The island has everything to support a gentle existence for quite a while -- beautiful beaches, a calm surf at your toes, lovely little pools, glorious dawns and sunsets, lots of warm sun ... and higher up, mountains, pine trees, springs and lakes, flowers along the pathways—even crystals and gems in the rocky hills as you walk around your island.

But it is a deserted island and all, so there's no internet, no email and social media, no news reports. No memes. There's a little crank generator so you can have some electricity if you need it. Otherwise there’s nothing to do but read, write, walk the beaches and follow paths up into the hills, and spend time however you like. You can nibble fruits and nuts and drink lots of cool fresh water (you could even make juice and coconut milk, and find herbs for tea).  You can read on the beach – maybe you’ll make a chair out of fallen branches, grasses and leaves, or maybe you’ll find an old beach chair somewhere in that lovely hut.     

So – what would you want with you for this gentle stranding, this escape and chance to jump off the grid? What’s most important, what are your very favorite things, what might you have in a bag or two that washed up with you? A few favorite books. Notebooks and pens. Sunscreen, sunglasses, a hat. Skin lotion, lovely soaps. Sandals, sweater ….

A few of the Wenches have some thoughts on this. One of us is actually away on vacation at the moment, off to some balmy tropical place and experiencing a little of this secluded peacefulness. Here's what the Wenches have to say . . . 

Marching in Protest

On August 16, 1819 in St. Peter’s Field, Manchester England, 60,000 peaceful protestors marched with banners declaring UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE (at that date even men couldn’t vote, unless they owned land) REPRESENTATION, and LOVE. Other than the cart the speakers stood on, it wasn’t so different from the women’s marches last week.

The Manchester protesters were peaceful, but at the time, the Riot Act was in force. This abominable act had been passed during another turbulent time in the early 18^th century. It allowed a mayor, bailiff, sheriff, or any other “head officer” to declare a riot anytime more than twelve people were assembled “Unlawfully, riotously, and tumultuously.”  If the group didn’t disperse within an hour after the act was read, they were guilty of felony—and punishable by death.

On Porridge

Anne here, and today I'm talking about porridge — or as many people call it, oatmeal. 

Technically the word 'porridge' can refer to any kind of grain cooked into a mush, but for anyone with even a drop of Scottish blood, porridge means only one thing — oatmeal porridge.

Samuel Johnson, the 18th century English writer and lexicographer, best known for ‘Dr. Samuel Johnson's Dictionary’ (1755) defined oats thus: "A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people." 

Just a tad prejudiced, don't you think? Well, it was only a decade after the failed Scottish uprising against the English. And to Johnson's definition, someone not quite so anti-Scottish responded: "Ah yes, sir, but where will you find such horses, such people?"

The Bitter East End

 

Just a block party, really

Joanna here.

I set a novella in East London recently. It got me thinking about how we see what is unfamiliar as a dire, strange, dangerous place. Especially if it is, like, dire and dangerous.

I'm thinking of the bad parts of cities, mostly, which is by no means a new idea. They probably had good and bad sections of the early mud daub and wattle villages of the Bronze Age farmers.

London’s East End — Seven Dials, Whitechapel, and so on — in the period in which I’ve been writing, was just a horrific slum, full of crime and disease, with the added bonus of various shady characters who would as soon knock you over the head as look at you.

Here’s a Victorian account of travelling into deepest Whitechapel:

We dismiss our cab: it would be useless in the strange, dark byeways, to which we are bound: natives of which will look upon us as the Japanese looked upon us the first European travellers in the streets of Jeddo. The missionary, the parish doctor, the rent collector (who must be a bold man indeed), the policeman, the detective, and the humble undertaker, are the human beings from without who enter this weird and horrible Bluegate Fields. 

We arrived at Whitechapel Police Station, to pick up the superintendent of savage London. He had some poor specimens — maundering drunk — in his cells already — and it was hardly nine o'clock. 

Bond Street, not nearly as cool as you think

We plunge into a maze of courts and narrow streets of low houses — nearly all the doors of which are open, showing kitchen fires blazing far in the interior, and strange figures moving about. 

