Amy Rae Durreson's Blog, page 9

There goes November (phew)

It’s been a long November. I’ve had a valiant stab at Nanowrimo, but as I’m currently sitting just under 25k, it isn’t going to happen this year. That said, I only wrote 2022 words altogether in October, so I’m still seeing this as a small triumph. It’s report writing season, and the sense that something indefinable is very wrong with my workload and/or time management in my day job has just continued to grow. Despite all of that, it’s also been a beautiful November. I’ve been watching the beeches outside my classroom window gradually turn, and it wasn’t until this week’s cold snap that most of the leaves came down. Between Nano, workload, bad weather, and the muscle I pulled in my calf last month, I haven’t had a chance to get outside and enjoy the autumn. This weekend, though, I finally decided that I needed fresh air more than an impossible wordcount goal, and spent Saturday afternoon outside.

I walked across part of Frensham Common, starting from the bus stop in the village, and then meandered past various villages and landmarks until I got back to Farnham. It was perfect walking weather, mild enough that I didn’t need my coat, and with clear skies. This part of the world is full of beechwoods, clinging to steep slopes, and heathland where the paths are sandy underfoot. Parts of it have been claimed for forestry, and conifers go soaring up on either side of the path. Through it all runs the River Wey and its feeder streams, splitting, curling around meadows, and occasionally across your path, sliding under low bridges or brushing against ancient walls. It’s hard to walk anywhere around here without touching on the banks of some branch of the Wey, and it kept me company for most of my walk.

The initial path across the common. A lot of my local walking is on paths like these.

There’s a high narrow ridge between to path in my last picture and Frensham Little Pond. Here’s the view from the top, looking north. The River Wey is somewhere down in that valley, and Farnham itself is behind the next ridge, only a few miles away.

The ridge is only a few metres wide. I’m standing on the edge of it here, looking across its entire width. There’s a viewpoint up there with a couple of benches which make a perfect place to stop for lunch (which is why I climbed up there in the first place).

And this is the view from that lunch stop, looking south over the corner of Frensham Little Pond. The two ponds are manmade, created in the Middle Ages by the Bishop of Winchester to supply him with fish. They’re now a Site of Special Scientific Interest and run by the National Trust.

Back down on the bridleway, one of the Wey’s feeder streams pools across the path. It’s shallow enough that horses and bikes can go right through, but there’s a narrow wooden bridge bridge for walkers. In the summer, it can dry up entirely.

There are still farms in Surrey, as well as country homes for stockbrokers. And, yes, those fields are very muddy and the pigs seem very happy in them.

The path through the pig farm eventually comes out on the riverbank. It was still early afternoon, but despite the deceptive warmth of the day, it is only a few weeks from the shortest day and every hike is a race against the light.

With the sun at your back, though, the woods still glow.

A long dim climb out of the village of Tilford and a descent through eerie pine woods eventually brings you back to the river. Here it is on the path from the road to the ruins of Waverley Abbey. The sun was beginning to slip below the treeline, and this was the last burst of bright light.

The abbey was the first Cistercian foundation in England. Only a few ruinous walls survive.

The river swings around the abbey’s site, running very close to the walls in places. As the evening set in, mist was just starting to rise off the water. The ruins on either side were once side chapels of the huge abbey church.

I still had a few miles to go, so I left the abbey to sleep and headed along the Moor Park Trail. This is a little hidden gem of Farnham’s: a heritage path across the grounds of Moor Park, where Jonathan Swift once worked as Sir William Temple’s secretary. It was here that Swift met ‘Stella’ and the entrance to the path is still along the drive of ‘Stella Lodge.’ The path runs past this witch’s cave, now gated off as it houses rare bats, above an alder swamp, and past various WW2 defences. It’s a favourite of mine because it links Farnham (and its public transport) with many potential walks.

You can look out across the grounds from the path, and I watched the mist steadily spill outwards from the river.

Beyond Moor Park, the lane continues along the top of Farnham water meadows.

My walk ended soon afterwards, as the lane crept under bridges to the middle of the Shepherd and Flock roundabout. This is a daily hassle for many local drivers, and it always amuses me to wonder how many of them know what is only a few minutes walk from their commute.

And, to finish off, another drabble-length glimpse of how the Dragon Wars got started. I actually wrote this one before Nano got started, but forgot to post it. Here, Tarnamell shares the news of the war with his brother Halsarr (200 words exactly)

Unlike his brothers, Halsarr did not live in a mountain fastness. Halsarrsthwaite was a small half-timbered town, the colleges of the medical school scattered among the steep streets. Halsarr himself preferred to wear his human guise and live among his hoard, and he took some finding. By the time Tarnamell tracked him down to a small hospice by the market square, he was sure Halsarr was avoiding him deliberately.

���Busy,��� Halsarr said, not looking up from the child with a grazed knee he was tending. ���Come back later.���

���Halsarr, I am summoning������

���Hal,��� his brother corrected. ���I decline your invitation.���

���The Shadow has risen in Eyr. I have come to call your hoard to war.���

Halsarr finally looked up, pursing his lips. ���I���m a pacifist, idiot.���

���Under the circumstances, perhaps you������

���If I desert my principles at the first challenge, there is little point in having them. Goodbye, brother.���

Tarnamell took a slow breath, counted to twenty, and reminded himself that he loved his brother. ���We need you.���

���That���s nice.���

This time he counted to fifty. ���We can���t stop it without a fight. We will need chirurgeons.���

That, Halsarr considered, his face stern. At last, he��said, reluctantly,�������Maybe.���

Once Upon a Time…

In case anyone has missed it, October has been Queer Romance Month (click on the image above to go straight there). This has been a wonderful celebration of queer romance, with posts from all over the genre and beyond, from writers and reviewers. Every single post has been fascinating. Many have moved me, others have made me think hard about who I am, both as a writer and as someone one doesn’t quite fit into other people’s boxes, and some have made my fingers itch to get writing.

I’m honoured to have been invited to play. I struggled to pick just one thing to write about, so cheated and retold a fairy tale which covered most of what I wanted to say about storytellers and their audiences, about laughter and creativity and criticism, and about how damn happy this genre makes me. The Prince Who Never Laughed went up this afternoon. I hope you enjoy it.

