Let's brighten up my posts with some Period clothes I have made.

1. 

 My dear husband in Regency dress that I made for him.

2. My younger sister at a Sealed Knot event in a cloak and kit I made for her.

 3. My husband in pirate kit I made for him.

 

4.Close up of the Regency waistcoat fully lined in gold satin

 

5.My friend in a gold and old gold banqueting dress I made for her

6.Burgundy crushed silk underskirt trimmed with gold braid that I made.

No to Humble Pie

For a while now I have eaten humble pie. But no more.

Strangely as a 17th century re-enactor I have actually eaten humble pie made of deer's testicles, it tasted like a toilet stain smell!  The worst of the worst.

I have since I have stuck my head over the parapet been shot at several times. I have a high IQ which is threatening to some. I actually have the same IQ as the Wolowitz character in the Big Bang Theory - and thank you - a programme that makes clever people human.

I visited my friend Della in hospital in the Radcliffe yesterday, while we were talking a young thug about 14 years old was explaining to his mates how the Doctor examined him.
"Pulled my leg out - right?  Got this pain right? Went up my leg into my back. Gonna fucking stab that Doctor up right? Gonna get him for doing me."

Erm...hurt yourself badly, (probably escaping from some nefarious act) put in one of the top hospitals with the best doctors and you're going to do what?  Haven't even got a quarter of a brain cell have you?

At school I held myself back even though I was in the top class, as I didn't want to stand out and get picked on.  Went to Uni at 16/17 - early obviously - was totally lonely and miserable as everyone was older and could go to the pub afterwards and not have to go home for their tea.

So now, I have had toxic ignorant people telling others, that the life I lived was a lie. That I didn't do all the things I achieved. That I am "mental" and need to be put in a home.

Strangely like Sheldon, of BBT I have been tested, and I am smarter than the average bear
to use another well known quote!

If it wasn't for people like me and my husband and my family and friends, there would be no television or entertainment packages, or special effects, or computer games, or healthcare or books or exciting things to do.

Life would be feral and stoneage - brutal short and boring.

So I'm not going to apologise for all the hard work I put into my books, or the all TV programmes I filmed and edited, I'm not going to apologise for raising tons of money for charities. I'm not going to apologise for being in the top 2% of people in the world for intelligence.

No more Humble Pie - no more trying to prove myself to others. 

Love me or leave me.

 

Domestic Bliss

I need to get on with proper work, but my mind is blank. Sometimes the words fall out of my head to land on the paper and as my characters react to each other, I watch it like a film.I  just write down what they do and say.   Sometimes I try and control where the action is going, but like free-range avatars or even humans they shoot off in their own directions with me shouting "hang on a minute, wait for me."
 
Not today, today is a blank. Round the village american army scout helicopters are circling for some reason. Noisy and low, people coming out of their houses to look. Only the village cats running for cover.  In the Radcliffe Hospital a friend of mine is fighting to have the operation she has just had that went wrong corrected.  She's told "I am ending this conversation now." by the Doctor when he realises he's been caught out, and that my friend is very intelligent and taking notes in shorthand.
 The butcher round the corner in the Garden Centre is very jolly surrounded by his animal body parts, I love animals, but I do eat them. I am a carnivore after all.  He asks how the books are going.  The ones I've got on Amazon are selling well I tell him.  He seems pleased. 

Today has been domestic, the bad thing about working from home. The electrician came to fix the shower, sorting out car insurance, mots, doing laundry, phoning friends, it's now ten to five and I have created nothing on paper today apart from this blog.

But at least I've done that.

I'll cook spaghetti bolognese for tea.  I haven't bothered with food today unless you count 
half a tub of ice cream, a quarter for lunch, the rest for tea break with a cup of tea. But I have to feed my husband who I make sure eats like a King, while I eat like a naughty child.
Only eating little bits of stuff that I 
1)Fancy 
2) Am not allergic to
3) Don't have to cook.

Speak soon. Bye....

 

Edward the Black Prince.

It's very hard to type with a cat snuggled so tightly into the laptop that I can hardly move. Eddie is very persistent as cats go,also quite bad tempered.  Not as bad as he used to be.
He was abandoned,which is enough to make anyone pissed off. 

Found in a hedge near the vets when he was about 2 weeks old.  I got him when I had taken one of my cats to the vets to get vaccinated, the vet held a tiny black kitten up by the scruff of his neck, who was hissing and spitting.
"Do you want this spitfire or shall I put it down this afternoon?" The vet asked.
So guess what?  We had Edward the Black Prince, to use his Sunday name, back at the house that afternoon and were feeding him milk and soft kitten food with a pipette.

He was so tiny we put him in a big cat carrier with a mini cat tray (lid of ice cream tub filled with litter), a toy mouse to snuggle up to, a nice warm clean towel which we made tinto a kind of tiny bed for him. He was about two inches in length and in between the black fluff there were needle sharp teeth and claws.

