Word Wenches

Arsenic and old wallpaper

Anne here. There I was, blithely writing a scene of my hero standing in his newly refurbished bedroom, and briefly describing what it looked like to set the scene. I'd already fallen down a general wallpaper rabbit hole — there are so many gorgeous wallpapers from that period. (Here's a National Trust site that has some beauties.)

But my hero is rather a plain man, and the gorgeous Chinese wallpapers I fancied were not the kind of thing he'd want in his bedchamber — perhaps in more public rooms in the house, but not where he slept.

So I gave him a nicely masculine room, with a green bamboo patterned wallpaper, and I had him pulling back his curtains — plain dark green with a kind of watermark pattern (which is male-speak for damask) — and looking down into the garden below. . . but as I continued writing, getting to the actual meat of the scene, a little voice started nagging at my brain.

Something about the color green and arsenic. So naturally I hit google . . . and fell down another research rabbit hole.

You see in the 18th and 19th century all kinds of experiments with chemicals and dyes were going on, and in 1771 a Swedish chemist called Carl Sheele used copper arsenite (which contains arsenic) to create a bright green dye. In 1814, Wilhelm Sattler, a German industrialist, improved on it by using arsenic and verdigris for a better green. The pigment could also be mixed to create bright yellows and rich blues.

AAW: Word for 2023

Choose a Word for 2023:

by Mary Jo

Since 2022 is drawing to a close (already?!), it's time to think ahead about what we'd like in 2023. I've done this before here and in another group, but I think it's an interesting and mindful exercise to choose a word that can be a keyword or inspiration or talisman for the year ahead.

Do you want to EXPERIMENT and try something new? Learn to RELAX and let go of as much stress as you can? How about learning to FOCUS better? (That's a word I've claimed in the past!) Do you want to CLARIFY relationships or other elements in your life? Worth thinking about!

And the Wenches have been thinking about this!  Pat Rice is first:

I fear I very much live in the moment. Thinking or planning for a year doesn’t happen. Worse yet, I’m not inclined to meditation, inspiration, or reflecting on the past or future, possibly because I don’t believe I have much control over the events that most shape our lives. So I am hopeless at questions like these.

At best, I can plan for the events I want, and hope that eventually, the Fates will offer me opportunity. Does that constitute a keyword—opportunity? Once upon a time, I practiced writing, taught myself craft, wrote thousands of pages, and eventually, after years of sending out books, a new publisher decided to start a historical romance line and bought my book. I am not entirely certain opportunity encompasses all that.

 So I’ll simply choose the word ENJOY. While I’m wishing and hoping and plotting, I mean to enjoy the moment I’m in. If an opportunity to go out to lunch with friends interferes with my deadline, I’ll forget the deadline and enjoy the lunch because the chance might not come again.

Lady Johanna St.John's Recipe Book

Nicola here. A couple of weeks ago I took part in the UK’s Heritage Open Days Festival, the biggest celebration of history and heritage in the country. The theme of this year’s festival was Edible England and our display, put on by the Friends of Lydiard Park in Swindon, centred on a most fascinating historical document, a “recipe” book that was created by Lady Johanna St John in the 17^th century. Lady Johanna, as well as having many menus for sumptuous banquets, also used vegetable, flower, and herbal cures for everything from piles to nosebleeds. These are also included in her books and referred to as “recipes” so there is everything from a mutton stew to a cure for cramp! Some of the recipes are also for cosmetic treatments, such as to make your hands soft. We tried that one and the mixture worked beautifully as a hand cream; the only problem was that the cream – and us – smelled very strongly of vinegar! In fact a number of ingredients in some of the recipes would raise eyebrows now, including the use of cow dung!

As part of the festival, we invited Lucy Whitfield, women’s history specialist, to choose and recreate some of the recipes for visitors in the walled garden at Lydiard Park. The garden, which was created in the Georgian period and restored in 2007, is divided into six sections with wide pathways, a well and a sundial. The narrow beds contain trimmed shrubs and perennial plants, alternating with individual flowers and bulbs. Along the walls and in the centre of flowerbeds are trained apple, pear, greengage, peach, plum, cherry, apricot and fig trees. A part of the garden is dedicated to growing the types of herbs and other plants that Lady Johanna would have used in her recipes so it was the perfect setting to showcase some of the ingredients from the book. (I took lots of pictures which I was hoping to use to illustrate this bog, but when I tried to post them up, they all came up upside down so I've had to improvise!)