This week is half term, which would normally mean I’d be taking to the hills to walk some new ideas out of my head. Alas, I have pulled a muscle in my leg (twice, because I was too impatient to slow down the first time) and can just about make it down the road to the Co-Op and back before it gives out. I shall be writing and cleaning instead, and will hopefully get my teeth into Recovery before the week is done.

And, like last week, have a little double-drabble from the first Dragon War. Here Tarnamell starts calling his brothers to war…

20 years before the Fall of Eyr

The dragon went to Arden first, arching over the mountains to reach his brother’s burgh where it stood over the Iron Pass. The first rivulets of the River Anna fell across the scree below in glistening threads and the curlews soared over the towers.

Arden’s hoard were drilling, pikes raised and faces fierce with determination. Arden led them in their warlike dance, his human face intent.

The dragon transformed into flame above them and became human in their midst.

The nearest pikeman stumbled.

Arden kicked his feet out from under him, with a peal of laughter, but reached down to offer a hand up. “Watch your guard, Lilland.”

“Watch yours, lord,” the pikeman retorted and tried to hook his foot around Arden’s ankle. Arden dodged away, still laughing, and swung to meet another opportunistic swing.

“Enough,” Tarnamell said gravely. “The time for games is over.”

Arden held up his hand and the pikemen all dropped back. As the space opened around them, Arden asked, “What happened?”

“The Shadow rose from the mines,” Tarnamell told him.

“We should have put it down years ago.”

“Perhaps,” Tarnamell admitted. Arden was always swift to strike.

“And now?”

“War,” Tarnamell said. “Ready your hoard.”

Resistance! (Good news)

“No chance of being kidnapped by pirates now,” Esen said, with a faint note of regret in her voice.

Raif pulled himself out of his gloom. “I pity the pirate who tries to capture you.”

“Because I’m dangerous?” she asked hopefully, sweeping her hair over her shoulder in what he suspected was meant to be a rakish gesture.

“No,” he said, summoning a smirk of his own. “Because Tarn would eat them.”

She slumped, pouting a little. “Dragons don’t actually eat people, you know.”

“I’m sure he would make an exception.”

So, I have news, which sadly doesn’t involve being captured by pirates, although both dragons and sheer relief are involved. Resistance, the sequel to Reawakening has been accepted by DSP Publications, Dreamspinner’s new imprint, and will be released at the end of next year. DSPP are going to be producing books where the genre elements are stronger than the romance plots. They’ll be moving Reawakening over there as well, hence the slightly longer than usual run-in time. I think it’s going to be a really good move, and I’m very excited about the prospect.

I also signed a contract for a contemporary short story this weekend, which will appear in Dreamspinner’s Random Acts of Kindness anthology, which is due out early next year, I think.

As the snippet above might suggest, I’m also all fired up and have made a start on the third book (working title: Recovery). This one will be all about Raif, because he deserves a book, and a dragon, of his own.

As my mind is full of dragons right now, I wrote a little scene from the Dragon War. It’s a double drabble, because I’m too wordy for the usual kind, and tells how it all began, before the dragons fell into sleep…

20 Years Before the Fall of Eyr

The sound of wings roused the dragon from his pleasant snooze, but it was the alarmed shouts of the sentries that made him dwindle into his human form and hurry outside.

His youngest brother was reeling through the sky, every beat of his green wings clumsy and shuddering. Tarnamell drew upon his flames, ready to rise up and catch him.

But green wings dissolved into arching flames. Fire fell onto the landing platform and became Sharnyn’s human avatar. His eye was blackened, his usually perfectly curled hair clotted with blood, and his fine clothes torn. The anguish in his eyes as he looked up alarmed Tarnamell.

“My hoard,” Sharnyn choked. “My hoard!”

Tarnamell drew him to his feet, embracing him. “What happened?”

Sharnyn shook in his arms. “The Shadow in the mines, the darkness… It came out of the caves… Eyr’s gone… Astalor… It killed them all—everyone in the valleys! They were mine, and they are gone from the world.”

Tarnamell tightened his arms. “How?”

“Monsters,” Sharnyn gasped, clinging to him. “Horrors. It’s marching on Shara. Please, help us!”

“We will burn it from the world,” Tarnamell promised and held his brother while he wept for his lost hoard.

Find out more about Reawakening and Resistance.

The Medway Towns (Walking the Kent Coast 2/2)

I was surprised to realise that it had been just over a month since I wrote the first half of this piece. Term has started again, and suddenly time is stretching out in that strangely flexible way it always does when you’re a teacher. The start of September feels a lifetime ago, the summer is another country (they do things differently there), and yet everything on my non-day job to-do list is still there, dust collecting in the curves of the letters. I’ve never started wanting a new job so early in the school year before, and this time I may need to scrape out some time to actually design an escape route, because I’m sick of working twice as hard as I need to because the people who should be running things are distracted or incompetent (I know, I’m whinging again, but a month into term we still don’t have a functional timetable, and the entire school has run out of glue sticks, photocopier paper, and chairs–it seems the budget won’t go that far, despite the fact that it could fund refurbishing the finance office with brand new desks, computers, and luxury carpets).

Part of this is culture shock, of course. I immersed myself in writing so much this summer that it’s been harder than usual to go back, and I resent it more than ever. I’ll adjust in time, but it does feel that my writing life is full of excitement just as I have too little time to enjoy it. There are a wealth of good books out or about to be out this autumn, and other exciting things beside. Two I have managed to spot are Queer Romance Month, which has started and is packed with wonderful, thought-provoking posts already, and the Rainbow Awards, where Reawakening is a finalist (I’m still expecting an email to tell me this was a mistake and they meant to take my name off the list).

I have managed to steal some time this weekend to write, though, and finally started Raif’s book, Recovery. I’ve been reading lots about Venice, as Aliann, where Recovery is set, is loosely inspired by it (canals, shadows, nixies, ancient things that sleep in the silt, mmmmm). When it comes to research, I’m interested in atmosphere and ways of seeing a place, rather than actual historical fact, so if anyone has any recommendations for good Venice books, do leave a comment. I’ve already read Jan Morris’ Venice, and I’m drifting my way through Peter Ackroyd’s book.