At dark corners, lurking men keep close to the wall; and the police smile when we wonder what would become of a lonely wanderer who should find himself in these regions unprotected. "He would be stripped to his shirt" was the candid answer — made while we threaded an extraordinary tangle of dark alleys where two men could just walk abreast, under the flickering lamps jutting from the ebon walls, to mark the corners.
Jerrold Blanchard, London: A Pilgrimage 1872 

Sounds pretty grim, does it not? Living there was doubtless a bit of a challenge for our great-great-greats who lived there. Also for those who inhabited the slums of New York or Washington,D.C., or the seedier parts of Berlin or Naples. Though at least it would have been warm in Naples.

 

Wild times in the Regency slums

But let me get up on one of my hobbyhorses here. (jo climbs up, holding her skirts carefully so nobody gets a flash look at her ankles.)

The most important thing about the rookeries of London in 1802 — and the Roman tenements in 79 AD and the slums of SE Washington DC in 1960 — is that the denizens of the place were 'at home'.  For them it wasn't a landscape of horror. 

Those men and women were ordinary folk.  Living in these stacked-up, decrepit buildings and dirty streets were ordinary, well-meaning, hard-working people, not monsters.  The violent gangs hanging out on street corners were a dangerous minority who preyed on and were hated by everyone else.

I keep this on one side of my mind when I’m writing about my dicey Regency people.

When the heroine makes a wrong turn and ends up in a bad neighborhood, she hasn't fallen into a pit of vipers. Those people passing her on the narrow slum street and the ones living three flights up in those poorly repaired buildings are no better nor worse than the everyday folks she passes in Mayfair. Her maidservant grew up a block to the left. Her cook has a brother living down at the end of the alley. That's where the cook goes every Sunday on her day off Your heroine's problem is not that the streets are populated with slavering hyenas. It's that she's conspicuous. 

Here I am in My Lord and Spymaster trying to show the heroine as someone who comes from the mean streets, who understands them, who recognizes the dangers but doesn't see the place as a filthy hell filled with maniacal demons.

 

That's me in some past life

I think, both as writers and as readers, we have to look past the Victorian descriptions and illustrations of the poorer quarters. Every historical representation of these is by someone from outside, making a point. The contemporary writer or painter says as much about himself as about what he's reporting.  Hogarth's Gin Lane is propaganda. Propaganda from the good guys, but still, a selection of detail to make a point.

So I walk my 1802 or 1766 heroine into the rougher sections of town. Some of them are at home there and some of them are not. But I try not to always assume the alley is a seething cauldron of evil into which she had incautiously been tipped.

Those filthy and villainous women — no better than they should be — eyeing my heroine as she cringes along her way ... I suspect those were my ancestors, not the rich lord who's about to rescue her. I can just see myself scratching my nose and summing up the value of the heroine's ensemble, wondering if I can make off with it.

So what about you? Any preference for villainous ancestors over more respectable ones?

Or ... do you know?

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Friends, Lovers, and Strangers

by Mary Jo

Years ago I read about a study that looked at the difference between meeting someone and having a crazed affair that burns out quickly, and passions that becomes life-long true love. Their conclusion: there IS no difference at the beginning.

A romance is about the courtship, the developing relationship, and a romance writer's job is to make that relationship believable so that when readers close the book, they can smile and know the couple is together forever. 

Ask A Wench - Plans for 2017!

Plans can be a wonderful thing. They can give us a shape and structure for the time ahead. At the same time we’re also all aware of the old saying “Man plans, God laughs.” The best laid plans, as Robert Burns pointed out, so often go awry. Today the Word Wenches are sharing some of their plans for 2017, writing and otherwise, and we’re asking you to tell us what you have lined up this year.

Pat: If I actually stopped to think about my plans for 2017, I’d probably run screaming for the nearest margarita. But I’ve learned if I just sit at my desk every day and pound the keyboard, eventually, it all gets done. My plans include releasing three more Unexpected Magic books in 2017, all of which are currently in various stages of development. We will not talk about all the editorial and promotional work that they need on top of the actual writing.