The Art of Dunking (A Biscuit)

Nicola here with a classic post from a few years ago that I originally posted on the UK Historical Romance Authors Blog. It got such an interesting response then that I thought I would update it and share it here because I was keen to hear what the Wenches and Wench readers thought of it.

So here goes. Do you dunk? I’m using the word “dunk” in the British sense of the word which means “to dip a biscuit or some other food, usually baked goods, into a drink, especially tea, coffee, or milk." Dunking releases more flavour from confections by dissolving the sugars, while also softening their texture. With the UK/US differences in language I had no idea about the basketball definition of dunking until I looked it up!

It turns out that dunking is an ancient tradition but it’s also a divisive one. Apparently in a recent survey done by the Great British Bake-Off TV Programme, 52% of people said they wouldn’t dream of dunking a biscuit – they never had and they never would!

Send For The Doctor

Anne here, and today I'm diving down another research rabbit-hole — medical treatments in Regency-era England. (And be warned, this blog is a little bit gruesome.)

Whenever I have a character who is injured or falls sick in one of my novels, I research it. I choose the disease or injury that the plot requires and consult helpful friends — I have two doctors, several nurses and a very knowledgable paramedic in my circle, and they're all very good about having their brains picked.

Of course they know how the injury or disease will unfold today, but I'm writing about a time when there were no antibiotics, and even germ theory was barely born. Most doctors in the Regency era simply didn't believe in such nonsense as germs or bacteria. Surgery was performed with no regard for cleanliness, doctors wore filthy coats—often coming directly from the autopsy room to the operating room—with pride.

So researching the treatments that were common in my historical era is fascinating—and horrifying. To my modern eye they read like a torture manual.

For instance if a character caught the 'flu or pneumonia, measles, smallpox, and most kinds of fevers, the common medical practice was to first to bleed them, cutting into the skin (no anaesthetic back then) and draining the blood into a bowl — a pint (half a litre) or more was not uncommon. This was mostly performed by barber-surgeons, not by physicians. Scarification was another method — using a spring-loaded instrument to produce a series of small cuts.

The purpose of this was to "balance the humors". Disease was believed to result from an imbalance in the natural humors, or fluids, of the body—they being blood, black bile, yellow bile and phlegm — a theory dating back to ancient Greek medicine.

Beekeeping Trivia

Pat here with your daily dose of fascinating but useless history trivia—on beekeeping. As a gardener, I’m painfully aware of modern problems in keeping bees alive. At the moment, we’re nurturing an avocado tree with weird fruiting habits that require lots of bees at just the right time, and we’re not having much success. Historically, farmers didn’t grow plants requiring that much fuss, but they did need bees to improve their crops, even if they didn’t know it. Mostly, though, our ancestors saw bees as a means to fill their coffers.

Alphabet Soup

I occasionally write about dyslexia because it affects a number of my friends and family members, and it interests me. Despite scientists having known about this affliction since the 1870s, it was rarely acknowledged even in the 20^th century.

 

Alissa Baxter's Linfield Ladies

An interview with Alissa Baxter:

By Mary Jo

I'm delighted to have as my guest today my friend Alissa Baxter, a South African romance writer who has written a trilogy of sweet Regency romances with heroines who have unconventional interests. The first, The Earl's Lady Geologist, has just been released. 

Kirkus Reviews called it, "A playful and poignant historical romance that’s certain to please fans of the genre."

Bestselling author Mimi Mathews said, “A gentle Regency romance, full of sweetness and intelligence. Alissa Baxter’s writing is period perfect.”

An Amazon reviewer said, "At times touching, at others humorous with snappy dialogue between the main characters, this was an entertaining and satisfying read from beginning to end."

There's also a fun video for the book. 

 

The Passage of Time

Christina here. Before the pandemic, I think it’s fair to say that most of us were very aware of time and it was very important to us – even ruled our lives. We were setting alarms to get up in the morning, checking train or bus schedules to get to work by a certain time, having our lunch at a precise time, plus there were appointments to keep and tv programmes to watch. Being late was something we tried to avoid and we probably glanced at our watch (or the time display on our mobile) regularly, sometimes obsessively, during the day. My days weren’t quite so strictly scheduled as I’m self-employed and work from home, but when I still had my dogs (now sadly deceased), their stomachs had time-keeping down to a fine art. They structured my time and they would never have let me get away with not taking them for a walk at the same hour every day. In other words, I lived by the clock.