I have a far more English river city to describe in this post, as I still have a few miles of the Kentish coast to describe. That said, not much of our last two walks of the summer was coastal. To reach the Thames estuary again, you have to swing inland to cross the River Medway at Rochester. The Medway towns, Rainham, Gillingham, Chatham, Rochester, and Strood, are fascinating, uneasily balanced between rich history and present day poverty. We’d finished our previous walk in a pear orchard on the outskirts of Rainham, and began there again, not sure what to expect from the day. We’d had one arduous walk and one outstanding one already that summer, and this one had the potential to be a long, semi-urban slog.

It was a delight (commentary mostly in the captions, so this may not appear properly if you’re reading on Goodreads).

A pear orchard in Kent, the Garden of England.

Another abandoned boat. Some locals we met along the way told us that this stretch of coast had once been home to a huge cement works. “It was cement from here,” one said, “that rebuilt San Francisco after that earthquake. It was the best cement in the world.”

Looking towards the power station on the Isle of Grain. The channels here silt up over time, and there is little left to show what a busy industrial shore this once was.

On the outskirts of Gillingham. We stopped in a park here for a cold drink. There was a funfair, and an activity day encouraging people to try out different sports, and the buzz of community spirit was a strange contrast to the marshes.

The Medway towns were Navy towns, built around the great dockyards at Chatham, and a hint of order and discipline lingers in the straight streets and smart terraces.

Leaving Gillingham, we had to climb up a long park and over a ridge to descend into Chatham. As we climbed, we kept catching sight of this ahead of us and decided to detour to investigate. By the time we were this close, we both knew what it was. There are three of these in the UK, memorials to those who died in the Navy during the two world wars. One is in Plymouth, one in Portsmouth, where we started our coast walk fifteen years ago (we visited it on our very first walk), and one here in Chatham. We hadn’t realised our path would take us so close, but we’re both history buffs and Mum can’t pass a memorial without checking it for ancestors, so we were excited to find it.

The gates of the memorial. The black plaques run around the entire circuit of the memorial and list the names of the fallen, year by year and rank by rank, from Admirals to Boy Buglers. The words over the gate read, ‘All these were honoured in their generations and were the glory of their times.’

Getting lost on the way down into Chatham, we left the park by a different exit from the one we had intended, but stumbled across a Ragged School in the process. They were a mid-Victorian charity movement to educate the children of the poor. Dickens was a patron of the movement, and this seemed very appropriate, as we were about to enter Dickens Country.

On reaching Chatham, we walked along Chatham High Street, which eventually becomes Rochester High Street. It was too busy to easily take photographs, but the modern bustle of Chatham slowly changed into the Victorian solemnity of Rochester. The houses grew taller and narrower, the pavements rose, and the shop names became steadily more erudite. Rochester claims Dickens as its own, which is a fair claim as he spent large parts of his life here and drew inspiration from the town and countryside for his books. Despite the fact that Rochester has a smashing little castle and a cathedral, you would be forgiven for thinking that Dickens was their only claim to fame. Every shop in the town centre has a Dickensian gimmick (we liked the Sweet Expectations sweet shop) or is deliberately quirky. Secondhand bookshops and antiques shops abound.

We’d been going through Rochester by train for several years to reach walks further east. The train has to slow to cross the bridge over the Medway, presenting marvellous views of the castle, which looks like a perfect sandcastle from afar. We’d decided that when we got this far on our walk, we would stop and spend a day here exploring. In the end, we stopped one walk at Rochester station, came back two weeks later to walk the short distance to Strood, which would be our next stopping point, and then came back across the river to enjoy Rochester.

 

Here’s the first stretch of our walk, along a waterside area which is once industrial and will soon be a housing estate, but is currently open ground. The crane remains, forlorn amongst brambles, and the mysterious vessel offshore is a so-called ‘Floating Hotel’ which appeared there a few months ago, although no one knows why.

The start of the building work, a passing train, and a medieval skyline.

We crossed the river ten minutes later and finished our walk by the water near Strood station, where they have a Soviet submarine (as you do).

Rochester Castle, from the bridge.

Rochester High Street, about five minutes before my day was spoiled at the cash machine by the discovery that I hadn’t yet been paid that month, despite it being two days after payday (did I mention how much I need a new job?).

Books, books, everywhere. This one wasn’t that great, as it was overpriced, but it was one of many we visited (Mum, bless her, lent me some cash to buy books).

Rochester Castle (see what I mean? I’m secretly convinced they designed the standard sandcastle bucket to look like this).

None of the interior floors have survived, but the stairways and passages in the walls are intact.

Fairly sure this was once the great hall.

Looking down from the castle roof at the cathedral and the shoreline we had walked along. The Chatham Naval memorial is just visible on the hill slightly to the left of the spire.

Looking the other way, towards the sub and next summer’s walking.

Back at ground level, looking out toward the High Street. We were trying to decide whether to get lunch or visit the cathedral first.

The decision was made for us. The Cathedral was in use (“They have an opera singer,” we were told in tones of awe, when we stopped to ask when it would reopen. “It might be a while.”)

We had a lovely lunch in the Cathedral tearooms, caught an open top bus tour which took us all around Rochester and Chatham, via every Dickens site a double-decker can drive past, and then spent the rest of the afternoon in the museum and the bookshops, before finally dragging ourselves back to the station and home. It was the last weekend in August, and summer was officially done.

From the Swale to the Medway (Walking the Kent Coast 1/2)

 

 

 

 

It’s a strange coast, the North Kent coast. For a start, it’s hard to find. As the marshes fold around long creeks and sandbars offshore sometimes bloom into islands, a coastal walk often means wandering along the side of an estuary in search of a crossing, or cutting across the tip of a headland closed off as a nature reserve or an industrial site (or both). It’s an ambiguous coast, where even if you do make it out to the sight of open water, you’re looking at the meeting between the River Thames and the sea (somewhere out on the far bank of the river is Southend, where the river officially meets the sea, but the first crossing is much further inland).

 

Tucked along the creeks are the remnants of old industries. Some have become country parks or tourist attractions, many have been simply abandoned to sink back into the marsh, and a few, like the little old brick-making and barge-building village of Conyer, where we began our walk this summer, have sprouted marinas (there are no bricks made in Conyer now, although barges once carried their bricks up the Thames to build the railway viaduct that links London Bridge to Greenwich).

