Why I love islands

After days of torrential Yorkshire rain, it’s hard to believe that a week ago I was on Gran Canaria, basking in gorgeous sunshine. It’s one of our favourite holiday spots, and not just for its wonderful weather.

Thinking about it, most of our favourite holiday places are islands. I got the taste for them, I believe, when as a ten-year-old I went with my family to Guernsey, a magic place. Or maybe it was even earlier; I suppose I was about eight when my best friend and I found a small grassy island in the middle of the beck near our village, and decided it was “ours”. I don’t remember anyone else wanting it actually, it was too small to be useful, but we named it Romosinnif – an anagram of our surnames – and were very fond of it. I wonder if it’s still there?

Gran Canaria is somewhere Richard and I keep going back to, because it suits us down to the ground. For us, a good holiday doesn’t need wild parties; we don’t shop till we drop; we’d get bored silly lying roasting on a sun-bed each and every day. You can do all those things on Gran Canaria, but that’s not why we go.

Yes, of course we swim and enjoy the sun, and the occasional drink or three, and a good meal, preferably at a restaurant where the locals eat, so the prices aren’t aimed at tourists.

In fact getting off the beaten tourist track is what we enjoy, seeking out interesting places, especially with striking scenery. Gran Canaria has varied scenery all right: the seashores range from dunes to cliffs, there are lush valleys, arid moonscapes, high mountains, and the wonderful climate means bright flowers all year…OK, enough. I’m truly not employed by the Canary Islands Tourist Board, I just love the place.

It’s something more than scenery or weather that makes offshore life so special. It’s the people themselves. I’ve stayed on or visited dozens of islands, some around Europe, some in the Caribbean, and some further afield like Sri Lanka and both parts of New Zealand. I’ve realised that islanders are a breed apart. They’re independent-minded and self-sufficient; geography has made them that way, but even in these global-economy days, they still manage to keep a distance from “the mainland”, and like to do things their own way.

I assume this mindset strikes a chord with me because I was born and bred on an island too. Britain still keeps a feeling of aloofness from Europe, even today, with the Channel Tunnel, the Internet, and all. I’m aware this seems weird to many people who don’t belong to what Churchill famously called “our island race”. “Why do you Brits agonise about whether you’re part of Europe?” they ask. “Just look at the map!” Exactly…look at the map. We’re close to Europe, but still an island. What’s more we’ve got smaller islands around us, who keep their distance from “the mainland” – us – just  as we keep ours from “the continent.”

Good luck to all islanders. However small the world seems nowadays, may we never lose our inbred liking for showing a bit of independence now and then, and doing things our own way.

Cooking up a new book

It must be spring. I’m starting my next book.

I really ought to be more organised, and write my mysteries during autumn and winter, leaving me free to enjoy the good weather (we hope!) of spring and summer without worrying about deadlines. But here I am, April in full swing, and raring to get on with the fifth Aurelia Marcella mystery. Never mind; if a book goes well it can take you over, whatever the weather.

Just now I’m getting together the ingredients for the book. It’s a bit like preparing an elaborate meal. First you compile a list of things you want to include, then you blend them into a viable recipe or several, (the plot outline,)  and then you cook it all up and hope the result is a gourmet experience.

As this is the fifth in a series, my ingredients list should begin with some obvious choices of people and locations: so obvious I don’t even need to write them down. Aurelia and her family, her mansio near York, and perhaps a few of the minor characters, such as servants or local friends. But each book must stand alone, so readers can tackle them in any order, though naturally I hope the whole world will devour all of them eventually. So I must give new readers just a little back-story about the main characters, but keep it to the bare essentials. I dislike books in a series, (it’s usually the later ones,) when each plot contains too much information about the protagonists’ past lives, often served up in large dollops near the beginning. That can really slow a story down.

It’s the new ingredients I’m assembling now, and a very odd lot they are. They can come from anywhere, even straight out of my head on a good day, but mostly I admit they arise from research. For example, this book will be set partly in Londinium, so naturally I’ve been reading up about how different it was in Roman times. I don’t just mean much smaller; it was also much damper. The Thames was a lot wider, with no embankments to contain it, and there were areas of marsh with small islands in them, quite close to the Romans’ settlement. And it was tidal, of course…so suppose someone got lost, or was lured to a place that would be flooded when the tide rose?

Last summer when I gave a paper on Roman law and justice, I came across a fascinating case of a man accused of sorcery, and how he defended himself in court. Sorcery was something the Romans were terrified of, and the punishments were dire. Suppose you wanted rid of a rival; could you destroy him by accusing him of Roman black magic?

And last week the unseasonable snow triggered a good thought. It didn’t reach us here, but it covered much of Yorkshire, including York. I’d planned to start the story with Aurelia and family setting out for Londinium on a sunny morning, full of the joys of spring. Then I realised it would be much more interesting if they have snow to contend with. The joys of spring need toning down a little…this is a mystery, after all.

So my opening line will be: “It shouldn’t snow in April. The gods should not allow it.”

There! I’ve made a start. Only another ninety-some thousand words to go.