However, after nearly a year in lockdown, I’m finding that the concept of time is becoming very fluid. It’s almost as though we’re living in a dream, where everything is unreal or even surreal. There are no appointments, no specific times to keep, no rush or urgency about anything. The days simply float into one another seamlessly, with nothing to distinguish them from one another. Mostly I have no idea what day or date it is, and I find I don’t care because it doesn’t matter. The only day that registers even vaguely is Sunday, and that is only because I have a weekly chat scheduled then with two friends. And Sunday seems to come around approximately every second day!

Garden Squares in London

Anne here.
Ever since my first visit to London as an adult, I've been fascinated by those fabulous English garden squares, like the one Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts's characters broke into in the movie Notting Hill. 

That first visit was long before Notting Hill was released, and I remember being shocked at the time to learn that the elegant cast-iron railings that surrounded the large and beautiful garden over the road from my backpacker's hotel, were not just decorative, and that the garden was locked to keep out riff-raff like me. Or indeed anyone who didn't live in one of the very fine houses that surrounded it.

I'm writing a new series at the moment (first book coming out in September) and I've placed the houses of most of the main characters around a large and beautiful garden square. In mine, however access to the garden is only via the back gates of the houses built around it — the garden is entirely enclosed by houses, and it's barely visible from the street.

It's a bit like these ones, Ladbroke Square Garden in Notting Hill, and Arundel Gardens, though mine is a made-up place. And why a made-up place, you ask?

Sleeping, Dreaming, and Creating

Me, sleeping creatively

Joanna here, talking about one of my favorite things in all the world, aka sleeping. Writing is another thing I’m fond of. There’s a bit of an interconnection between these.

I tend to generate new material when I’m relaxed in the bathtub or lying in bed. I even get good work done in dreams. If I were talking about the creative process I might say I try to sleep a lot.

Let me talk about Coleridge who is a more interesting topic than many of those going

Coleridge in 1795

through my mind these days. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, of  course, is the English poet who gave us such popular thrillers as The Rime of the Ancient Mariner which many of us read in Middle School. It includes the poignant lines

“Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea! 
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.”

As I say, Middle School. This is stuck in my memory forever.

Planting the Seeds of Knowledge

Andrea here, musing today about medicine. It’s a subject much on our collective minds right now as we hope the best and brightest scientific minds around the world will soon come up with safe and effective vaccine to combat the deadly COVID virus. So, as we all could use some cheery thoughts, I’m talking today about one of the bright spots in medical history here in America during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

We’ve made such inroads in combating diseases that once devastated populations, so I think we tend to forget how frightening and deadly so many forces of Nature—germs, microbes, bacteria, viruses—were in the past. As the Age of Enlightenment encouraged scientific inquiry and empirical observation, a new breed of physicians were beginning to look past the traditional ideas on illness—many of them left over from the ancient Greek philosophers—in order to understand how better to treat maladies.

I first met David Hosack in American Eden—David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic, Victoria Johnson’s marvelous book on America’s first botanic garden. Born in New York City in 1769, David Hosack was the son of a well-to-do merchant from Elgin, Scotland and his wife. He was educated at Columbia College, where he became fascinated with the study of medicine. He finished his studies at the College of New Jersey (now known as Princeton) and then went on to study medicine in Philadelphia, where he wrote his doctoral thesis on cholera. In 1791, he married and started a private practice in Virginia, but then returned to New York City a year later.

A Loverly Bunch of Coconuts

joanna here,

“I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts
There they are a'standing in a row
Big ones, small ones, some as big as your head
"Give 'em a twist, a flick o' the wrist,”
That's what the showman said!

“I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts
Every ball you throw will make me rich
There stands me wife
The idol of me life
Singing, "Roll up, bowl a ball, a penny a pitch!"
                                    1944 song

The song celebrates the coconut shy, a traditional game at funfairs and fêtes. The mark – that is to say, the customer –  throws a wooden ball at a row of coconuts balanced on posts. Typically a player buys three balls and wins each coconut he dislodges.