If I stay focused on that keyboard, I hope to have the final segment of the Genius mystery series ready by fall. I have five backlist Regencies in the computer, waiting for a final edit, covers, yadda yadda. So if you enjoy those old Regency stories, they’re coming. Eventually.And for those of you who follow my misadventures in moving, we’ve just sold another house and are tentatively looking around, wondering if we ought to tackle another. We’re not leaving this area, but once we run out of things to fix up, we get itchy for more DIY fun. So until that’s decided, we’re not planning any fancy trips. Yet. The son is showing an interest in New Zealand though…

Susanna here, happy to be starting 2017 closer to the end of my current work-in-progress, Bellewether, and hoping to be able to turn it in to my editors before the snow melts. Fingers firmly crossed. Then, in between the inevitable revisions and copyedits, I’ll be starting work on my very first ever novella, as part of the collaborative effort I’m doing with Anna Lee Huber, Christine Trent, and C.S. Harris—a book of linked novellas (tentatively titled The Jacobite’s Watch) that follows an infamous, possibly cursed pocket watch as it passes from owner to owner over the course of two centuries, carrying secrets. With luck I might be finished that before I head to Portland for the Historical Novel Society’s American conference in June. I have some other travel lined up for the year—it’s mostly conferences: Atlanta in the spring for the Romantic Times convention, Orlando in July for the Romance Writers of America National conference, and Surrey, B.C., in October for the always awesome Surrey International Writer’s conference, but I’m squeezing in a research trip for the NEXT book as well, which should be fun. 

Andrea/Cara: I should have asked Santa to bring me an extra 8 hours a day for the coming year as it already feels like 2017 is going to be a very busy time. I have a new Regency-set mystery series coming out—MURDER IN BLACK SWAN LANE releases in July—so there will be a lot of promo things to do. Not to speak of being deep in the throes of writing Book Two! I’ve also been delving deeper into indie publishing. I recently got the rights back to my Lady Arianna Regency mysteries and this month I re-released them in e-books, with new covers and a new low price. It’s been interesting learning the tech side of the business, and I’ve also enjoyed the left brain-right brain engagement of using my graphic design training to create my own cover designs. Also on the To-Do List is to finish the traditional Regency I’ve been noodling in my spare (!) time and getting that up sometime in late summer. Stepping outside the writing cave, another endeavor I’ll be spending time on is serving as a mentor/academic advisor to freshmen at my old college. It’s really fun and rewarding to work with students. Their energy and enthusiasm—honestly, the things they manage to juggle makes ME feel like a slug—is inspiring, and in turn I hope I can give some useful advice. Then lastly, there’s the Wish List—I’m hoping I can somehow swing a trip to London this year. I haven’t been there in quite a while, and I love exploring the city and all its wonderful small museums (like the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich.)

Nicola: As 2017 begins, some plans are coming to fruition here whilst others are just starting. Ethel the guide dog puppy is heading off to training school next month and all being well will qualify as a fully-fledged guide dog this year. We are so proud of her! I’m completing my third dual timeframe novel, which will be out later this year. This one is set at beautiful Lydiard Park, near Swindon, and the entwined stories are set in the Georgian era and present day.

A role that’s likely to keep me busy from May is Chair of the Romantic Novelists’ Association. I’ve been a member since I was first published 18 years ago and I am both honoured and a little bit daunted to be taking this on but I love the RNA and the way in which it supports writers and I will do my very best for it. Finally I’ll be first through the door when Ashdown House re-opens in April, eager to start my guided tours again!

Susan: This year I have lots of irons in the fire and they're starting to glow. I'm looking forward to the release of a new (new!) historical romance, and I'll share more about that in a few months. Just now I'm slogging in the dark, deep deadline tunnel with that one, head down, headlamp on. I've also got a couple of exciting fiction projects in the works that aren't ready for prime time yet, but will be fun to talk about once I have more details! At home, I'm thinking the walls need fresh paint, the basement needs clearing, and some of this Stuff needs to go with its rightful owners, our kids. I love change, so I'll be happily moving furniture and maybe swap whole rooms for the fun (and feng shui!) of it. There's definitely travel in my forecast this year, but that's still under discussion--not sure where yet! The next several months will bring lots of great surprises. Wish I could say more--where's that crystal ball . . .   

