Kate Danley's Blog, page 10

London 8/17/14 - Part II

Read Part I of my Kew Gardens adventure here!

So where were we... ah yes!  I had survived drowning in a freak summer storm deluge, found my way to the gift shop, and snuck around a closed glass house.  No stones were thrown.

I thought I was strolling back towards the main gate but kept getting distracted by things like King William's Temple, which was built for Queen Victoria and commemorates British victories.


Nonetheless, my legs were tired and I was cold.  My usual plan to "forget" a jacket so I would haaaaave to buy a touristy sweatshirt in the giftshop had backfired disastrously.  It had only been t-shirts for as far as the eye could see!  Never mind that it had been 95-degrees and humid every day for the past month except for this one day I decide to go be "outdoorsy."  Still, one truth about travel is that when you look back on your memories, you forget what the weather was like.  So, I decided to just push on and gather as many memories as I could to drown out the cold.  
There was a beautiful lake with swans-a-swimming...



And more vistas that the aristocracy created for the views, arboretums of different kinds of trees.



 I found a Japanese house and an azalea garden, and ended up on the backside of the palm tree glass house.  Hidden back there was a glorious rose garden.  I wish I had come a few weeks earlier when they were all in bloom!  But you know... Shakespeare...



I'm a fan of the topiary hedge and when I make a bajillion dollars and marry that lord with a manor house that needs a little upkeep, I'm going to devote myself to a garden shaped hedges.  Perhaps references to literary characters?  An ax for the Woodcutter?  A little hedge shaped like Pipistrelle?  Any takers?  Anyone?  Anyone?



 I figured since I had missed something this wonderful, there HAD to be something even more wonderful on the OTHER other side of the glass house.

And indeed there was.  I discovered a wee little glass house, the smallest glass house on the property...


And it was all devoted to water lilies and other aquatic plants.






My pictures just don't do them justice.  They were SO COOL.  Some of the coolest plants I have ever seen in my entire life.  And I would have missed them all if I had decided to give in to cold and exhaustion!  The scale of these things was enormous!  A small child could lie down on one comfortably.  Just... cool.

I finally made it around the front side again and decided that THIS time, it was really time to go...



The reason being was that I had tickets for a show at the London Wonderground called Limbo.  Now, it just so happened that the oooone Tube station I needed to take was closed, so instead, I hopped off at one next to Parliment and got to walk across the Thames to the South Bank.

"Look, kids!  Big Ben!  Parliament!"
Tucked behind the London Eye...


Was this outdoor carnival, kind of aimed at grownups.  It was gritty and kind of steampunky and just... cool.  This is a bar built into a carousel and your table is on the back of the horses.



But what I was there for was closing night of Limbo, which I found out about because some lady was reading the program on the Tube and the cover made me go, "That looks cool!"  And then I went back to my dorm and looked it up and went, "Oh.  I need to see this."


It was located inside this red and white striped tent with a single stage in the middle.  There were strings of white lights hanging from the ceiling and the action took place around us and through the audience.  I did end up sternly asking the Americans beside me to turn off their cellphones as the lights from their screens blinded everyone around us in the dark.  I mean, seriously, people.  Aside from it being dangerous (go into a dark bathroom and flash your camera phone in your face.  Now image trying to fly on a trapeze and having that happen), there were humans hanging from the rafters by their toes ten feet in front of your face and you're checking Facebook?  It is a LIVE SHOW!  The performers are standing next to you!  They SEE YOU not paying attention.

ANYWAYS.  Limbo was this gritty, intimate circus with contortionists and fire eaters and sword swallowers (who swallowed a lit neon tube!) live music and just... wow.  It was kind of indescribable, so just watch this video instead.  It is so fast paced, you might need to watch it once or twice until you realize exactly what it is you're seeing.


I left there feeling like I could fly, and isn't that the experience you really want?  I ended up buying the program and the CD and just... yeah.  It was a show I wish never had to end.