My knowledge of this game is based on the cynical warning from Midsomer Murder’s Chief Inspector Barnaby that the shy’s coconuts will be far too old to eat.

The "coco" in coconut might come a word for "head" or "skull"

 

 

 

While we thus know coconuts were common in the UK in 1944 – edible or not – we may be unsure as to exactly when they did show up.

Are they a Regency treat?
Can our Regency ingenue be delighted by her first taste of crisp, sweet coconut flesh?

What they knew -- Regency Lightning

somewhat more exciting than my actual view

Joanna here. I was sitting on the couch the other day with the rain coming down about sideways and hail pinging on the front porch and lightning crashing and thunder throbbing in all the little houses on the street and also no electricity. The dog crouched behind me, cowering down low and shivering in every muscle.

Me: It’s just fine. I’m here, girl. Nothing’s going to happen to you.

Dog: (expresses skepticism with a whine)

So I asked myself how folks dealt with lightning in the Regency period. I delight to imagine my heroine — in a lull between forays into adventure — sitting in her parlour, (them not having parlors over in England,) looking out at the lightning and accompanying timpani, chilling. There’d be an ugly sorta-mostly pitbull trying to dig a tunnel to safety under her chair. No electricity for her, either, but she wouldn’t have expected any, being Regency people and all.

Thor: Not so much a Regency feature

She’d have a nice little fire on the hearth, hissing every time a drip worked its way down the chimney. 

Folks were somewhat past worshipping weather by the Regency — though I can imagine some gruff old squire exclaiming, “By Thunder! They’ve all run mad.“ and shaking The Times Op Ed page.

By the Numbers!

Andrea here, musing on a question we authors get a LOT from readers—where do you get your inspiration for a story? Well, in the case of my Wrexford & Sloane Regency-set historical mystery series, the answer is science. Okay, okay, I know that doesn’t sound sexy. But . . . um, actually it is. Allow me to explain.

Think of all the techno-thrillers today—be it in books, movies, television—that are based technology and its effect on our lives. We’re all aware of what a hold technology has over us—and yes, it’s scary! Thus authors and screenwriters can use that to their advantage. But the idea of technology as both Good and Evil is nothing new. So I’ve had great fun using technology as the main plot point in my mysteries. The latest book in the series, Murder at Queen’s Landing, which releases in September, is no exception! I’ll get to that in a moment, let’s take a quick overview of the subject.

 

The Day of the Pine Marten

 

photocredit karen Bullock

Joanna here, to say a few words about pine martens and wish them well in their endeavors.

I’m not talking about the American pine marten, fine fellow though he may be, but about the European pine marten. Specifically, the European pine marten in the British isles.

They belong to the same family as otters, weasels, stoats, and polecats. They have the same long sinuous body, the same taste for small animals, and the same tendency to be held in disliked by chicken farmers. It is no accident that “weasel” and “polecat” are not terms of affection.

Martens are native to the British Isles. Original inhabitants, if you would.

Do You Believe in the Supernatural?

Nicola here. Halloween and the long dark nights of winter may seem a more appropriate time to be talking about ghosts and the paranormal, in this part of the world at least, but in other places such a Japan the summer twilight is the time for sitting around a campfire and telling chilling tales. So today, whilst the sun shines and all seems quiet in my ancient village, I’m talking about the paranormal elements in my latest book, The Forgotten Sister, and asking “do you believe in the supernatural?”

The Forgotten Sister is probably my spookiest book yet. At the centre of this paranormal web is Lizzie Kingdom, a young woman who possesses the gift of psychometry, the ability to read objects and connect to their history or to the people who owned them. Lizzie has always kept this ability secret because she grew up as an outsider and didn’t want anything else to mark her out as different. Her gift for reading objects is a deeply personal thing that she uses to connect to the lost maternal side of her family. As she has never truly explored her gift, Lizzie doesn’t realise that it is greater than she imagines. Then she meets Arthur Robsart and is rather intrigued to discover that she can read him too. Arthur, unsurprisingly, finds this an invasion of privacy!

WASH YOUR HANDS!

 

Pat here:

Talk about timing— I was researching the use of antiseptic soap for my doctor hero in my current WIP to make sure I could have him insist on washing hands and what he would have used. And now here we are in the midst of a plague that requires we wash our hands all the time, although the antibiotics my Victorian doc needed aren’t the same as the fatty soaps we need to melt a virus.