Anne: I'm going to be pretty busy in 2017. I've started a new series, and the first one, MARRY IN HASTE comes out in May. I'm also hoping to self-publish a couple of short e-books, only one of which is finished so far. I haven't self-published any books before, so it's a big learning curve for me. As well, I'm doing a bit of teaching -- running writing workshops in Sydney, Brisbane, and in New Zealand, (see links on my website) and all of those will involve a bit of travel. With any luck I'll add a holiday to my New Zealand trip. It's a beautiful country, and though I've been there many times, it's always wonderful. As well, there are changes on the home front, and though I'm looking forward to the final result, the process is a bit daunting. Stay tuned.

Joanna here, nattering on about her plans for the year. It's a good time for me to be doing this. I just finished -- well almost close to about finished except for the copyedits -- Beauty Like the Night. This means most parts of my brain are leaning back and thinking around the edges of the next story.

This is the part of my process when I wander around bumping into things, trying to dream up new characters and new places. New adventures. I also talk the ear off anybody who doesn't flee in a determined and convincing manner, asking them things like, "If the protagonists are late teens is everybody going to think it's a Young Adult story?" and "Are you okay with a 'Happy For Now' instead of a 'Happy Ever After'?" and "Does this [insert fairly ridiculous premise] sound plausible?"

So I'm planning on writing, of course, and planting bulbs and refinishing a black stone table that has become all scratched and carrying in lots of firewood and writing and finding some type of coffee I deeply admire and enjoy. These are not ambitious plans for refurbishing body, mind, and spirit but they suit me.

Mary Jo here, contemplating my plans for the year. I don't really make resolutions, but January does usually bring a sense of possibilities, and since it's generally a quiet month, a fair amount of work can be done.

For books, Once a Rebel, the long awaited story of the enigmatic Gordon, "Lady Agnes Westerfield's one failure," will be out in September, and I'm now gnawing away at the third book of the Rogues Redeemed spin-off trilogy.   Just in the last few days, I realized that the setting I'd thought I'd use for book 3 simply doesn't excite me.   It's worthy, important, blah, blah, blah, but despite research, I couldn't come up with a single spark of enthusiasm.

So I've jumped the shark into a completely new direction: new setting, new characters, now plot. <g> We want to be excited by our stories because we spend so much time with them!

In other bookly news, I'm trying to revert the rights to three more backlist series. Stay tuned! And this is the year I publish two or
three backlist collections of my shorter works. Really.   I will!

On the private side, there will be a couple of cruises this year, one quite soon into warm waters and small islands, and a longer one this fall to far northern and much colder islands!

As for the rest of life this year--well, we'll see. New and unexpected things always emerge.   <G>

And now it’s over to you. Are you a planner or do you like to see where life takes you – or a bit of both? Do you have any exciting possibilities heading your way this year, or is a year of peace and serenity the nicest thing that could happen?

Conduct to Literary Women

Susanna here, minding my manners and thinking of etiquette.

Miss Eliza Leslie, born in Philadelphia in 1787, is best known for her cookbooks, one of which—Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches (1837)—became a runaway bestseller, with at least 150,000 copies sold.

But her father, a watchmaker who counted Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson among his friends, encouraged his eldest daughter to draw and read and write creatively as well, with the result that she also became a celebrated author of fiction, writing novels with appropriately Victorian titles (Amelia; or, A Young Lady's Vicissitudes), editing an annual collection of stories by contemporaries like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Edgar Allan Poe, and contributing stories to many of the leading publications of the day, including The Saturday Evening Post and Godey’s Lady’s Book.

But it’s for her etiquette handbook, titled Miss Leslie’s Behaviour Book, first published in 1834 and republished in several editions afterward, that I love her best.

Regency Notepaper

Anne here, and my blog today is more in the nature of a gentle rant. I read a lot, and as chance would have it, in the last few weeks I've read novel after novel where the heroine pulls out a sheet of foolscap and dashes off a quick note — not a letter, a note, the sort that you'd send a friend who lives around the corner or a few streets away, sent by hand via a footman or some lackey.

Sadly, it grates on me every time. Yes, a small thing, I know. As I said, this is a gentle rant. Or possibly a picky one. But I am a stationery addict, so please forgive me.

