Sunday, June 17, 2007

Coastal weather

What happened to June? Having lived on the north west coast for eighteen years I should know by now that June isn't summery. The flowers grow, the strawberrries are fantastic but the weather is very cool with lots of wind. At seven in the morning it has been 10 deg.C for weeks and warms up a bit during the day. I think 10 deg.C is about 50 Deg.F. Here ends the weather report.

I have 17,000 words in my Regency romance. It's going fairly well. I also am writing a contemporary gothic set in one of my favourite places - Cornwall, in and around a pretty village where smugglers used to come and go with brandy and other contraband good.

Research can be a pain at times. In my historical romance, The Scottish Witch, my Scottish heroine has to escape from the third story of a mansion by creeping out of a window and making her way along the slate roof. She has to lie flat on the roof with her feet braced on the iron eavestrough. One of my critique partners asked about eavestroughs and whether they were such things in 1820. I couldn't find anything on the Internet to I turned to my Welsh nephew who lives near Usk. He knows a lot about a lot of things and turned up information related to the Great Fire of London in 1666. After the fire London's streets had to be wide to prevent fire crossing from one side to the other. Among the new fire regulations ...roof coverings and rainwater gutters and down-pipes were to be installed.

I am taking my husband out to dinner this evening to celebrate Father's Day. Our son, Martin, is a father but he is laid low right now with neck and back spasms. I'm wondering if his years as a tank officer with the Canadian Forces might have damaged something in his neck. He's been out of the forces for years but these things can sneak up on you. Battle tanks are noisy, bumpy, bone rattling devils.

I've been filling out the Cover Request for RING AROUND THE MOON, my time travel romance. Always an interesting exercise.

Anita Birt
www.anitabirt.com

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