I had a lovely walk along the banks of the Thames to think about everything I had seen.

"Look, kids!  Big Ben!  Parliament!"
There is something about night in a big city, that experience of walking around in the dark completely safe.  The way the night blots out all the dirt and replaces it with... I don't know... romance?  A dream like state?  Something otherworldly?  There is, for me, such a deep peace, as sense of belonging.  You're alone, but you're not.  You watch all these lives happening in these little puddles of light.  It's like the city gives you these little vignettes, these little stories in every restaurant, in each couple holding hands.  The pace relaxes.  It's just... lovely.

Presenting... THE M-TEAM!

Maggie fans?  The wait is over!  Presenting Book Five in the Maggie MacKay: Magical Tracker series... THE M-TEAM!  Available NOW! NOW! NOW!


When Maggie and Killian torched Hollywood, the World Walker Association was not happy and decided to pull Maggie's license. This is just the opportunity the bad guys were looking for. When Maggie decides to do what is right vs. what is legal, the Association puts a bounty hunter on her tail to haul her off to prison.Unfortunately, it comes to light that ALL of the World Walkers are being hauled off to prison... and once there, meeting an untimely end. Have the vampires infiltrated the World Walkers Association? Or is an even greater evil now at work?Or is it just another lousy day at M&K Tracking?KindleiBooksKoboNookCreateSpace PaperbackAmazon PaperbackinkteraScribd

Building Madness gets a Bath... reading!

As some of you may or may not know, in addition to being a fancy-pants author, I am a fancy-pants playwright.  Ooo la la!

All joking aside, I had something really awesome happen. I  wrote a screwball comedy called Building Madness and I just found out that it is going international.  It is getting a reading in Bath this weekend at Burdall's Yard as part of TheatreLab's WordPlay event.  If you're in the area, let me know if you catch it!  And if Bath is just a liiiittle bit too far from home, never fear!  Building Madness will be having a reading in New York in April, and rumor on the street will be having readings in Bristol and London this spring, too.  Sometimes life is just flat out cool.



2:00PM & 7:30PMSaturday, January 17, 2015Tickets £3; Free for BSU Students 
WordPlay - Presented by TheatreLabBurdall's Yard - Bath Spa University
Bath Spa UniversityNewton St LoeBath, BA2 9BN

M&K Tracking - Named Best of 2014 by Suspense Magazine

I was giving some incredible news just before the Christmas holidays - M&K Tracking was named one of the Best of 2014 by Suspense Magazine, alongside Kim Harrison and Dean Koontz.  As they say across the pond, I am completely chuffed.

In High Spirits - Now Available!

In High SpiritsO'Hare House Mysteries Book IV
In the thrilling conclusion of the O'Hare House Mystery series, Wesley has been wrongly imprisoned and is facing the hangman's noose.
Teaming up with Red and Marguerite to prove his innocence, Clara discovers a sinister society bent on unlocking the secrets to eternal life, even if it means others must die.  The truth of what really happened to Peter Nero's missing money is a tale some will take to their grave.
Where to buy:PaperbackKindleKoboGoogle PlayScribdinkteraNook - coming soon!iBooks - coming soon!

London - 8/17/14 - Part I

Morning dawned and oh what a glorious morning in a room without the sound of students horsing around in the courtyard and dump trucks rattling down the street!  Oh peace!  Oh quiet! Oh windows that closed and air conditioning in the summer!  Rapture!



I decided it was high time to start this holiday right and indulged in something I've never done before.  Breakfast in bed.



And not just any breakfast in bed.  Oh no!  I went for the whole shabang.  The full monty.  The everything-AND-the-kitchen-sink.  The FULL English breakfast.


Mushrooms! Potatoes! Tomatoes! Ham! Beans! Sausage! Scones! Croissant! Melon!  Some cheese something!  Fresh squeezed orange juice and coffee!  Oh!  It was divine...  It made up for four weeks of grab-and-go sandwiches at Sainsbury Local and free cafeteria food.