Conyer Creek winds up to the Swale, a channel which separates North Kent from the Isle of Sheppey. The Swale is neither river nor sea, but a river valley that was overwhelmed by the sea at the end of the last Ice Age. It is tidal, and gleams with mud under even the dullest sky. Here’s Conyer Creek as it meets the Swale.

Once there were ferries across the Swale to Sheppey, but the building of road and railway bridges finally saw them off. The remains of old landings and crossing points still litter the water’s edge, a constant reminder that this was once a busy coast. Here the double posts mark the line of the old crossing, while the new bridges rise up in the distance.

 

We wondered whether the boats abandoned here were old ferryboats, but a little investigation when we got home suggested they were WW2 relics. Rotting boats line the coast, and nobody seems quite sure where they come from or what they were. Various people told us different stories: the war, old brick or clay barges left to die, or the simplest answer of all, the one we got when we asked in the museum at Rochester, “Sometimes people just tie them up and leave them.”

It was a hard day’s walking, that first day, one of the worst coastal walks we’ve ever done (and we’ve been slowly beetling around the coast for over fifteen years now). It was July and ferociously hot, and once the sun came out there was no shade. A walk which looked short on the map became a long slog, along the side of dreary creeks and round the back of one of those monstrously huge industrial sites you sometimes find perched out on deserted shorelines, modern and stinking in the middle of the lonely marshes. We finished at the bridge over the Swale, hours after we’d intended to, exhausted and overheated.

There’s not much there: a factory a mile’s walk away, two modern bridges, one low and one soaring, and a tiny, mysteriously located station with two trains an hour in each direction. We got the train over the Swale to Sheerness on the Island of Sheppey. It’s one of those towns, like my own home town, that conceals a lot of history behind a shabby, rundown facade. We didn’t have time to go hunting for the ghosts of old Sheerness, so settled for a sitdown in a cool supermarket cafe, a cold drink or three, and a wander up onto the huge concrete seawall to peer over the water and try to spot Southend.

We returned to Swale station a few weeks later, braced for another tough walk, but were rewarded instead. It was a slightly cooler day, and the tide was in, and we saw a different face of the marshes.

We also got an unexpected treat: as we sat down for a mid-morning biscuit break, we spotted this chap sunning himself on the end of a sandbank. He was eventually scared away by the passing of a very large boat (there are still docks here, tucked into the deeper creeks, where ships load up with cargo).

 

The drier patches of the marshes are good grazing too.

By now, we were turning our back on the Swale. We couldn’t get any further along the coast until we crossed the River Medway at Rochester. The landscape looks no different, but now we were slowly swinging inland. We found more abandoned boats along the way.

We were now approaching the outskirts of the Medway towns, a little cluster of towns which grew up around the Navy’s dockyards on the river. They’re not affluent towns, but they are dense with history. As we drew closer, we started walking through orchards as well as marshes. Kent has a reputation for being the garden of England, and the trees were heavy with pears. We stopped for an excellent pub lunch in the village of Lower Halstow, which is a quiet little place, and has been so since Roman times. There were brickworks here once, barge making, a royal quay. In the eighteenth century ships entering the Thames were forced to wait out their quarantine in Halstow Creek, watched over patiently by two lazarettos, hospital ships created from the hulks of old forty-four gun ships.

The tiny church of St Margaret of Antioch stands at the head of the creek, and an old Thames barge is moored opposite her.

From there, it was a slow wander around a last twist of marshes, where quays and moorings are hidden by high plants and then a swing back through pear-heavy orchards to the outskirts of Rainham.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summer’s lease hath all too short a date (Road Westward, final part)

It’s been a long summer and a surprisingly intense one. Since mid-July, I’ve redrafted Resistance and written and polished a novella-length ghost story, A Frost of Cares. I submitted both last week, so watch this space. It’s also been a little sobering. Without really intending to, I’ve worked a lot of twelve-hour days and six day weeks, and let an awful lot which wasn’t the sheer act of writing slip past me. I’m back to school next week, so will have to cut back, but it’s left me aware of just how easy it is to slip into unhealthy work patterns.

This week, I’ve been trying to catch up on a lot of other bits and pieces, including sprucing up my website a little (each book now has a page of its own). I’ve done some walking this summer, but kept putting trips off to, er, do more redrafting.

So, have a taster, firstly from A Frost of Cares, in which historian Luke arrives at Eelmoor Hall, where he’ll be working on the archive and encountering an angry girl who has been missing for a very, very long time:

Inside, the foyer had that odd mixture of institutional function and faded grandeur that seems to characterize old schools and posh hotels. It was dark, but lights came on as I moved forward, triggered by some motion sensor somewhere, and I was able to follow signs to the library, the lights rising and fading as I walked. I stopped for a moment at the bottom of a stairway, wondering whether it was a short cut to my room or whether I should just carry straight on and find the way through the library.

I must have stood still too long for the motion sensors because the lights went off. It was dark, country dark not London dark, with no lights outside to shine through the windows, and suddenly the big house seemed even vaster and colder. I could hear a faint rattling in the wall, a distant electronic hum from somewhere, a creak of floorboards upstairs, all the normal sounds of an old and empty building.

And, as you sometimes do in old buildings, I suddenly felt that I wasn’t alone. I thought that someone else was there in the darkness, breathing in perfect time with me, so close that I could have reached out and touched them. I startled and the lights came back on.

I was alone, of course, in an empty hallway filled with blank noticeboards. It had just been my imagination.

 

This, on the other hand, is an outtake from Resistance. All you need to know is that Tarn and his younger brother Hal don’t always get on. Here Hal pops by the Court of Shells for a visit (vaguely spoilery for Reawakening:

Halsarr landed on its roof, a great expanse of rounded stones. He could imagine how pleasant it would be to stretch out here, on a quiet day, and soak up the blazing heat of the sun. It felt good here, though he knew already that only the heat of the sun would warm him. The desert was loved, but there would be no nourishment for him in that fondness.

He felt it when others emerged onto the roof and swung his head down and round to greet them. “Tarnamell.”