But as happens, I fell down the research rabbit hole looking up soap. We have solid evidence that a form of detergent made from animal fats and wood ash was used in Babylonia around 2800 BC. From all accounts, it was used in cleaning wools and textiles, and there is some evidence that it was used medicinally, although no one is telling me if they tried drinking the stuff. Uck ptui.

Moving into the Sunshine

Joanna here, feeling like I should be doing something to encourage the sun a bit more.

It always strikes me as weird that the days get longer after the Solstice in December but the weather keeps getting colder. My truly cold winter months hit in January and February when there's more sun. It seems both unfair and, like, counter intuitive.

It's sciency stuff, basically. The "getting slowly colder" thing happens because the earth is a big place and holds a whole bunch of accumulated heat energy stored up from last July and August. Takes a while for that heat to dissipate.

Same reason you can't just take yer pie out of the oven and it's instantly cool enough to chow down.

see the similarity to the earth on the right

If the pie were the earth and you took it out on the Solstice, round here you wouldn't be eating dessert till January.

Here's a nifty map of the coldest day for the US. (you can look at it up close here.) You'll see that some places -- like in Colorado -- get chillyfreezing at the Solstice. This is arranged by the local Chamber of Commerce to encourage Ski Tourism over Winter Break. Where I live, deepest cold hits in the middle of February and we are still worried about blossom damage on the fruit trees into March and April.

So the whole "inertia of the earth's heat" is all very well, but it doesn't account for what actually happens, does it?

When you ask why, they come up with a lot of meteorological hand-waving basically. They talk about humidity and local climate and how close you are to the ocean and I suppose computers are involved somewhere. It still does not seem fair and I find the Chamber of Commerce argument more convincing, meself.

This is a fox in Norway who really cannot wit for the days to get longer

In case you were wondering How Much Longer your days are going to get now that the Winter Solstice has come and gone, you can go here, plug in your city, and you will be able to find out.

Here in Virginia I get an extra minute of daylight tomorrow. Yippee! I'll continue to get an extra minute of sun every day till the Summer Solstice. I feel so special.

Folks living in Nome, Alaska will get close to two extra minutes tomorrow, but I do not begrudge it to them.

 

Are you looking forward to getting some sun eventually? What do you plan to do with it?

Regency Chickens, Because Why Not?

 

Fourth Century BCE Etruscan chicken beaker

Joanna here, talking chicken history, with special attention to chickens in the Regency.

By this I mean historical eating chickens rather than show chickens or fighting chickens or pet chickens, though I imagine some Regency folks kept chickens and became very fond of them. I will talk about pet chickens later.

Not everyone agrees chickens are pet material.

Look in the eye of a chicken and you’ll know. It’s the most horrifying, cannibalistic and nightmarish creature in this world.      Werner Herzog

In the Regency -- in most times and places -- chickens were “women’s livestock,” a minor and cozily domestic part of the farm economy, kept by the woman of the house for “egg money,” fed thriftily with scraps and garden bugs and free-range foraging.
I don't know about everywhere, but in the US in the C20 the money a woman made from her chickens was hers to spend as she would.

Might be grain. Might be table crumbs

“Chickens consumed a lot of garden waste. For example, if you’d finished picking all the peas, then you pulled up the vines and fed them to the chickens. When you had a biscuit that didn’t rise properly or bread with mold, you threw it into the farmyard. Chickens love bugs and are omnivorous, so they eat meat and, sometimes, eat each other. They also love mice.”

  Elaine Shirley, Colonial Williamsburg

The Northern Lights!

Nicola here, just back from a cruise along the coast of Norway taking in some spectacular scenery and the stunning beauty of the Northern Lights. Standing on the deck on the ship at 2am in temperatures of -13, it did occur to me to wonder what our ancestors had made of the extraordinary phenomena of the aurora. It’s so beautiful and other-worldly that even in these days when it can all be explained by science, it’s still pretty mind-blowing.  How did people view the aurora in the past? Fortunately there was an excellent lecture on the ship that covered everything to do with the Northern Lights and it was so interesting that I thought I would blog about it here.

Lessons in Longitude

Andrea here, thinking about . . . Time. This month, most of us in the U.S. turn the clock back an hour for Daylight Savings Time (I don’t know about you, but I very much dislike the darkness that settles in around 5 pm in winter.) Now, where does that hour go? Yes, I know that we get it back in Spring, but it seems a cavalier attitude to play games with the ticking of the Universe.