I was on the west-ish side of town and, consulting my handy-dandy Tube map, realized the closest line went straight to Kew Gardens.


AND, since I had become a Historical Palaces member (because I'm a nerd), I had a coupon!  Now I had tried on various trips before to get out to Kew Gardens, with something always going disastrously wrong (closed stations, accidents on the tracks which sent all of London into lock down, etc.).  This time, I was DETERMINED.

Despite it being mid-August, it was flippin' freezing (which was actually preferable to flippin' hot, which marked all of the summer weather prior).  But, as Rick Steves once said, "There is no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing."

So, I bundled up and toodled off.  And by "bundled up", I mean I put on a long sleeve shirt.  Because I am an idiot, as I was soon to learn.  I hopped of the train at the very last station.  Look at this adorable little station!  Isn't it so cute you want to pinch its little cheeks?!


It was cold.  Coldy coldy cold.  But I soldiered on!  Put my head down and my shoulder in the wind!  I arrived at Kew Gardens right at opening and lordie it was a perty place!


In light of how frickin' cold it was, I headed off into that lovely glass building for some time in the tropic air with some tropical plants.

Oh so warm and toasty!

Beneath the Palm House was an aquarium, which was cool.  But what was REALLY cool, was that they let you climb up these steps and walk around the catwalk of the conservatory!  They don't let you do stuff like this in America...




 There was just this beautiful decay happening all around it...



This was the conservatory's tallest palm tree.  Think of that outdoor picture (for scale - the bottom square is the front door).


Now stick this tree inside of that tallest point.  It was TALL.


Eventually I made my way back down from the jungle canopy to brave the great outdoors once again.


Out front were these random statues.  It was only when I looked closer that I realized they were from the coats-of-arms of all the families we had been studying in Shakespeare's history plays.
Edward III Clarence
Plantagenet

Beaufort
Richmond
I go for cheap thrills.  It's just when you've spent four weeks studying these people and these families, it's like finding your friend's picture on display at Disneyland.

The garden itself is GINORMOUS, so I decided to take a page from history and catch the tram.


Our guide was this posh old gent who used to be a pilot and kept us all in stitches the entire way.  He asked me where I was from and said, "Oh!  I once dated a woman who went to finishing school there, but she was no lady."  *nuck nuck*

So back when the gardens belonged to aristocrazy, they designed the gardens with these vistas.  They would mow down all the trees and vegetation so that you could get an unobstructed view from various buildings on the grounds.  As someone who could have a view of the ocean from her office if it wasn't for a blasted forest filled with "nature" in the way, I support this vision.

I hopped off the tram over by the Asian gardens and wandered through the zen garden.









I then caught a glimpse of one of those vistas and headed over to the pagoda.

 (Vista featured below.  Imagine this view from your bedroom window.)


 Now, if I were made of sterner stuff, I could have hung out and climbed to the top.  My enthusiasm to do so waned, however, when I reached the base and looked up...


So instead, I wandered around the outside of it.  There were plant beds (the beds were shaped like a human body which you could look down upon from the top of the pagoda) filled with medicinal plants.


I hopped back onto the next tram and continued the tour.  Our tram was greeted by a friendly peacock.


And a family enjoying a picnic at one of the tables.  I wanted the Mad Hatter to arrive and start shouting, "Fresh cup!  Fresh cup!  Everyone up and to a new place!"


There is an aristocratic family which still lives to Kew Gardens adjacent and gets to enjoy the views.


Finally, the tram pulled up in front of Kew Palace and once more I disembarked to get a peek inside.  I couldn't get it all in one picture, so stitch all of these together in your mind.