“Halsarr,” his brother said formally. He was wearing his human shell, the same one he had always favored, a hulking mass of muscle, blond elflocks and ferocity that disguised the fact that the mind behind the face was ancient and cunning and powerful beyond the comprehension of humankind.

“Still trying to make barbarian splendour look good on you?” Halsarr inquired, pulling his lips back from his teeth in a vast sneer. “You are already stronger, more powerful, and considerably louder than most of humankind. Adding physical intimidation as well does seem a little like overkill.”

“You haven’t changed,” Tarnamell remarked.

“Nor you,” Halsarr returned. “Unfortunately.”

“You could change form,” Tarnamell suggested. “Then I could show you how much or little I have changed.”

“Oh,” Halsarr said. “Was that a threat? How charming.” He was beginning to enjoy himself.

Tarnamell grinned at him, showing his teeth. “Or I could change. Fancy you can outfly me, brother?”

The spirit behind him, who had been listening with an appreciative grin, chuckled. This must be the Desert God of Alagard. He was pretty, which was no surprise. Tarnamell had always had a weakness for shiny things. Slyly, Alagard remarked, “I’m not convinced the roof could hold you both. You’ll just have to settle your differences without violence.”

“Shame,” Tarnamell muttered. “I always want to hit him.”

“I, however, am a pacifist.”

“By which he means he is an idiot.”

“Education changes more than war.”

Tarnamell’s glare was getting more and more irritable. “Yet war defeated the Shadow. Twice.”

“And who cleaned up the mess afterwards?” Halsarr asked.

“There,” said Alagard, “he has a point.” He winked at Halsarr. “Now, if I was to change allegiances to someone civilised, how much of a tantrum do you think Tarn here would throw?”

“Tantrum?” Tarnamell growled, seizing Alagard’s arm and jerking him close. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Well,” Alagard mused, pursing his lips as if there wasn’t a very irritated dragon looming over him, “he seems to have much nicer manners, and they do say doctors have good hands.”

“Gard.”

Halsarr intervened. “Alas, friend desert, I already have a heart for my hoard. I suspect, though, that you would not seriously contemplate any offer from me.”

“He’d better not,” Tarnamell grumbled, but looked mollified when Alagard slung his arm around his waist. “And who gave you permission to call him friend?”

“I choose my own friends,” Alagard pointed out.

In the same moment, Halsarr snapped, “You do not govern me, eldest brother.”

“Nobody respects me,” Tarnamell grumbled.

“Poor unloved dragon,” Alagard said.

And, to finish up, since one of this was one of the other things I let slip this summer, here’s the last of the photos from my trip to Cornwall at Easter. There’s not much to say to explain these, since I spent my last day in Cornwall at the Eden Project, which is just beautiful and unique. I’d love to go back in summer, but it was still stunning in spring. Although the rainforest was amazing, my favourite section was the Mediterranean dome, with its rows and rows of tulips.

Cliffs, Coves and the Court of Lightning (The Road Westward, Part Five)

To start, I have a new release! My Love’s Landscapes story, The Court of Lightning is up on the M/M Romance Goodreads group’s forum and will be released for download soon (I’ll update links properly then). It’s a little novella about an exiled paladin, his inventor best friend, and a desperate war for survival against a power that has unleashed eternal winter on the rest of the continent (because friends-to-lovers is always more fun if you add mortal peril to the mix). If you’ve come this way because of the story, welcome, and have a look at my previous post, which has pictures of the inspirations for Porthlevin and the Isle of Kings. :)

Here, now, is the penultimate post on my Eastertide travels (yes, I know it’s mid-July now. It’s been a busy few months -_-). After leaving Tintagel, I arrived on the headland between Port Isaac and Port Gaverne on an afternoon that was as warm and bright as summer. The two villages are very different: Port Gaverne has a handful of houses, a tiny rocky cove, and a old-fashioned hotel. Port Isaac is bigger, and a favourite of film makers and TV crews who need a generic Cornish village as a setting (most recently the makers of Doc Martin, a British TV show about a surly city doctor who relocates to the country. I was going to refer to it as a very British bit of formula telly, but I’ve since found out that they’ve flogged the concept all over Europe and beyond, so as well as watching Dr Martin Ellingham move from London to Cornwall, you can also watch Doctor Mateo Sancristobel move from New York to Asturias, Dr Martin Le Fol move from Lyon to Brittany, Doktor Martin Helling move from Berlin to East Frisia, and so on and so on. I found one report that claimed it’s been sold to 70 countries. Oh dear). Port Isaac is undeniably charming, but it’s definitely on the tourist trail. Port Gaverne, where I was staying, is very peaceful and sleepy.

I went for a wander around both. Even in Port Isaac, where there were crowds wandering down from the car park, a few steps away from the quay and the main revealed quiet lanes of pretty cottages.

Port Isaac:

 

From the headland east of Port Gaverne:

Port Gaverne:

Port Gaverne was a very nice place for a quiet stop. I spent most of the evening sitting out on the headland and reading, and then headed out for the first bus west the next morning. I’d planned to spend the middle of the day in Padstow, before heading onwards. By then, however, it was a hot Saturday in the school holidays, and my tolerance for tourist hoards wasn’t high enough to withstand Padstow, which just felt like a giant car park with some boats in the middle. I bought my Rick Stein fish and chips, went for a quick wander, and then scuttled thankfully back to the bus stop.

I had three more days left in my trip, and would be spending the next two nights at Treyarnon Youth Hostel, which perched up above a beach about six miles south of Padstow. The next day was the one day I had almost nothing planned for. Back in February, when I was planning the trip, I’d written the word ‘Beach?’ into my plan, with more optimism than hope. It was such a lovely day that I could have easily spent it on the beach, but I decided to go for a wander instead. A sign in the hostel recommended walking along the coast to Bedruthan Steps, a rock formation supposedly made by a giant, and catching the bus back. It was about 7 miles of easy walking, so I set off next morning at a leisurely pace, stopping from time to time to read or write for half an hour.

