Mad dogs and dog-walkers

I take our  two spaniels for their morning walk each day. Today it poured with rain (unlike in this photo – sorry for the lack of realism, but I don’t waste my time trying  photography in downpours!) It chucked it down the whole time. Talk about “après moi le deluge!” But they enjoyed themselves, and so did I in a bizarre sort of way.

While ploughing through the puddles, I came up with this ditty…with apologies to N.C., who was more at home in the midday sun.

Mad dogs and dog-walkers go out in the pouring rain.
The cricketers don’t care to,
The footballers don’t dare to.
Runners and tennis buffs gaze out through their window-pane,
But we just put a mac on
And crack on.
When thunder rolls over eighteen holes
There is not a soul in view,
Yet dogs abound in the woods around,
And their dripping owners too.
For dog-folk don’t mind a soak
Though friends tell us we’re insane,
Yes, mad dogs and dog-walkers go out in the pouring rain.

Mad dogs and dog-walkers go out in the pouring rain.
The smallest lop-eared rabbit
Deplores this foolish habit.
Badgers and moles regard wet days with immense disdain,
They stay safe underground for
A downpour.
Every cow will head for a nice dry shed,
Every horse will find a stall,
But canines tramp through the cold and damp,
And they just don’t care at all.
And why we’re so full of cheer
Is something we can’t explain,
But mad dogs and dog-walkers go out in the pouring rain.

Sundials in the rain

Yesterday was the Autumn Equinox (Spring Equinox if you’re reading this in the southern hemisphere.) Last night we in Yorkshire had equinoctial gales to prove the fact, and rain and thunder. One of our dogs barks a lot during thunderstorms, which was a trifle wearing at three o’clock this morning.

Now I bet not one in a thousand people knew or cared that yesterday over all of Planet Earth bar the polar regions, it was exactly twelve hours between sunrise and sunset. There are more than twelve hours of actual daylight, but all the same astronomers have always regarded an Equinox as special, from the very earliest times when first they began to work out the orbits of the sun, moon, planets and stars.

Thinking about early astronomy got me wondering about sundials – and I soon wished I hadn’t, because they are rather complicated, and maths has never been my strong point. I mean I know it’s not just a question of putting a stick in the middle of a disk with a few lines drawn on to show the hours. It certainly wasn’t for the Romans. They had all sorts of sundials, hemispherical concave ones, cylindrical ones, as well as the more familiar flat type, all with a lot of complex lines and angles marked out, so the things could be used to tell not just the time, but what day of the year it was.

And – something I hadn’t thought of till I started checking – these complex lines had to be specially worked out and drawn for the correct latitude the dials were going to be used in. The Romans knew that of course; there’s a famous historical case of someone bringing a sundial designed for Sicily up to Rome and finding it to be inaccurate. Sicily to Rome…not a huge distance really, nothing like as far as Rome to Britain.

So if my heroine Aurelia, near York, ever decides to install a sundial at her mansio, she’ll have to have it specially calibrated. It could be done – and there were even  portable sundials, with interchangeable base-plates for use in different bits of the Empire. But reading them correctly sounds like hard work. And that’s on top of the well-known habit of the British sun not to appear for days on end. What price even the most elegant sundial then?

The Romans had what seems to us a very strange way of dividing up their daily round.  Each day and each night were split into twelve hours; and a day was reckoned as sunrise to sunset. Yes, all year round. You don’t have to be Einstein to see the flaw. In the summertime, especially in a northern province like Britain, the time between sun-up and sun-down is much longer than in winter, yet there are still only twelve hours. So in June a Roman-British hour must have lasted getting on for ninety minutes as we’d calculate it now. How confusing is that? Extremely, I’d say. Yet the system survived for centuries.

As to how variable-length hours affected the markings on sundials…they must have done, but it’s beyond me. My lack of sleep last night must be starting to catch up with me, because I find the whole thing simply mind-boggling. Of course I can blame the dog for keeping me awake for a couple of hours. And I’m thankful that while he did, I at least could check what the correct time was.

A taste of Yorkshire

An apple a day keeps the doctor away,  if you aim right. Sorry, I can rarely resist old jokes…or apples, which are my favourite fruit. And it’s apple-picking time in our garden now.