My mulling on this has been amplified because I’ve been thinking of working in marine chronometers in a future Wrexford & Sloane mystery book. I happen to love antique mechanical wristwatches, as I think they’re both beautiful and functional. The intricate inner workings are exquisite works of art—for me it’s very cool when functional objects can also be intrinsically beautiful.

But back to marine chronometers! From the first stirrings of humanity, time is an elemental concept that regulates so many facets of our existence—our age, the cycle of the seasons, how calculate speed and distance . . . The first really precise timepiece was the pendulum clock, invented in 1656 by Christiaan Huygens (shown above), a Dutch scientist who was inspired by Galileo’s experiments with pendulums.

Through the Looking Glass . . .

Andrea/Cara here, Like my fellow Wenches, I find doing research is an integral part of the creative process for my books. Digging deeper into elements I want to weave into a story and learning little details often spark ideas that embellish the plots. One of the very fun aspects of my summer sojourn to England was the chance to explore up close and personal some of the scientific inventions that I feature in my Wrexford and Sloane Regency-set mystery series.

My current WIP features a voltaic pile (named after Alexander Volta, it was the first electrical battery and could generate a current.) But you’ll hear more about that in the future. I also have Wrexford and his assistant solve a key part of the mystery using a microscope. And as I was fortunate enough to be able to visit the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford during my trip, I was, as they say, in hog—or rather, lens—heaven!

Return of Lady Arianna!

Andrea Penrose discusses Smoke & Lies
with Mary Jo:

MJP: Sister Word Wench Andrea and I go way back to when we both wrote Signet Regencies. In recent years, Andrea has used her love of the Regency, science, and art to become Andrea Penrose, historical mystery writer. Her new Regency Wrexford & Sloane series is making a splash, with starred reviews and excitement all around.

But I'm delighted that she's also continuing her Lady Arianna mystery series. The first three books were traditionally published, and now that she's retrieved the rights, Andrea has repackaged and republished them in e-book form and is continuing the series. She added a novella last summer and a brand new novel, Smoke and Lies, will be released on May 15th.

MJP: I love these characters and their world. Andrea, will you tell us about how you developed Lady Arianna and her unusual background?

 

A Cosmic Pause for Thought

Andrea/Cara here, musing about light and dark, both physical and metaphorically. I just read a very thoughtful piece in the New York Times on the phenomena we call the Solstice (you can read it here.) Tomorrow is the Solstice—the word derives from Latin and means the sun stands still—and for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere it means the year’s longest night, while for those of you in the Southern Hemisphere it’s the opposite. The author of the opinion piece muses on the physics of the our tilted Earth and how its yearly journey around the Sun affects the angles and quality of light that touch each of us.

While many of us up north shudder at the thought of the longest night, he finds something poetic about this particular day. As his astronomy professor once explained to him, the Sun migrates from one point to another, pauses, then begins the reverse. And he really likes that idea of “pause” and sees it as a contemplative moment, rather than a fearful one—a chance to stop for a moment and reflect before things go back in motion.

This Eclipse of Mine

 

The old house with swings on the porch

I'm posting late today because I wanted to post photos of the eclipse. This is almost Real Time. Think of me as the news.

I've been looking forward to the eclipse for six or eight months. I live some miles north of the path of totality -- the area where the moon totally covers the face of the sun. I had to drive about seven hours to get to my sun-watching site.

I'm in western Virginia, so the nearest point to the totality was past Asheviile, North Carolina. Where to stay? Where to stand and actually watch the eclipse?

 

inside the house
(R Brantel)

Researching on the internet I found a celebration of

The living room
(SA Hunter)

the eclipse in the town of Cherokee on the Cherokee Indian Reservation. There would be dancing and stories. How could I resist?

 

The lake in the distance as we drove by  (SA Hunter)

I was driving down with friends so I needed somewhere largish for us to stay. I found a most wonderful place ... an old house that had been converted into a meditational center in Lake Junaluska. A century-old house, quiet and dignified and charming.  That's the house above. Here's the lake.

Early in the morning we left Lake J and headed to Cherokee through some of the most beautiful scenery in the world.