Here’s Treyarnon bay:

And some rock formations a little further along the coast:

This is Porthcothan, where I stopped to lunch and read The Magpie Lord on the beach. It was once home to early Science Fiction and Horror writer J. D. Beresford, who loaned his cottage here to D. H. Lawrence for an extended stay. Lawrence was taken with the landscape (‘I feel as if there were a strange, savage, unknown God in the foam–heaven knows what god it be’) but was disappointed by how ‘foully and uglily Wesleyan’ the Cornish had become. There’s no pleasing some people ;) 

A bay I had to paddle across later in the afternoon:

Bedruthan steps:It was a lovely day’s walking, and I got back to the hostel with a faint sense of regret to be leaving this coast. I had a few more miles to go west and then I was turning south, in search of a different coast so I could find Eden.

 

Cornwall! (The Road Westward, Part Four)

After a rather damp departure from Devon, my first stop in Cornwall was the little town of Bude. It was still raining, so I headed off in search of something to do indoors. I found the town heritage centre, which is housed in a Victorian ‘castle’, built on the sand dunes by one of those wonderfully eccentric inventors who seem to be a byproduct of the Victorian age. This particular chap was the marvellously named Sir Goldsworthy Gurney, who also invented the first steam carriages which travelled on roads, the limelight, and worked on mine ventilation. His house is now a gently quirky little museum, crammed full of displays on boating, wartime Bude, the history of surfing and swimsuits, and several figureheads from ships wrecked along the local coast.

I spent a dry hour there, and then ventured out again. The rain had stopped and I finally bought my first Cornish pasty of the trip (I had utterly refused the many vendors trying to flog them to me in Somerset and Devon). I found a bench above the beach and sat down to enjoy my lunch, which was bloody good, before taking a wander across the beach.

And there, all of a sudden, the clouds parted…

By the time I left Bude, the clouds were almost gone. I arrived in my next stop, Boscastle, in sunshine. Boscastle is a little old harbour village tucked along the banks of the Rivers Jordan and Valency where they merge and cut their way out to sea through the cliffs. It’s the only harbour in a twenty mile stretch of rugged coast, and the slant of the inlet protects the village and quay from the full ferocity of the tides. It’s a lovely place to wander, but in the UK it’s best known for the near disaster that struck it in 2004.

On August 16th 2004, exactly 52 years after the catastrophic Lynmouth floods I wrote about some time ago, 7 inches of rain fell on the high ground above the village, triggering a flash flood. It hit the car park by the river first, sweeping cars downriver. In a hour, the river levels rose by 2 metres, with a 3 metre surge when the bridge broke and the water and debris pooling behind it suddenly smashed through and swept along the main road. 75 cars and six buildings were swept out to sea, and 100 homes and businesses destroyed. A group of students staying in the Youth Hostel were told to get out before they were trapped and spent most of the night stuck on the cliffs, fishing out exhibits from the Witchcraft Museum as they floated past (the news articles about them and photos of the destruction were framed on the walls of the common room, and I didn’t have anyone to talk to, so I read the lot).

No one died, although 150 people were rescued by helicopters from roofs, trees, and the tops of cars. In the middle of an otherwise quiet summer, the news covered it to the extent that the whole country was looking on as the village crumpled under the water. As well as that, the BBC were already in the village, filming a rather jolly little gentle documentary series about the local vicar (if you’re interested, most of that episode is easy to find on youtube).

It was very strange seeing the village with the memory of all that news footage imposed over the peaceful scene. However, once I’d settled into the hostel, where I was once again the only guest and on my own overnight, I went for a wander along the cliffs to enjoy the evening light. Sitting up there with my kindle and my notebook, I looked up at the clifftops opposite, and saw the perfect place to start my next story. That little turreted building is a coastguard station or, in The Court of Lightning, the landing platform of the Shadowflight, secret operatives who cross the channel on glider wings to infiltrate the occupied territory on the far side of the channel. Boscastle transformed as I sat there, becoming Porthlevin. If you’re reading this because of that story, enjoy the rest of these pictures.

I spent a peaceful morning wandering around Boscastle, which included a fascinating couple of hours in the Museum of Witchcraft, which is a fantastic museum which covers the entire history of magic with a wealth of exhibits which challenge stereotypes and celebrate all manner of spells, charms and practitioners. I could have happily spent more time there, but the last bus to my next destination left just after lunch and I had no intention of missing the next place.

I was going to Tintagel.

Did I mention that I have a degree in English Literature before 1530? One where I deliberately chose my options to cover anything in the least bit relevant to Arthurian myth? That I spent a few gleeful months wallowing in Merlin fandom?

Tintagel. ^______^

It’s a strange place, with the village quite distinct from the headland and island where the ruins of the castle stand. I spent the afternoon wandering around the ruins, having lugged my bag up the side of the island. Here’s part of the main complex.

I lingered up there for a long time, enjoying the views along the coast as well as the wealth of remains. There’s not just a castle up there, but also a complex of ancient houses, all overgrown. I didn’t quite feel the presence of Arthur and his knights, but it was haunting in its own right (and, yes, also in The Court of Lightning, right at the end).

Once I finally decided to move, I scrambled down to beach level, where I found this marvellous waterfall and could enter ‘Merlin’s cave’ which can only be entered at low tide. This did feel mysterious in the best of ways.

I then headed back inland and then out across the clifftops to the best situated youth hostel I’ve ever stayed in.

Here’s Tintagel island from the cliffs the next morning.

I had a few hours to fill, and this quirky building caught my eye.

This is the old post office, which belongs to the National Trust, and is a well-preserved village house. I was particularly intrigued by the ‘shelf’, a sleeping platform above the sitting room which could only be accessed by steps from the main bedroom. It was used as sleeping space by the unmarried daughters of the house, hence the phrase ‘on the shelf’ (I am somewhat dubious of this explanation).

Finally, on the recommendation of the very friendly woman in the Witchcraft Museum in Boscastle, I went to check out the stained glass windows in King Arthur’s halls. I was the only one there, squeezed in between school parties, which was probably a good thing as I got the giggles. A group of 1930s enthusiasts once decided to start up their own order of chivalry in imitation of the Knights of the Round Table, and so built themselves a set of meeting rooms, including a throne room and a great hall, and filled it with paintings and stained glass panels (several full scenes and a small window for every single knight, featuring his name and shield). The glass is beautiful, dating from the Arts and Crafts movement, but the six minute introduction to Arthurian legend, as narrated by a very plummy Merlin, in which the curator insisted that I had to sit in the throne to fully appreciate the accmpanying light show, did for me. It was a very long way from studying Laȝamon and the Alliterative Morte, although still tremendous fun (I often retell the legends to my classes, but I’m damned if I could compress the entire cycle down that effectively).

