Nicola Cornick's Blog, page 18

Prizes and Updates!

Congratulations to Gigi, whose name was picked from the hat to win the blog contest! Thank you all for sharing your favourite flowers on the blog and conjuring up such a vision of summer! Congratulations also to Tora who won the most recent website contest. This month I am offering a big box of Godiva chocolates to one lucky winner so if you would liek to enter, check out the contest here!

Meanwhile I am very excited to be taking part in the fabulous Sizzling Summer Reads Party at The Romance Reviews!  There are more than 4oo prizes up for grabs during the whole month of July and the Grand Prize is a gift certificate worth $100! Join the party here! 

Finally I’d like to thank ZoneArtsOne in Australia for a lovely interview they did with me about my writing and my work at Ashdown House. You can see the interview here and also take a look at the rest of this wonderful site.

Finally, finally don’t miss Lady Emma’s Disgrace, the website-exclusive story starting on Monday! Thank you and I hope you are all having a wonderful week!

©2012 Nicola Cornick. All Rights Reserved.

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Basildon Park and a Blog Contest!

Today on my way to do an interview at the BBC I dropped into Basildon Park, a glorious 18th century house in Berkshire. Back in 1796 when the architect took his nieces to to see the house one of them wrote: “Very singular and beautiful. You ascend into the principal storey by a double flight of steps under a beautiful Loggio of Columns.” It does make the visitor feel very special to be ascending those stairs just as an 18th century guest would have done! Beyond the doors are a series of rooms designed for grand entertainment, all richly and fabulously furnished and decorated. Basildon feels very opulent but at the same time quite intimate for a grand house. It has a lovely warmth to it and as I strolled through the Library, the grand dining room and the stunning Octagon Drawing Room I could easily imagine myself at home there!

The house had originally been built for Sir Francis Sykes, a nabob who had amassed a fortune working for the East India Company. However it was never completely finished as Sykes faced a series of corruption charges relating to his time with the Company and it quickly started to show signs of decline. Sykes died in 1804 and the two succeeding baronets had little interest in the place, letting it to a series of tenants. In 1829 it was put up for sale but because the family refused to sell for less than £100 000 it was not bought until 1838 by which time it was “in a wretched condition.” The house and grounds were restored by James Morrison, who had made his money in the haberdashery trade. It remained in the Morrison family throughout the 19th century but once more fell into decline in the early 20th, to rise like a phoenix under the care of Lord and Lady Iliffe. Today, surrounded by its pleasure gardens and with a delightful parterre it is once again as stunning as it must have been in its earlier heyday.

Basildon Park was the setting for Netherfield in Pride and Prejudice and also features in Julie Cohen’s fabulous book The Summer of Living Dangerously. I have a charming giveaway of National Trust bluebell soap and hand lotion plus lots of other little National Trust gifts to give to one commenter on the blog today. All you have to do to enter is to tell me your favourite flower (I’m still thinking of the gorgeous rose gardens at Basildon!) and please make sure I have your contact details in case you win!

©2012 Nicola Cornick. All Rights Reserved.

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Coming Soon!

I can’t believe it’s almost the end of June. It’s been a really busy month here. Time just seems to rush past so quickly! Some great things have happened though, most particularly the Diamond Jubilee celebrations at the beginning of the month and our special tour of the Guide Dog Puppy Centre last week.  I also had a wonderful time giving two talks at the Wantage Festival, one on the history of Ashdown House and the Craven Family and the other about the Napoleonic Prisoners of War on parole in England. 

The talks took place at the Wantage Vale and Downland Museum, a local community museum which I l0ve equally for the wonderful exhibitions they run and the fact that afterwards you can relax in one of the best coffee shops in town. Here I am in the photo smiling with relief after the talk went down well with my audience! I first started to research the Napoleonic prisoners of war for my book One Wicked Sin and it’s such a fascinating topic. I know I sometimes come across as something of a history geek but I do love my research and take great pleasure in drawing on it for my books.

So July is upon us with more exciting stuff going on! Next Monday I am at the BBC doing a programme about the history of Ashdown. I’ll be blogging about that next week; very exciting! There are exciting new things here on the website too. First there will be a special preview of Forbidden to celebrate the fact that the book is out in only 2 months time! Then on 9th July there is the launch of my new, free website-exclusive short story, Scandalous Women of the Ton book six and a half, Lady Emma’s Disgrace. More on that next week as well!

In the meantime don’t miss your last chance to enter my current website contest to win an Amazon voucher and one of my backlist books. Have a very happy weekend!

©2012 Nicola Cornick. All Rights Reserved.

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Join me for luncheon…

…On the Word Wench blog today! There is tea and cake, pastries, fruit and sandwiches. I’m blogging about lunch in Georgian and Regency times and I hope to see you there. Click here to join me for lunch!

©2012 Nicola Cornick. All Rights Reserved.

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To The Manor (or manner) Born!

On Tuesday this week I had the huge pleasure of a special trip to the Guide Dog Puppy Breeding Centre at Leamington Spa.  I am very proud to work for UK Guide Dogs as a volunteer puppy walker and visiting the breeding centre helped me to see the work that we do in a wider perspective. I’ve always been in awe of the wonderful dogs who help blind and partially-sighted people in their daily life and it’s an honour to be a small part of that process.