Costumed docents welcomed me in and I grabbed a tour book.
This palace had a rather sad history.  So, you remember that movie The Madness of King George?  Well, George III lived here (rather, retreated to this palace when the madness struck).  His son, George IV, haaaated it and when his father died, tried to see off the lands to settle his gambling debts.  But Queen Charlotte (George III's wife) loved this palace and gardens.  She was a brilliant woman - an accomplished biologist, science enthusiast, and supporter of the arts.  She used the palace to host evening salons with presentations from some of the greatest minds of the time.


Some ladies sewed samplers.  Some sewed map puzzles to help teach geography.

This is a sterling silver microscope fit for a queen!



 George III enjoyed playing the flute.  Here is one he played made of porcelain.


They had a dinner laid (layed? lain?  Aw heck...  you know what I'm saying...) in the dining room with examples of historic meals.



The palace had recently been restored using paint and colors found beneath the layers of previous redecoration.  As you wandered through, they had an audio track playing with conversations that would have happened between members of the royal family and letters they wrote at the time.








There were some gorgeous views of the gardens from the upper windows.


I continued on to the top floor, which they had allowed to remain in its original unrestored state.


(original wallpaper which informed the restoration downstairs)


My tour of the house done, I headed out into the gardens to see them close up.
The backside of the house
So pretty from a distance, right?  All of those little pebbles in the pathway were rocks cemented on end to dig right into the sole of your foot.  Ancient accupressure?  Torture device?  Only the signer knows.
Such a sunshiny lovely day!  Note those gray clouds in the background, though.  Never turn your back on UK weather was the lesson I learned this trip.

 So I was totally standing there admiring this little guy...  There's something about him.  Sort of charming.  Sort of creepy.  I totally want to write a story about him.


Again, just minding my own business, taking pictures...

When the skies OPENED. UP.  I mean, SHEETS of rain.  No warning drizzle.  No gust of wind.  Just perfectly fine one moment AND NOAH'S FLOOD THE NEXT.

Like a heroine from a Jane Austen novel, I ran for shelter beneath these trees.


Sadly, there was no Mr. Darcy on his horse there to give me a ride back to the manor.  Just this dude.


He was entirely too amused by my predicament.  So, I waited out the rain, which soon got so heavy that even the trees didn't protect me from a good soaking.

Drenched to the bone, the rain finally stopped.  This was the moment I thought to myself, "The white linen shirt was perhaps not the wisest decision."  The only thing protecting my modesty was that guidebook I bought on a whim.  I slogged out of the garden to find shelter before the rain came again.


This place was closed, but available for weddings.  The rain started coming again, so out of desperation, I ducked into the desert conservatory to wait it out.  Of all the lousy conservatories to be stuck in.  Desert.

Great.  I'm in England and I get to have the Southern California/Arizona experience.


It's like I never even flew 7,000 miles.

FINALLY, there was another break in the rain and I made a beeline for the front gate.  Except I kept getting distracted by all of these little treasures tucked away in hidden nooks.

 

I was cold.  I was hungry.  And what's better when you're cold and hungry than a gift shop and a museum cafe?


I got a savory tart filled with mushrooms and stroganoff, chocolate cake, fresh greens, and a piping hot cup of coffee.  The world was suddenly shiny and new!
And actually, it was shiny and new.  By the time I finished, the storm had blown over.  I was a little tired, but there was one spot I saw from the tram that I reeeeeaaaallly wanted to check out.
It was a closed glass house conservatory.

I don't know if I was supposed to go in, but the door was open... soooo....




It was really cool in sort of a post-apocalyptic way.




















I stepped out and there was a gentleman just sitting next to one of the doors, enjoying a good book.  What a great reading nook!  An abandoned Victorian glass conservatory.  He wins.


And here I will leave you since this is becoming the world's longest blog post.  Look for Part II shortly!