We grow both cookers and eaters, and this year, like everybody else in our area, we’ve a bumper harvest. What can be nicer, on a sunny autumn day, than collecting pails full of fruit which will give us a taste of sunshine right through into the winter?

Our eating-apple trees are small enough to pick by hand: crisp red Sunsets, Russets, and we even have a Cox’s Orange Pippin, though we really live too far north for this variety and only get a small crop.

But our cooker tree – I don’t know its variety, it was in the garden when we got here – is enormous. We can reach only a few branches from the ground; for most of the crop my husband Richard has to climb a ladder to pick what he can, bending down the higher branches with a walking stick to reach the fruit.

My job is to stand below holding the ladder, in continual danger of getting cracked on the head by stray fruit, which doesn’t half hurt, so I wear an old riding hat for protection. Richard laughs at me and reminds me that Isaac Newton is supposed to have come up with his theory of gravity after an apple biffed him on the bonse. Well if Isaac could put a positive spin on the experience, good for him, but I bet he moved out of range of the tree before he started to cogitate about mathematics.

The Romans loved apples, so my sleuth Aurelia Marcella has apple trees in the orchard at her inn near York. They would have sweetened cooking apples with honey, not sugar, and perhaps added a handful of raisins, which is something I often do to give extra flavour to basic stewed apple. And I sometimes stir in a couple of tablespoons of mincemeat, that sweet spicy preserve we Brits eat in pies around Christmas, and (if we’ve got any sense) at other seasons too.

In Yorkshire we like to combine the tastes of apple and cheese. A fresh-picked Cox, still warm from the sun, needs a sliver of Wensleydale cheese to bring out its full flavour. And I love the old rhyme, “An apple pie without some cheese is like a kiss without a squeeze.”

The Romans enjoyed sweet-and-savoury mixtures; they cooked pork with apples, for instance. I wonder if they’re the ones who first thought of apples and cheese? I shouldn’t be at all surprised. Whoever did think of it, I take my hat off to them – my riding hat, of course.

We’re invited to a party

We’re all invited to a book-launch party this week. Everyone is welcome, including all of you, my friends and fellow-bloggers, because it’s an on-line party, taking place at a computer near you.

And it’ll last three days, starting Wednesday September 15th. A three-day party, think of that! No travelling…no dressing-up (though you can if you want to, of course <g>)…just come as you are and take part in an interesting event with lots of writers and readers.

Our hostess is Carolyn Schriber, and the book she’s launching in this ingenious celebration is her new historical novel, BEYOND ALL PRICE. It’s the story of a resourceful woman who became a union nurse in the American Civil War. Both she and the turbulent setting sound fascinating, and a virtual party is a great way to give the book  a good send-off. The cyber-junketings will include interviews, chat, workshops…all available on the book’s website, www.beyondallprice.org.

I’m proud to say I’ve done a short interview on writing about history, (yes, it features the Romans, surprise surprise!) It’ll go out early on Thursday in Europe, which is Wednesday evening in the United States…but all the interviews will be left in place after their initial airing, which means you’ve absolutely no excuse for not coming to see all of us strut our stuff.

So www.beyondallprice.org is the place to be, and the time to be there is as often as you can from Wednesday September 15th through Friday September 17th.

Enjoy!

The Last Word

Isn’t it grand when, just occasionally, something in the news gives you a good laugh?

Last week in Australia the churches announced they were worried about the music people were choosing to have played at funerals. People planning their own obsequies are going too secular, apparently, when they should be opting for traditional, solemn hymns. And the churches want to ban certain songs from funeral use.

“My Way” is (unsurprisingly) popular, but (surprisingly) not favoured by the religious establishment; I’m not sure why. But here’s what made me laugh out loud: they also want to stop people requesting that joyous Munchkin chorus from The Wizard of Oz: “Ding dong, the Witch is Dead.”

Do people really request that? Really truly? You couldn’t make it up, could you? They stand at a funeral, singing:

Ding dong, the witch is dead,
Which old witch? The wicked witch!
Ding dong, the wicket witch is dead…

I can’t imagine anybody requesting this for their own funeral. But for somebody else’s, oh yes. In fact I can think of several people (none of them writers, I hasten to assure you,) who would well deserve a chorus of “Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead” once they’ve shuffled off their mortal coil, not to mention a communal square-dance over their grave for good measure. I’m prepared to lead both the singing and the dancing.