Guide Dog brood bitches and stud dogs live with families, and most litters of puppies are born at home and are therefore exposed to many different sights and sounds and other stimuli in the home environment. Litters of puppies may be born at the breeding centre for medical reasons, if there have been any problems in the pregnancy, for example. These puppies are also socialised from an early age by volunteers who handle the dogs and introduce them to a wide range of experiences. All puppies come into the breeding centre at 6 weeks old before being delivered to people like us for puppy walking. On our tour we saw some newly-born pups that were only a few days old and some 6 week old puppies that were getting ready to go and live with their puppy walkers. We were shown around by a dedicated and very entertaining group of volunteers – with their dogs. I loved the fact that this was one tour where the dogs took you round!

There is the Diary of a Puppy Walker here and don’t miss Rochester the Guide Dog Puppy’s blog here! There’s also a very moving video here all about the work that Guide Dogs do. Here’s to those wonderful dogs!

©2012 Nicola Cornick. All Rights Reserved.

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Down in the Woods – and a good ghost story!

Landscape history fascinates me. The use to which the land has been put over time, the changes it has experienced, the tales it can tell are all extraordinary elements of our history. One thing I particularly love is walking through ancient woodland, taking tracks that have been used for centuries.

Last weekend we visited Bentley Wood and Blackmoor Copse.  Bentley Wood was known to have existed before 1200AD when it was part of the ancient Forest of Melchet which in turn adjoined the Royal Forest of Clarendon. This woodland had probably been as royal chase as far back as the Saxon era. On the crest of a steep chalk hill that gives a distant view of Salisbury stood Clarendon Palace, the King’s residence when he came hunting there. This is now no more than an overgrown ruin.

The first King who is recorded as staying at Clarendon is William the Conqueror but the great days of Clarendon took place under King Henry II. For three or four centuries from the 1150s it was a favoured country palace of English royalty. It fell into disuse during the Wars of the Roses and by the time Elizabeth I went hunting there in 1574 the palace was in ruins. A map of 1667 shows rides through the wood, one of which was called “cock road drove,” a glade or clearing where woodcock were caught in nets. A later map of 1811 shows two cottages and an orchard in the wood.

The Forest held red deer, roe deer and fallow deer, wild boar and rabbit warrens. Fallow deer still roam the woods and we saw a herd there. There are also a number of beautiful ancient yew trees that date back centuries. In Blackmoor Copse is King Charles’ Pond, a gorgeous peaceful little spot where we saw some beautiful dragonflies and butterflies. It is said that the pool derives its name from the fact that this was where Charles II, on the run after the Battle of Worcester in 1651, deceived parliament troops hunting for him by disguising himself as a farm labourer. It is said that on some twilight evening the ghosts of the troops have been seen searching for him through the woods! We saw no ghosts on our trip but it was certainly atmospheric enough to imagine all sorts of spooky possibilities!

©2012 Nicola Cornick. All Rights Reserved.

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Recipes from the Diamond Jubilee!

Today on the Word Wenches blog I am talking about some of the historical recipes we tried out to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee.  From Coronation Chicken to the Queen’s Gingerbread we had a wonderful time in the kitchen and our clothes are now quite a bit tighter as a result. Drop by to share your favourite celebratory food with the Wenches!

©2012 Nicola Cornick. All Rights Reserved.

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Prizewinners!

Congratulations to Liz, who has won a copy of Invitation to Scandal in Bronwen Evans’s fabulous giveaway and to Tamsyn who has won the pearl necklace and set of trilogy books in my most recent website contest! Here is a picture of an Edwardian banquet to celebrate!

The new website contest is offering a $30 Amazon gift voucher or UK equivalent plus a backlist book of the winner’s choice. You can enter the contest here! Thank you as always to everyone who entered the blog and website contests. It gives me such pleasure to run these and I’d like to thank everyone who drops into the blog, visits the website and chats away on Facebook, Twitter and the Word Wenches. Thank you!

©2012 Nicola Cornick. All Rights Reserved.

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River Pageants!

Today on the UK Regency Authors’ blog I am talking about 500 years of Thames river pageants! Drop by for some merrymaking on the water!

©2012 Nicola Cornick. All Rights Reserved.

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Diamond Jubilee Beacons!

Last night we went up on the chalk downs above our village for the ceremonial lighting of the Diamond Jubilee Beacon. Ours was just one of 4000 beacons that were lit across the country (and the world) as another element in the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebration.

As the full moon rose to the south and the chain of beacons lit up the Ridgeway I felt as though I had been transported back two thousand years to a time when beacons were used for communication and warning as well as celebration. The enormous fire roared and around us in the darkened countryside we could see lots of other answering flares of light as the message of celebration was passed along.  It felt amazing and moving, an experience that connected us all to hundreds of years of history as well as to other communities around the globe. A truly special and memorable occasion!

©2012 Nicola Cornick. All Rights Reserved.

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