Archive for June, 2012
Bye, London, I’ll miss you!
Ooohhh, but I had a lovely weekend. Lovely, lovely, lovely.
I’ve been trying to make regular mad dashes to London (my favourite city in the world — I don’t get the fascination with New York at all, though now I have a new publisher ensconced in the Flatiron building, I may have to make a quick trip…) to do overnight stays and cram in as many museums, art galleries and shows as is humanly possibly. Last weekend, I made what will probably be my last trip for a while. While I was there, I did a retro Mini tour with a company called Small Car Big City. For the last year or so, I’ve been writing a (humongous, gigantic, it quite seriously almost ate me alive) e-serial for St Martin’s Press which will be launched starting next January and will be published in six episodes of around 20,000 words each. The e-serial is set in London in 1926 and as it mentions all kinds of yummy places, I thought I’d retro Mini tour the sites and make a little video to put up on my web-site when the e-serial comes out. So, here I am, about to Mini off… don’t I look fabulous, darling (seriously, it’s like being a sardine in a tin can, but who cares when you look so darn cute getting about town in the thing)?
We went to: Belgrave Square (where most of the e-serial is set), Russell Square, Hyde Park, Liberty, King’s Cross station, the Savoy hotel and all kinds of other places besides. Afterwards, I also managed to fit in seeing Singin’ In the Rain (brilliant) and a bit of sale shopping (also very nice).
I’ll miss being able to pop down to London in less than an hour on the train, that’s for sure. I’d better find myself a UK publisher fast, so I have a Very Good Excuse to go back again soon…
This. This is travelling with children…
So we took a quick drive out to one of our local stately homes the other day, Wrest Park. I’m fascinated by all the gates out there. So many gates and all so gorgeous. Example:
I took many photos to set my desktop by at a later date, but it wasn’t until we headed down along the water toward the park’s pavilion that Ms8 became animated, running up to me and begging me for my camera. Amazed that she was suddenly interested in visiting her 5345th stately home in less than a year, I quickly passed it over. Only to download the pictures a couple days later and find approximately 234 photos of this…
The Queen came to tea! The Queen came to tea!
Fine, so it was hundreds of years ago and she didn’t quite come to tea, but was banished here and locked up. But it’s close enough for me!
I recently found out that Katherine of Aragon once lived in our village for around a year. Apparently after Henry VIII had his marriage to Katherine annulled, she was sent to live just up the road from us. Here…
How cool is that? The ye olde stuff around these parts really does blow one’s mind…