I left Tintagel a little reluctantly, but I still had miles to go. My next stop was Port Gaverne, and there really weren’t many buses that went there. By this point, the driver recognised me as I hopped on board, and we headed onwards, further west.

In which water falls… (The Road Westward, Part Three)

After arriving back on the mainland after my trip to Lundy, I continued west (considerably faster than I have been writing these updates *ashamed*). I had a day to wander around Bideford and the surrounding area and then I was planning to walk along the coast path to my next stop, a little hostel a couple of miles beyond Hartland Point, where the coast turns a right angle and suddenly runs south toward Cornwall. The Hartland Penisula is a fairly remote little corner of the southwest and I was very much looking forward to spending a day wandering along the cliffs, paths and lanes.

As you’ve probably guessed by now, all did not go according to plan. The first day went very well. I spent a pleasant half an hour wandering around the village of Appledore, where I was staying. I rather fell for Appledore. It’s pretty and probably attracts its fair share of tourists, but there was a subtle quirkiness about the place that appealed to me. Here’s a peep down one of the streets.

From there I went onto Bideford, mooched around the shops, and then caught the bus to Clovelly. I’d been warned by countless people that Clovelly was a bit of a tourist trap, but a must-see nonetheless. I must have been lucky in my timing, because it wasn’t busy at all when I was there, and despite my cynicism as I approached the visitors’ centre, I was rather charmed by the place. It’s a little fishing village which is famous for being very, very steep. In fact, it’s so steep that wheeled vehicles can’t drive down the main street and the locals use crates on sleds to bring in their shopping. In the past donkeys were used, and they are still present in Clovelly, although these days for the tourists. They weren’t at work on the day I was there, though the stables were open.

Here’s the first approach towards the village. The weather had been grey all morning, but it grew steadily brighter as I picked my way down towards sea level and by the time I sat down by the harbour to enjoy my lunch it was a lovely day.         

Heading downhill, through the main part of the village. The author Charles Kingsley grew up in Clovelly in the 1830s and there’s a charming little museum which covers both his legacy and a reconstruction of what a fisherman’s cottage would have looked like.

From the bottom, looking back up and trying to muster the energy to climb back to the bus stop.

Instead, I went for a wander along the shore. I’d seen a sign for a waterfall and decided to try to find it. It turned out to be a rather nice one.

And here, from somewhat closer up:

Once I’d seen it, there were no more excuses, and I began to head up through the village again. The handful of tourists who had been around earlier had vanished and my only company was a cat.

I didn’t see another soul until I was almost at the top of the village, where I ran into a family who had stopped to exclaim at the slow worms sunning themselves on the wall. Their little girl was in paroxysms of delight over seeing a ‘real snake’ and it was a lovely reminder of how exciting the world is for kids if you can find a way to get them to put their electronic devices down (which I know isn’t easy, but I bet she’ll remember her snake a lot longer than whatever game is currently in fashion).

Back in Bideford, the tide was out. The second boat along here is the MS Oldenburg, who had taken me to Lundy and back. You can see why she only sails at high tide! The tidal range at Bideford is 7m.

Back in Appleford, I wandered along the coast, enjoying the last of the light and trying to make some decisions. The afternoon had been getting steadily more grey and blustery and I was worried about the walk I had planned. It was a long hike along one of the most challenging stretches of the coast path, and the wet winter had meant I hadn’t got as many training walks in as I would have liked. On a good day, at full fitness, it would have been an enjoyable but tough day’s walking, but I was beginning to worry. To add to that, the weather was turning, and I’ve done enough coastal walking over the last fifteen years to know that being out alone on strange cliffs when the weather comes in is a very bad idea. Even steady drizzle can make every step a chore, and add in wind, cold, and unfamiliar terrain and you can get into trouble very fast. 

I decided to wait until I’d seen a weather forecast before I made a final choice, but when I did get back to the hotel, the BBC was predicting showers all day. Reluctantly, I switched to my back-up plan: get the bus to the village of Hartland, about five miles from the hostel, and walk in along the lanes. In the end, it was the right choice, because the bus windows were awash by the time I got to Hartland. I trudged along what would have been a pretty tangle of paths and lanes and got to the hostel hours before it opened (luckily there was a porch). It was frustrating weather, not awful enough to make me abandon the whole idea and find other accommodation, just steady cold drizzle, the type that soaks through everything and lowers your spirits. This was the only picture I took that day, of the woods just outside Hartland. 

I was the only one staying in the little Elmscott Bunkhouse that night. Even the wardens were away, though I was welcomed in by a very jolly neighbour who was looking after the place for them. Once she was gone, I was on my own in the old schoolhouse. I got my stuff into the drying room, and then ensconced myself in the sitting room with the radio and a steady stream of tea. I finished Resistance there, at about 10 o’ clock that night.

The next day, I headed out to try to do a little walking. I had a route planned between three places I knew would do a cup of tea and a scone, all about two or three miles apart. I wasn’t meant to be back in the hostel until five, though I had informal permission to come back early to let the new guests in if the weather was awful. I started out along the cliff tops, aiming for Hartland Quay.

I got about a mile and a half, the first bit without drizzle, but then the wind picked up and the rain came down hard. This is looking down towards Speke’s Mill Mouth, where I gave up and swung inland. I walked enough to be able to tell that this was utterly lovely country, but I didn’t feel safe out there. I’d love to go back, on a less wet and blustery day. 

Of course, when I did get to Speke’s Mill, there was one consolation before I turned my back on the sea.

I tottered inland, feeling a complete wuss when I was passed by a couple of excited looking lads toting surfboards, and eventually came out at Docton Mill, which is a lovely little show garden, with a wonderful tea shop. I was welcomed in, and they promptly added more wood to the stove and encouraged me to dry off. The usual conversation followed (I’m a walker, yes, school holidays, yes, a teacher, oh, so’s your daughter, wonderful, you’re so right and I quite agree with you, Michael Gove is a disgrace and endangering our children’s future and therefore needs to be fired), and so I spent a pleasant hour in there, ordering very good tea and an excellent sandwich for my lunch. By the time I was done, the rain had eased off, so I took a tour of the garden, accompanied by a very friendly cat who knotted itself around my ankles every time I paused for a photo.

