First of all may I
thank all of you who have left comments on the blog ,sent me emails
or messages through social media. They have all helped keep me
reasonably cheerful so that I only shout at Marcia on rare occasions.
I am
so glad that you liked Marcia's short story. As some of you might
have guessed, this was later expanded into one of the Willa Marsh
novels: Facing the Music. Although
out of print in English, this is one of the novels presently
available in French – it is published by Autrement, a literary
publishing house in Paris. Autrement, having run out of novels
written by Willa, is now publishing some of those written by Marcia
but under the name of Willa Marsh since that author has now quite a
considerable following in France and has had some very nice reviews
in, amongst other French papers, Le Figaro.
Time to bring you
up to date on the health front. As far as the anaemia is concerned,
the blood count is slowly rising and I am just beginning to feel a
lot better as a result, although I am told it will be another four or
five weeks before I am back to normal. What happened, though, was
very unexpected. Coming to the conclusion that there was nothing I
could do for a while, I decided to just go with it and relaxed. The
immediate result was that I slept for more or less the whole time for
the first few days and even now am sleeping over ten hours a day. I
must say that this is doing me no end of good and for the first time
for many a long year I have enjoyed doing nothing very much apart
from reading and thinking.
When you think
about it, it was high time I had a holiday – and therefore high
time Marcia had one too but that isn't on the cards just at the
moment.
The last time we
went away with nothing in mind but to relax – no thoughts of where
a book may be set, of what fauna and flora might be around, of what
photographs we need to fill gaps in the photo files – was about
eighteen years ago when we spent a couple of nights in a hotel in
Ilfracombe. I think that when Marcia finishes the book she is
writing we would be wise to think about going away for a week or so
and just chilling out.;
Our bedroom window
looks out over a field which rises up so that the hedge, with its
trees, is silhouetted against the sky (see above). When I first 'took to my bed'
not all the leaves had fallen but today they are no more than a
memory. I love it when the tracery of bare branches stands out
against a dramatic sky – be it a glorious clear blue as it has been
for the past two weeks or storm-wracked.
Not that this
outline is devoid of all leaves for some of the trees carry a heavy
burden of ivy. Ivy raises many questions: in some places it is
considered to be a pernicious weed (for example it is, I believe, illegal to
bring it into or to sell it in the state of Oregon) but it has its
benefits.
I am not sure of
the figures but well over a hundred species of insects and birds
drink (if that is the right word) ivy nectar and the berries, despite
being slightly poisonous to humans, are an important winter food
source for a number of birds. Meanwhile, of course, it provides birds
with shelter in winter as well as numerous nesting sites in spring
and early summer.
It was, however,
directly responsible for the loss of a large holly tree that grew in
our last garden. The poor tree had become so overgrown that there
were far too few leaves to sustain it. My guess is that as a result
the roots had suffered because in a moderate gale the whole lot came
crashing down.
No chance to get
you a blog dog this week: perhaps that idea has now run its course
(but I am always happy to post photos of your dogs and other pets if
you want to send them to me – see top of the side bar to the right
for details).