In Cherokee we passed the war memorial, with the names of all who had served. Also a tank.

Quite a nice tank, assuming it is not mad at you

The lovely river in Cherokee
(all these are photocredit SA Hunter)

A bear outside the Cherokee Museum.(Not a real bear)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the Cherokee dancers. He also works in the Interpretive Center of the Museaum (R Brantel)

This is me eagerly awaiting the eclipse

We found a spot under the trees and listened to many bands; ate American Indian tacos; heard a Cherokee myth about the invention of the flute; ate fried bread; and listened to drumming and dancing, including bear dancing. We took a walk by the river, which is more stunning than the picture would have you believe.

We did all this because you cannot just say, "Let's have the eclipse now," and expect it to happen. We had to wait.

In the fullness of time we saw the first indications that the sun was being eaten by the moon. Eaten by a Great Frog as the Cherokee myth might go. First a nibble. then a larger slice. Takes a while.

As everyone in the US who is not living under a rock knows, one does not look directly at the sun

sun goggles
Not government approved

during an eclipse. Or anytime, really.  One wears little goggles as if one were watching a 3-D movie. These are mine.

The most exciting thing about them is that they didn't actually SAY they were government approved, but they did block out all light when you put them on and scanned the countryside, so I took the chance.

Smile-shaped sun shadows

The eclipse began. The light filtering through the leaves of the trees showed the smile of the sun and the shadow of the moon. Lovely.

Slowly the disk of the sun was covered by the moon. At totality the sun hangs in the sky like a great black rock surrounded by fire. That lasts about two minutes. The countryside is covered with the darkness of late sunset. (I didn't notice any change in animals behavior because of the aforementioned rock music.) 

... and no, I am not going to try to take pictures of the eclipse. NASA does it better as in this photo

The shadow of the moon passes and a brilliant light flares, like the white sparkle of fireworks. Slowly, the sun returns.

My eclipse. So cool. So much worth the drive.

 

Have you ever seen an eclipse?

Where and when.

Cool or not cool?

 

 

Doodle-bugging!

Pat here:

Really, just following Wikipedia links could consume a whole day, even when I’m researching something that doesn’t exist! In my Work-in-Process, a walking stick suddenly became a dowsing rod. Don’t ask—my Muse is unpredictable, and I don’t question what she flings on the page. But I do need a hint of credibility, so I looked up dowsing rods, as one does.

Delving into Regency Mystery with Andrea Penrose!

Nicola here and today it’s my huge pleasure to be interviewing our very own Andrea Penrose about her new Regency Set Historical Mystery, Murder on Black Swan Lane, which is released tomorrow! (And I'm loving the black swan in the photo!)

There was much excitement at Cornick Cottage when a copy of Murder on Black Swan Lane arrived for me to read. Not only do I love a historical mystery, I have been a fan of Andrea’s writing for years, so I knew I was in for a treat. I was not disappointed. This book was just what I needed to transport me back in time to a Regency world that was rich, vivid and atmospheric, where I spent time with a cast of characters who became as real as friends to me. You know that feeling of displacement and loss you get when you finish a really good book? Yes, that was how I felt at the end – but the good news is that this is the first in a new series. Hooray!

Andrea, welcome to the Wenches as a guest for a change! Please tell us about your new Regency-set historical mystery series and Murder on Black Swan Lane in particular.

As the title implies, a murder is the catalyst of the plot, but the plot threads also weave in the Regency’s fascination with the newly emerging world of science—as well as the era’s love of gossip and scandal, as fanned by the famous satirical cartoonists of the day. Combine the volatile elements of a sensational murder, a notoriously arrogant but brilliant aristocrat and London’s most popular—and scathing—satirist (who unbeknownst to all is a woman)  . . . and as the rules of chemistry will tell you, the mixture may threaten to explode!

Marie Brennan & Lady Trent: An Interview with Dragons

b by Mary Jo

Though I'm a lifelong reader of both historical novels and science fiction and fantasy, I somehow managed to miss Marie Brennan's Lady Trent series until I read about the upcoming release of the fifth and last of her series of memoirs written by a distinguished dragon naturalist.

Dragons? Lady Trent? Within the Sanctuary of Wings? Clearly this was something I must investigate! So I cautiously tried the first book, A Natural History of Dragons. And was hooked, big time. I've very grateful that the series was complete when I started to read it!