The thing is, foolscap is a big sheet of paper. It's probably fine if you want to write a long letter, but it's not the size you'd use to dash off a note — especially if you are a lady with pretensions to elegance, and what Regency heroine is not?  

Guest Deanna Raybourn on Intrepid Heroines and Perilous Undertakings

Andrea/Cara here, I’m delighted to kick off the new year with a bang—and a swoosh (you'll see why in a moment)—by welcoming the incomparable Deanna Raybourn as our guest on the Wenches. As most of you know, Deanna has won scads of awards and accolades for her writing, including the RITA. (For Deanna’s full bio, you can click here.) Her books feature a scintillating combination of mystery and romance, rich with intriguing characters and witty dialogue. Her settings take readers around the world—the Lady Julia series (fluttery fan-girl sigh) journeys through Victorian England, Europe and India, while A Spear of Summer Grass takes readers to Africa in the 1920s. With her new Veronica Speedwell series, (more fluttery fan girl sighs) Deanna returns to Victorian times—and the marvelously eccentric adventuring that only she can create. The second book in the series, A Perilous Undertaking, releases tomorrow (if you haven't met Veronica yet, you are in for a treat!) , and—well, I’ll now turn the pen over to Deanna and let her tell you more about it!

Deanna here, Oh, how I love a bit of banter between an intrepid heroine and a stubborn hero! In the case of my sleuthing pair, Veronica Speedwell and the Honourable Revelstoke Templeton-Vane, they are usually at it hammer and tongs—even on page one. In the opening of their second mystery together, A PERILOUS UNDERTAKING, Stoker is attempting to teach Veronica a few useful self-defense skills. Little does he realize, Veronica is even more adept and experienced than he is…

Brightening the Dark Days of Winter

Nicola here. Today is known as Epiphany, Three Kings Day or Twelfth Day. For many the date marks the end of the Christmas festivities, the day people take down their decorations if they haven't already done so the day before. It’s also the last of the Word Wench festive posts for this season as we head out into 2017!

We’re lucky that these days we have artificial light to help us face the long, cold and dark days of winter. Candles and firelight may sound romantic but I imagine that if I was trying to read or write in that sort of light on a daily basis it would get very difficult. Travel, work, cooking, all the elements of daily life are aided by light. Importantly a lot of people also find their mood is affected by an absence of natural light and so the darkness can pull us down and at the start of the year in particular, when Christmas is over, it’s important to have things that lift our spirits.

Many of the events and entertainments that are going on at the moment have their roots far back in history. The fun fair, the
pantomime and the carnival were all winter activities designed to entertain people when life was bleak. Coming back to Three Kings Day, El Dia de Los Reyes, is a particularly important festival in Spain and Latin America, but there are celebrations on 6^th January across the globe, ranging from pageants and parades to the creation of special bread to share at family and community meals.

Here in the UK it’s pantomime season (Oh no it isn’t!) The origins of the panto date back to the Middle Ages and over the years have incorporated lots of different traditions from Tudor masques to Victorian music hall. The pantomimes are nearly always based on well known children's stories such as Peter Pan, Aladdin, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty etc. Pantomimes are performed not only in the top UK theatres but also in village halls throughout the country. Our local one is Jack and the Beanstalk. Audience participation is a very important part of a pantomime and it’s all very silly and fun. The audience are encouraged to boo the villain whenever he enters the stage, argue with the Dame (who is always a man) and warn the Principal Boy (who is always a girl) when the villain is behind them by shouting out "He's behind you!" It’s completely eccentric but it gets us through the winter!

This evening I'll be making cheese and rocket bread, in honour of Three Kings Day. It's delicious eaten warm, with a bit of butter and extra cheese! Are you a fan of speciality breads? What would you recommend to share to celebrate Twelfth Day? 

Twelfth Night

Anne here. We're coming to the end of our daily Christmastide posts, celebrating the twelve days of Christmas - Nicola will be presenting the last one tomorrow. But today, the 5th January, brings us Twelfth Night, celebrated in song and verse — and of course in the play by Shakespeare.