Trouble is, because they’re not exactly friends of mine, there is no way I’ll ever be asked to organise their funeral services, so I’ve no chance to give them the send-off I think they merit. Their friends (if they have any) will probably go for “Abide With Me.” OK, just as long as I don’t have to have even their bones or their ashes abiding anywhere near me, that’s all.

Thinking of funerals started me pondering on epitaphs. A good-bye service is ephemeral, so in cosmic terms it may not matter much what music you play. But  an epitaph is, well, set in stone, so it needs some careful planning. Maybe I should start giving thought to the Finnis tombstone…not that I’ve any intention of needing it for years and years yet.

In search of inspiration, I looked up some epitaphs chosen by the Great and the Good. Spike Milligan’s one-liner, “I told you I was ill,” takes a lot of beating. So does Dorothy Parker’s laconic “Excuse my dust.” And I also wish I’d written Winston Churchill’s: “I am ready to meet my maker. Whether my maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.”

Or should I go for something a bit more poetical, like Robert Louis Stevenson: “Home is the sailor, home from sea, and the hunter home from the hill.”

Yes, a bit of verse would suit me, but perhaps something a touch lighter.  Maybe I’ll even write one someday. Meanwhile, I’ll settle for paraphrasing one of my favourite couplets by Hilaire Belloc:

“When I am dead, I hope it may be said,
Her sins were scarlet, but her books were read.”

And as to my service, if anyone really can’t resist singing the Munchkin song, feel free. Either I’ll be well dead and oblivious, or I’ll have moved onto a higher plane and see the funny side. If I’ve descended to a lower plane, of course, I may just jump on a broomstick and come back to haunt you…

A War of her Own

A very warm welcome to Sylvia Dickey Smith, and to her latest book, A WAR OF HER OWN. It’s just out this month in paperback, published by Crickhollow Books, and it’s available from both Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.
When I first heard about it I was expecting a mystery, following in the tradition of Sylvia’s Sidra Smart series set in Texas. The new arrival is different: there are some elements of mystery, but it’s a World War II historical novel. (Ouch – I was born during World War 2, and still find it strange to hear it called “history”!) Set in Orange, Texas,  it paints a fascinating picture of how the war affected the womenfolk left behind to keep the home fires burning. Their lives and struggles may not have had the blood or drama of the fighting men’s battles, but were in their way just as important. That’s why, Sylvia explains, she has chosen to write a historical novel this time, rather than a mystery…

I suppose switching genres is a bit unusual for authors, however I had a story I wanted to tell not as a mystery, but as women’s fiction. I was born right before Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, so much of my childhood memories have to do with what life was like on the U.S. homefront during the war years.

We escaped any actual invasion or bombings but what was happening in England and elsewhere had a big impact on my small hometown of Orange, Texas. For instance, before the war, the population was around 7,000. By the end of the war, the population had soared to 70,000 because of the shipyards gaining contract to build warships. Chaos reigned, but in the midst of that chaos, those 70,000 people bonded together to help the U.S., England, and other allies put down those against whom we fought.

A town experiencing a 700% growth almost overnight brought to the forefront issues like where to live, where to sleep, what to eat. Social structure and values changed so fast there seemed to be a no-holds-barred mentality. A live, eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may die attitude took over.  Social standards were ‘out the window.’ Add to that, shame-based family secrets that wound a person. When women were called upon to do something considered unnatural—to take a man’s job and do it well. Many families slept in rented “hotbeds”—beds still warm from the body of the person who just arose and went to work at shipyards that ran around the clock. Cheap but adequate war housing arose overnight constructed on river sand pumped in atop mosquito-infested swampland.

Protagonist Bea Meade reminds me of my mother who worked at the shipyard during the war and dealt with a world changing faster than could she. Bea Meade becomes the woman I wished my mother could have become—a woman with a voice to speak against injustice, unfair treatment, sexism and personal disregard. Several characters in the book are drawn from real life. Although the actual plot is fiction, it deals with the damage of family secrets, of abuse against women, of double standards of a society and jumps right in the middle of women’s discovery of their self-worth.