The Scent of Books

Nicola here, asking a personal question. Do you sniff your books? It’s something that non-readers apparently find weird, something that is perhaps best done in the privacy of one’s own home to avoid strange looks and odd explanations. But if, like me, you are a book sniffer, then you understand perfectly that the smell of a book can be a wonderful thing.

Scientists say that there is a rational explanation for the attraction to the smell of old books. The paper, adhesive and ink that make up books degrade over time, giving off a volatile chemical compound. The lignin in almost all wood-based paper is related to vanilla and almonds, so our books smell slightly sweet.

However, there are other forces at work here too. Old books smell of nostalgia. They awaken memories and feelings. Our sense of smell is linked to the brain’s limbic system and therefore reminds us of resonances and associations with a particular book. It might be events, people, or places, or it might be an emotion. Whatever the association, the scent is a powerful reminder. I can identify with this. When I was a child I spent a lot of time with my grandparents and would rifle through the wardrobe in their spare bedroom because it contained my grandmother’s romantic fiction novels. It also contained her jewellery, perfume and fur coats, so to this day I associate those books  - Anya Seton, Jean Plaidy, Victoria Holt, Phyllis Witney – with glamour, gorgeous perfume and sparkly gemstones.

There is also a theory, unscientific but very appealing, that books remind us of all the good things in our lives. They remind us of wonderful moments and they make us feel happy. This association is particularly strong if you associate the smell of a book with a particular library, or if a book smell gives you that sense of anticipation you may have experienced as a child when you eagerly awaited your next exciting read. Books can make us feel comfortable and relaxed if we associate them with quiet time or holidays, time for ourselves, the luxury of peace and quiet. Perhaps that’s why it can be difficult to return as an adult to a book or author you were made to read at school and didn’t enjoy. The emotional association is negative, not positive.

Then there’s the smell of new books, different but also special in its own way. New books smell of anticipation and promise (also of freshly printed paper and fresh binding0. It’s a heady mix that excites our senses.

It’s hard to pin down exactly what books smell like because their scent varies from individual to individual depending on how we scent and experience them. Some people describe books as smelling of the sea, or of fresh air and rain; others identify salt and pepper smells, chocolate and even biscuits. Conservators and historians are trained to sniff books as part of the process of conservation. Those with the keenest noses can identify whether an old book is of say English or Italian origin on smell alone.

The life of books also affects how they smell – have they travelled, how and where have they been stored? It’s exciting to think of old books crossing the globe in saddlebags or on sailing ships!

Does all this mean that reading on a Kindle means that we are missing out on a special part of the reading experience? Well, it’s different, certainly. But there is also pleasure to be had in the thought that your holiday bag isn’t so heavy anymore because all those books are now on one neat device! Plus these days you can even buy a fragrance to waft around you as you read!

Are you a book-sniffer? What do books smell of to you? And do you have any books that evoke particular memories or emotions?

Seduced By Science!

Andrea/Cara here, musing on science today. I confess, given that my academic expertise in science ended in 9th grade biology class (you know, the one with formaldehyde, dead frogs and very sharp knifes!) it might strike you as rather strange that science plays a big role in the plot of Murder on Black Swan Lane, the first book of my new Regency-set mystery series, which hits the shelves next month. Allow me to explain . . .

I have an art background, which may seem like the polar opposite from the world of laboratories, microscopes and bubbling chemicals. I thought the same thing until I read The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes a few years ago. In it, he talks about how during the Regency era, the artists and scientists all thought of themselves as kindred souls. For them, exploration and discovery in any discipline required imagination and creative thinking. Painters, poets, chemists, astronomers—they all shared a passion for pushing themselves to think outside the box.

Hmmm, I thought . . . these are just the same qualities required to unravel diabolical mysteries. So it suddenly struck me that having a scientist and an artist could be a really fun combination. In the Earl of Wrexford and Charlotte Sloane, I’ve sought to create two lead characters who embody the intellectual curiosity—and gritty courage—of the times. They are opposites: a brooding aristocrat whose extraordinary mind runs on the rational new principles of scientific inquiry, paired with a struggling artist whose innate cleverness and intuition are the keys to her survival. Forced to work together, Wrexford and Charlotte find they make a formidable team, despite their differences. (Ah, but as science tells us, opposites often attract!)