London - 8/16/14

Let's see... where did I last leave you... AH! I was checking out of my dorm room.  Now... the thing is... after you spend four weeks in a place your belongings tend to breed like rabbits.  My frugally packed 40 lbs. suitcase was now two suitcases and a rolling briefcase.  One of the joys of London is that they are still shifting over to the "handicapped accessible" stations.  Mind you, it's better than NYC, but I have no idea how mums with their buggies and people in wheelchairs get around that city.  I'm a cheap bastard about certain things, one of them being public transportation, and I wasn't about to spend $100 for a cab ride across town when I had an all-you-can-ride subway pass.  So, I rolled my stacks of luggage down the street... down the escalator into the tube... onto the train... and carefully plotted my path so that I would not have to endure a single set of stairs.

Unfortunately, the closest tube station to my hotel was semi-closed, so I continued on to the next.  No stairs!  Win!  Fifteen minute walk to my hotel pushing 562,000 lbs of luggage... oooo...

I was a hot, sweaty, sleep deprived mess by the time I arrived.  And this was a fancy hotel.  The concierge took one look at me, though, and was like, "Would you like a glass of water?"  He was such a doll.  He actually memorized my name from that first meeting and would greet me every time I came in with a friendly, "Hello, Ms. Danley!"  My room wasn't ready yet, so I gave him my bags and headed out explore the neighborhood.

Little nerd humor for you...


Richard III was the Duke of Gloucester.  He only had one good arm.  So this made me laugh.  I know it isn't what they meant, but after spending four weeks studying the play, I giggled thinking this was some sort of sideways dig.

The neighborhood of South Kensington was gorgeous.  Remember that if you are traveling.  North Kensington?  Lousy with the tourist traps and scary people trying to sell you cell phones.  South Kensington?  Awesome.

Just a short walk from my hotel was Kensington Palace.  When Princess Diana died, these were the gates which were buried by the flowers and memorials.


This palace is where William and Kate reside with little Prince George.  The castle is not as massive or as jaw droppingly awe inspiring as some of the other palaces, but there was a lovely little homey feel to it.


You know... if you grandmother was the queen...

They had an exhibition of clothing worn by Elizabeth and Diana.  I used to have Princess Diana paperdolls and I recognized many of these outfits from my hours meticulously cutting them from the page.


I spent a lot of time, though, in the Victoria and Albert exhibit.  Mainly because I was totally lost and couldn't find anything.  But it was well worth the visit!




I liked the saucy Victoria in this painting, which was done just for Prince Albert.  You got the sense that they really did like one another.


 In one of the other rooms, it featured the toys and clothes of their children.  I am a sucker for a dollhouse.





Victoria led the charge in the movement to cherish childhood.  Children began having their own fashions, instead of just being dressed like little adults.  Children's toys began being mass produced.  It was a golden age!  That is... until Prince Albert's death...


Despite being so long ago, I couldn't help a little twinge of sadness.  To watch how happy this family seemed, and then to see how this tragedy changed them all forever.

Well, it was too heavy for me.  I headed out into the garden!  Again... mainly because I couldn't find my way to the other exhibit hall I knew was lurking somewhere.


So lovely!

Finally, I turned the right corner and headed into the right wing and got into the Glorious George's Exhibition!  What I loved about this exhibit was that it came with a scratch-and-sniff map.  As you went through this hall, you were to smell the candlewax.






The galleries in this wing of the palace were just stunning!  

With art in ever corner you looked!  Including if you looked up!






A little nod to all the time I spent doing Shakespeare with a nod to ye olde god of theater, Bacchus.  Eat, drink, and be merry!  For tomorrow your role will be cut in editing!




In addition to the scratch-and-sniff tour, they had costumed docents engaging in everyday activities one might have observed in these halls during George's reign.  Including a friendly game of cards.  You were invited to take a seat at one of the tables and try a hand.



It had been a wonderful trip, but the hour arrived for me to check into my hotel room, so I trundled back through the park, back through the neighborhood, past all of the private gardens for all of the private houses in the neighborhood, and to my hotel.  In order to get to my room, it was dooooown a long hallway and uuuuuup a slow elevator that played this one song over and over again then dooooown another long hallway...