People ask me about the Roma people included in the book. Ah, what a delightful, colorful group of misunderstood people. Yes, there was a camp outside of town, and yes, the story of them wanting to buy piglets for a wedding celebration really happened, although modified in the book to fit the plot. The whole gypsy culture fascinates me and has led me to commit serious study to them and their culture. I can’t say I know them well. I’m inclined to think only a true gypsy could say that. I have a great deal of respect for them and their culture and welcome an opportunity to learn more about them.

I am most interested in hearing from fans in Europe and particularly the U.K. I know A War Of her Own might well introduce the war from a different perspective, and I’d love to hear what you think. I can be reached through my website at:

http://www.AWarOfHerOwn.com or http://www.sylviadickeysmith.com
and at my blog at http://www.sylviadickeysmithbooks.wordpress.com

Meet Sylvia Dickey Smith here tomorrow

Yes, I’m delighted to say Sylvia Dickey Smith will be my guest here tomorrow. She has a new book out, and I’m honoured that she has found time in her busy launch schedule to come and tell us about it.
I first got to know Sylvia last year when I was a guest on her lively Internet radio show, “Murder, She Writes,” which ran on BlogTalk Radio. Each programme featured a different author of mysteries, and the focus was on women’s writing, and women sleuths. Among other topics, I remember we compared notes about my Aurelia Marcella and Sylvia’s Sidra Smart – different in place and time, yet similar in that they’re both strong and intelligent characters.
Sylvia’s latest book is a historical novel called A WAR OF HER OWN, set in Texas in World War II. It features another feisty lady, Bea Meade, and several other strong women characters too. And they need to be strong, because they must contend with…but no, you’ll have to wait till tomorrow, when Sylvia will be here to tell you herself.
Don’t miss it!

Calling all e-book enthusiasts

Hey, folks, I’ve been Kindle-ised! Or is it Kindle-ated, or be-Kindled, or merely Kindled? I don’t know what the right expression is.

In plain English then: my three Aurelia Marcella books are now available in Kindle versions, and are for sale through Amazon, the UK one as well as the US.

Actually they’ve been in Kindle form in the States since the end of last year, but I’ve only just found out. (You’d think publishers would tell you that sort of thing, wouldn’t you? Well they don’t, at least mine didn’t!) OK, publishers are busy people, and seemingly it was up to me to check, which I confess I never bothered to do till just the other day, because Kindles and their books have only recently made it over to this side of the Pond.

Now I have checked, and there are my mysteries, and I’m excited and happy. I’m sure I am. Well I’m sure I should be.

But the thing is, I’ve no personal experience of e-books, so I need you all, friends and fellow book-lovers, to reassure me. This is good news, isn’t it?

I can think of two pro’s and two con’s to e-books.

First, the pro’s: 1 You can get a huge number of books onto a small portable gizmo which you can then take anywhere – the South Seas, the North Pole, the Moon. You can mix and match titles you want for pleasure or for work, and as long as you’ve planned ahead properly, you know that you’ll never ever run out of leisure reading, nor need to struggle along without all the precious reference materials that you need for your job or studies. This beats the heck out of lugging heavy printed matter around in suitcases. 2  A quick, (very quick) survey of Amazon seems to indicate e-books are cheaper than their paper counterparts. If some aren’t lower-priced yet, they surely will become so as e-books become more and more popular.

But will they become more and more popular, once the first novelty wears off?

Here are the con’s: 1 The e-books may be cheaper but before you can read them you have to buy an expensive electronic gadget. This can malfunction, get lost, or get stolen, along with all your books of course. And though you can take it anywhere, would you want to? I’d be scared of reading it on a beach or in a small boat, because sand or water could wreck it. OK, paper books can be ruined too, but they’re a lot cheaper to replace. 2  There surely must be problems with ambient lighting. I’ve only ever played around briefly with the things, and I’ve read that Kindle performs well even in strong sunlight, but I’ve also read that they don’t all do well on a bright sunshiny day. So you psych yourself up to take your precious reader down onto the sands…what are the chances you can’t read the blessed text properly?

I’d love to hear what you all think, especially those of you who’ve used e-books. Can I feel happy to find that my books are on Kindle? Yes, I’m sure I can, and I do. But I can’t yet answer the next question: should I be saving my pennies to buy an e-book reader myself?