I then headed back to the hostel, just as the rain began again, and was there in plenty of time to let in the next guest, a drenched and windswept Australian hiker who had almost been blown off the coast path several times that day. She turned out to be really interesting, a retiree who spent several months every year in the UK, walking a different selection of trails each time. When the next guests, a couple who were also keen walkers, turned up by car, having got very lost in the lanes, we had ourselves a very pleasant little evening chatting about the different long-distance trails we’d all hiked. The conviviality of walkers is a wonderful thing, and here it overlapped wonderfully with the kindness of strangers. When the next morning dawned just as wet and windy, and my new Australian friend and I sat glumly contemplating the five mile walk to the bus stop, we were very soon comforted with the hearty offer of, “Chuck your bags in the boot, and we’ll drive you to Hartland!”

So we did, and they did :) I was heading west once more…

 

 

Pirate Island (The Road Westward, Part Two)

So, finally, I’m picking up where I left off a few weeks ago in recounting my travels over Easter. Before I start, though, I’m going to try to overcome my qualms about asking for things and, well, ask for something. Is anyone up for a beta read of Resistance, the sequel to Reawakening? I’m looking for plot logic/general impressions/oy, Amy, you did something really stupid there level responses rather than a detailed critique (even after ignoring it for six weeks, I read it yesterday and couldn’t tell if it was any good). It’s about plague and guilt and healing. Tarn and Gard appear briefly, but the main couple in this one are the Dual God of Tiallat and the dragon Halsarr. They have history (oh, so much history). If you’re interested, comment or email (amyraenbow at gmail dot com) or drop me a message on Facebook/Goodreads.

Right, now to the pretties ;) I stopped last time in Bideford, where I had settled in for an early night with the hope of a clear morning for my ferry trip.

Instead, I woke to thick fog, so thick I couldn’t see the estuary as I stumbled out of my hill top guesthouse at half past six. It was so early that no one was stirring and I went stumbling through the cold quiet streets, not quite awake and worried that I might not make it to the quay on time.

I was booked onto the first Lundy boat of the season, sailing early to suit the tide. I got there with time to spare, and found the MS Oldenburg waiting in the fog.

In the summer, she wends her way out across the Bristol Channel to Lundy and back three times a week. She can carry about 160 passengers; 91 of us were on board that morning.

Before you board, staying passengers pile up their luggage, which is then heaped into nets and hoisted aboard. You next see it when you finally make it into the village in Lundy. I had a nervous moment watching my pack go swaying into the air, but it marked the start of a wonderfully quiet adventure.

It takes a couple of hours to make the crossing, and most of us were half asleep for the first half an hour, even when the mist began to clear. I eventually made my way along the swaying boat to buy some breakfast and eat it up on deck, where the wind was fresh and the island was already in sight. I was rewarded with the sight of a pod of dolphins diving not far off our side, and then we were drawing close to the landing stage at Lundy.

By the time we had all left the boat and started up the side of the island, the mist had come down again. Lundy is a little slice of granite stuck in the middle of the Bristol channel: 3 miles long and half a mile wide. There’s almost nothing at sea level, beyond the landing stage and a few rocky bays. The only motor vehicles on the island belong to the farm, including one jeep which trundles down the sole road, a unmade track down the cliff side, to transport the cargo from the boat. To reach the village, you have to climb up that same track, which zigzags across the cliff. In thick fog, you can be forgiven for wondering if the road will ever end or whether you will be climbing into the sky forever. Here a mere few metres above sea level, the MS Oldenburg was already beginning to vanish into the fog.

The top of the island is flat, mostly grazing and heathland, but there is a small village, a church, a castle and a lighthouse. The village pub is the heart of Lundy, and the source of all information about boat times, weather, accommodation, and anything else you can think of. Its walls are hung with the lifebelts from ships wrecked off Lundy’s shores, and mobile phones are banned (there’s a fine payable for their use). All the buildings on Lundy are either used by the island trust or can be let. I had the Radio Room, a tiny little stone building tucked away in the centre of the village: once home to the island’s radio, now just big enough for one bed-sitting room, and a tiny kitchen and bathroom. It suited me perfectly, so I soon abandoned most of my luggage there and went out to enjoy the island now the fog had finally cleared.

Here’s the village.

Looking down at the landing stage as the boat left. It would be back in two days time.

The joy of Lundy is that there is nothing much there. The peace and ease of it sinks in slowly, but is the most wonderful relief. I spent most of my three days reading (How to Repair a Mechanical Heart, SPECTR, Rose and Spindle), writing (by hand) and wandering out for short walks through the drizzle, though I was careful to be safely in bed by midnight, when the island’s generator is turned off until morning.

I was too early in the season to see any of the puffins the island is famous for, but I did meet a few of its non-human denizens on my walks.

On my last day, I left my luggage to be collected and walked to the end of the island, which is beautifully wild and lonely, even more so than the rest of Lundy.

I then, rather reluctantly, wandered down to the landing stage and scrambled around the rock pools there for a while before pausing to watch the boat come back in.

There were less than forty human passengers going back, and the sea was so still that light seemed to be pouring across it like syrup. I sat outside for a while, watching the island dwindle behind us, but then went in and wrote most of the climax to Resistance as the light poured in and the calm sheen of the sea stretched out to the misty horizon.

Oddly enough, I didn’t feel sad to leave. By then, I was utterly certain I would go back. I’m sure I will.

(Yes, I said less than forty humans. These guys also had a pretty smooth trip, once they’d recovered from being hoisted on board)

I was staying in Appledore that night, in a little hotel where the room was so freshly decorated the paint hadn’t quite dried. I wasn’t quite ready for the modern world yet, so I curled up quietly and read the evening away (I think this was the night where I threw my hands in the air and gave up on the whole Cut and Run phenomenon, but I also read the first two of Joanna Chambers’ Enlightened trilogy here and wrote and wrote and wrote, so overall it was a good place to read and dream).