But when I arrived?  Oh glorious room!  With air conditioning!  And a tub which did not demand shower shoes!  And a massive bed with stacks of pillows!  And big fluffy towels on a heated bar!  I could have spent the rest of my trip there.  But not when there is so much wonderful stuff to see.

I got gussied up for the afternoon and stepped on out.  It was to be a day of theatre!  First stop, the South Bank for a quick matinee at The National for a play I knew nothing about called Great Britain (currently running with
I then hustled my bustle over to the Old Vic to catch The Crucible starring Richard Armitage.  In the interest of fair disclosure, my first non-school role was Abigail Williams in The Crucible.  We broke the all time ticket sales record if I do say so *buffs nails*.  But I hadn't picked up the script since then.  And, honestly, it had never been one of my favorite plays to watch.  It's pretty heavy.

But this production changed that.  My. God.  It ranks... gosh... as probably the best play I've ever seen?  It was done in the round and I was actually sitting on the stage with the actors.  It was gritty and dirty and sweaty and gut-wrenchingly performed (it is actually going to be screening on cinemas at various places and is well worth picking up a ticket - http://thecrucibleonscreen.com/).


Richard Armitage killed it (and I have no idea how he didn't blow out his vocal chords with the power he was putting behind every word).  The actress they cast as the possessed girl was a contortionist, so the stuff she did while under control of the devil was terrifying.  It was just... an achingly horrible beautiful tragedy.  Arthur Miller would have been proud.  It was everything you hope that a theater experience should be.


So thus began my week of freedom.  It was an auspicious start that proved to be a harbinger of all the awesomeness to come.

The Spirit of Krampus Illustrated Edition Release!

December 24th has come again. What a time to get into the holiday mood! But this year, it's the spirit of Krampus, not the spirit of Christmas, which has infected adults across the globe. It is up to young Skip to track down Santa Claus and set things right in a world gone mad.

The Spirit of Krampus  is a short story I wrote several years ago for a Christmas anthology. This year, it comes to new life with the gorgeous illustrations of Abigail Larson. Her work has been featured at the Museum of American Illustrators and The Poe Museum.

This story is appropriate for 6th Grade and up. Perfect for the kid who likes things a little bit spooky, but not too scary. You grownups are on your own, though.
PaperbackKindleNookiTunesKoboGooglePlayInkteraScribd

O'Hare House Mysteries Book Four Announcement

Have you anxiously been checking Amazon to see when the next O'Hare House Mystery book will be released?  Have you been lying in bed at night wondering what is to become of poor Wesley and Clara?  Well, the wait is almost over!  Coming at you next week is the thrilling conclusion of the O'Hare House Mystery series... *drumroll*... In High Spirits!


In the thrilling conclusion of the O'Hare House Mystery series, Wesley has been wrongly imprisoned and it is up to Clara to prove his innocence. Teaming up with Red and Marguerite in this cause, Clara goes head to head against Trevor Beltza, only to discover a sinister secret society bent on unlocking the secrets to eternal life, even if it means others must die, and what really happened to Peter Nero's missing money.

Add it to your Goodreads list!

Haven't read the series yet?  Get the first book, A Spirited Manor, FREE on all platforms!

The Dark of Twilight Moves Forward

Just to give you some access to the inner workings of my brain, I was reeeeaaaallly nervous about The Dark of Twilight.  It was sort of outside my normal writing fare and I just didn't know how it would be received.  But I have been so touched by the kind emails and reviews and feedback.  Thank you!  I had made a decision to hold off on Book Two until I got a sense whether people actually wanted another one or not.  Well, you have spoken!  Book Two has been added to my writing calendar and should be headed your way in March 2015  (yes! Your feedback really is that important!).  So, in light of your awesomeness, here's a special treat!  This is my vision board for the series.  And now you know what everyone looks like in my head!  :)