Traditionally on Twelfth Night we take down the Christmas decorations, because by 6th January they're supposed to be down. Don't ask me why — it's said to be bad luck if you don't. It's also the day to drink to the health of your apple trees by toasting them in wassail, a hot cidery punch, which sounds like a lot more fun than packing up your decorations and ornaments for another year, which I always think is rather a melancholy activity.

The Holiday House

Susanna here. The origins of gingerbread are difficult to trace, although it’s mentioned throughout history, including in the Fifth Act of Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost, when a character remarks, “An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy ginger-bread.”

He might have been talking to my husband’s friend who, for several years now, has been gifting our family with the most incredible gingerbread houses.

Christmas in Miniature

by Mary Jo

There is something very charming about miniatures--ask any doll collector.  The beautiful Cotswold village of Bourton-on-the-Water is famous for having a detailed model of the village itself--and there is even a model within the model. <G>

And in the Baltimore area, we have Christmas train gardens!  The idea was new to me when I moved to Maryland, but train garden charm is irresistible.  They were often in firehouses, where the firefighters used time between calls to do the painstaking work of setting up elaborate landscapes of town and country and multiple trains.

I Resolve To . . .

Andrea/Cara here,
So, it’s the second day of January . . . are you one of the many people who have scribbled down a list of resolutions for the next twelve months? A new year always seems to spur a resolve to make changes for the better. Some are really daunting ones—like” I’m going to lose weight” or  “I’m going to be more organized.” (No matter that what we really want to resolve is to eat more chocolate. Hey—it’s good for us, right?)

We’re hardly the first who’ve felt the need to make such New Year’s resolution lists. Apparently there are records showing the Babylonians took such commitments seriously. Promising the gods that they would return borrowed items and pay their debts were popular pledges. In Medieval times, knights took the “Peacock Pledge” in December, whereby they promised to abide by the rules of chivalry for the coming year.

So, how do we do at succeeding at our resolutions? Alas, not very well, according to a study done several years ago, which reported 88% of people failed to live up to their list. But don’t despair! According to an article in the New York Times, the best way to succeed in a resolution is to have a specific, measurable goal–ie, deciding you want to lose ten pounds in order to look good for your college reunion rather than just simply saying you want to lose weight in 2017.

I have some things I’d like to write to the blank slate that is 2017—including finding more time for reading!—and while a don’t make a resolution list per se, I do have a checklist I keep looking at to remind me of goals. I think challenges are good and serve as motivation . . . as long as they maintain a healthy balance and encourage positive thoughts, not negative “I can’t do this” discouragement.

So what about you. Do you make a Resolution List? Any favorites you want to share?

New Year's Day 2017

Only a sleep from old to new

Only a sleep from night to morn

The new is but the old come true

Each sunrise sees a new year born.

By Helen Hunt Jackson

Nicola here, wishing everyone a very happy 2017! January 1st has traditionally been a time to reflect on the year that has gone and the opportunities, hopes and dreams for the one that lies ahead. It’s a natural human instinct to be optimistic even if sometimes the world feels like a difficult place. Perhaps positive resolutions and hope in the future helps us to deal with that uncertainty.

The calendar is, of course, an arbitrary thing that has changed over the centuries, but it is something that gives structure to our lives and that can be helpful. I'm not a big user of calendars with two exceptions. The first is my Advent Calendar, which I get every year to mark the days from December 1st to Christmas. This year I had a gorgeous one from the National Trust. Now that we are in a new year I am about to put up my 2017 wall calendar, which is a very special one showing the paintings of Eric Ravilious, one of my favourite artists. In both cases the calendars bring emotions of positivity and excitement in me about the potential for the time ahead.

Here in the English countryside the New Year also brings the usual British preoccupation with the weather with a proverb for January 1st that dates from the 19^th century:

If the wind blows from the south it will bring warmth and growth, from the east lots of summer fruit on the trees, from the west milk and plenty of fish in the seas, but f the wind blows from the north then it’s going to be cold and stormy all year. I’ve just checked the forecast and the wind starts off in the south west today but turns around to the north later so I expect we’re going to get a mix of everything this coming year, as usual, both weatherwise and in other ways.

Whatever the winds bring, I wish everyone a happy, peaceful and healthy New Year!