We had three cats at the time Rosie, the equivalent of a female gladiator, muscular, beautiful, fast, Sabrina, a grumpy tubby little madam, and Samson, her son, a giant ginger bear type cat of very little brain. Samson used to sit by a mousehole in the dry stone hedge in the garden, with his mouth open, hoping a mouse would jump in.

Strangely to my knowledge this worked twice!

Eddie's favourite game with Samson was to take a running jump at his chest and hang there on Samson's lovely thick fur like a little black alien.  Samson tried to back away from his tiny attacker by walking backwards with Eddie still attached. Getting Eddie off was a feat in itself and we never had enough plasters for our fingers!

So now here he is - leaning on me heavily and snoring- crimping my ability to type with both hands, nine years old and much loved.  He loves my hubby more than me and follows him everywhere, I come a poor second.  If Andy's around, whatever he's doing Eddie insists on helping.

I cut Andy's hair over the holidays and Eddie was fascinated, held his head up for me to do his, so I made snipping noises above his head with the scissors as I stroked his fur and he loved it.

Strange boy!  

Andy's at work today, it's cold, it's raining, the laptop and me are warm - no brainer for a cat
who's a bit cold.

I was going to write about other things, but as usual Eddie has taken centre stage. He's a good escapologist and was only found at the vets after a lot of dramatic shouting "It's a lock down!" when he escaped after going for his check up, which for him included a lot of teeth and claws inserted into a young veterinary nurse.

I waited for what seemed hours, and he was eventually found as a tiny skeleton turned up
in the corner of an X ray for a dog. He was hiding in the X ray machine! 
 
Well Eddie shove over lad - it's time for a cuppa - yes he likes tea.  Once he smelt me drinking coffee and smacked me with his now almost lion sized paw. He hates coffee.

Nice to write again.  

Women of the Civil War - Now Available on Amazon!

Well, it's been a long old trek, but my Women of the English Civil War is now in paperback and available from Amazon in about three days time.

I have read and re-read the proof version and made corrections,my husband Andy had adjusted the photographs and the formatting, and it has finally been approved!
 
I orginally wanted the photos in colour and we are currently trying to find a way to do this without the book being too expensive.
 
The problem is that I wanted a portrait of the woman I was writing about (where one existed) at the start of her chapter so that you could see and identify with the person I was talking about.

Apparently this has never been done before - which puzzled me.

I have seen many recipe books with a full colour photo of the food on the same page, so that you can see what your recipe should look like. I thought that this idea could be transferred for use in my history book.   Apparently this is quite difficult - so we are still working on getting a colour version out.

Never a patient person, while waiting for the book to be published I wrote a Ghost Story for Halloween.  Another in the Hilary Long series and a couple of short stories for inclusion  in the Hilary Long Mysteries compilation.

There is never enough hours in the day.  It has taken five months to work out why I couldn't post a blog on blogger - now hopefully - that's sorted.  I can get on with blogging!

Christmas is on the horizon just 22 days to go - so much to do - so better get on!

Happy Christmas everybody!

Back again after 2 years!

Well, this is me, and my new book, in all my Sealed Knot glory. This is a quick update of what I've been doing.

 I have had a weird couple of years, last year I was ill for most of it, and despite having never been abroad was treated as if I had E.bola - that was scary. It took me months to recover just to become allergic to almost everything!

Despite that, this year we went and paid our respects to Richard III in Leicester, became Steam Punks held my darling husband's 50th in Hednas 1940s nightclub. Went to Tregenna Castle in St Ives in Cornwall, and Lyme Regis, Dorset, also Falmouth twice, and Dartmouth in Devon. I have researched my book, saw 17th century clothes at Claydon House, worked at Waddesdon Manor, have written four murder mysteries The Hilary Long Mysteries on Kindle. The latest is this one:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Man-Down-Overdown-Mystery-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B00VU2W758/ 

I'm going to bed now but it's nice to be back!  OK I am just promoting myself but what blogger isn't?
I guess that quite a few aren't.

I'll write about my latest project tomorrow,

What's it all about Alfie?

Feel like I'm walking backwards, what is it all about?  Went for an interview at the Museum yesterday, walked amongst the dinosaurs, looked at the fossils and rocks and stuffed monkeys and shrunken heads.
The interview went well, so I don't know if I got the job or not, usually when it goes well, I haven't. But it was interesting and the interviewers were lovely. I am trying to get over my bout of homesickness and looking forward to moving to the next place. At least we can decorate and do things to it.

I have got to stop overthinking things - I have an IQ of 148, but the downside of that is that my mind doesn't rest it doesn't know how to.  Perhaps wandering through the Jurassic period during the day is what I need to stop me obsessing about things I can do nothing about.

The writing is going well I have more leads to research and IF I get the job at the museum I can afford to pay the poverty stricken Paul Getty to use some of his images for my book!! Yes sarcasm!!