Sunday Snipping

Happy Sunday to you!

It's a 'lawn weed feed and mosskill' sort of morning. Yesterday, I zapped some rampant weeds growing in places they were not invited to inhabit and cut the grass. It's not the first grass cutting of the season but it had grown pretty long which means a 2 and 1/2 hour stint with the mower- there being more moss than grass on the front stretch. It’s actually a stretch of the imagination to call it a lawn, and even saying the ‘front grass’ would be challenged by an assiduous gardener. I try to do the moss killing ‘thing’ by applying the appropriate mix a few times over the season, but it now has to be done at a time that will be avoided by toddler feet.  

I'm a lazy gardener who uses an electric strimmer/brush cutter for trimming the edges and the awkward bits around my open beds- the real proper edging shears getting a mite too awkward to use and too time consuming. My lawnmower, replaced two summers ago worked perfectly, but the strimmer? Nope. It's only about 19 years old and I don't understand why things can't last forever. It's had some hissy fits over the last years when pieces of semi dried Iris stems have got wrapped around the motor. That's a total pain and did cause some problems at the end of last year's grass cutting. I know I tried to strip all the fibres out from under the 'spindle' (techie terms unknown) and that generally works, but I'm very sad to say I had to resort to buying a new strimmer yesterday afternoon.

It's not even out of the box yet - that's a job for today.

Time, and the lack of it, is now my main problem since I want to have a writing day, as well as a garden day. When I need garden tools to work, they have to co-operate and I suppose equally for my writing I need the internet or my laptop to be fully functioning- but the working of internet is often outwith my control.. While I was garden tools shopping, I treated myself to a new sprayer as well since my original one from more than a decade ago also needed replaced.

Buying tools to make my gardening jobs easier and quicker made me think of the farmers in my Celtic Fervour novels. Essentially my northern Celtic tribes are peaceable peoples who are mainly interested in having a successful season from their small Celtic strip fields. Good quality, abundant crops put essential food in their bellies. Anything which disrupted that farming process created a setback which might have reverberations for many seasons to come.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Iron_sickle,_torc_and_adze.JPG?uselang=en-gb

What tools did they employ? Not all that many and certainly no time saving electric or petrol powered ones. Whereas my lawnmower will cut grass, the Celts would have used a simple but searingly sharp sickle for any reaping or cutting back.

The sickle would have been employed to cut oat, emmer (wheat), and barley crops ready for a simple hand threshing process to separate the chaff from the stalk. Sharp knives would have flicked out errant weeds and heavier duty tools like an adze or an axe would have been employed to cut away bushes or trees if new ground was being cleared.

For making a furrow in the soil prior to planting the Celts had a very simple plough, an ard, where a pointed iron tip was pulled through the ground to turn it over ready for planting new crops. The ard could be yoked to an animal- an oxen, a horse (though perhaps less likely since horses were so prized for many other needs) or a man.

 http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AncientPlough.jpg

My gardening tasks are infinitely easier with less physical effort needed than the Celts in my stories.




All 3 books from my Celtic Fervour Series are presently in the Amazon UK Bestsellers Ancient World Historical Romance Chart. After Whorl: Donning Double Cloaks is at #65,
To read about them you can buy all 3 ebooks for less than £6 /$10. (sidebar) They are also available from the Crooked cat Bookstore, B &N, Waterstones, Smashwords and other major ebook suppliers.

Wishing you a happy May holiday weekend.
Slainthe!

May plans

Beltane is now past and the sun actually is shining right now as I look out my window. If that's a signal that summer is coming, I'm all for it happening in good style. It's time to get really serious about my garden and just as serious about some of my writing projects. I have very messy places on the terrace where there should be a tidy polished displays. New summer flowering bulbs have been planted recently but haven't yet made it to their final destinations. Other pots need to be planted up and spent spring bulbs put properly into storage for autumn planting. Decisions must be my forte. Effort needs to be expended to bear fruitful results.

Just yesterday, May 1st, saw me making some strategic decisions about my writing and I will now have to do some serious nurturing to bring new plans to fruition. Sometimes things seem absolutely fantastic and happen at 'the right time in life' but then for various reasons they don't work out so well later. It's been like that with my published romances with The Wild Rose Press -Monogamy Twist and Take Me Now. I am totally indebted to WRP for getting me into published writing and for teaching me so many useful aspects of using social media sites. But, as we all know, theory is not always the same as practical applications and marketing those titles has not been successful. They've been with The Wild Rose Press for more than 2 years but since sales have been extremely low I decided to terminate my contract with WRP. When something doesn't work well, it's time to make changes.

I had a huge evening of regret, yesterday, but what I did was the right decision for me. The coming weeks will see me revising those titles and then I intend to get them published in an altered version. A new growth period is about to begin for those romantic mysteries, which I have a keen fondness for.

This time last year I was avidly looking to see if my newly planted patio fruit trees would bear any blossoms or fruit. My new apples did and some shining red fruits were the result. My new plum, pear, and cherry trees did very little and in fact I thought my cherry tree was not going to survive.

It pays to give a little nurturing and pays to be patient since all of the trees have flowered really well in April and my cherry looks promising. I'm going to be really pleased to see it fruiting and look forward to tasting the results.

Similarly, I'll be nurturing my previous WRP titles- Monogamy Twist and Take Me Now - and will spit and polish them to a new shine.

Watch out for new covers and new versions emerging in a little while!   

Slainthe!

It's Beltane

I named the first book of my Celtic Fervour Series The Beltane Choice because in it my main female character, Nara of the Selgovae, has a choice to make by the coming Beltane eve. She has been tasked with leaving the nemeton she had thought to grow old in as a priestess and must instead find a man to be a hearth husband to; a man who will father a son who will become a leader of his peoples. 

Though, what does Beltane mean? 

Beltane, the end of spring festival, is celebrated about half way between the Vernal equinox and the Summer Solstice and traditionally marked the arrival of the summer. Like its counterpart at the opposite end of the year, Samhain (which heralded winter) Beltane is one of the larger and more important festivals. If you have clear skies and want to follow the signs in the heavens, you can watch for the group of stars named the Pleiades when it rises just before dawn (sunrise) at Beltane and at Samhain when the stars rise at sunset.

Beltane heralds the world coming into the ‘Light part’- summer- whereas Samhain marks the coming into the ‘Dark part’- winter. Since our winter has been very lacking in snow and hard frosts (unusual in north-east Scotland) it’s hard to believe we’ve had that dark part of the year, except with regard to the dreariness of dull days of mist and rain - of which we’ve had more than plenty. Warmer days will be most welcome. The concept of the sun returning to rule over the land provides a great image. The tiredness of the spirit is lifted with the thought of better, sunnier days and celebrating a festival usually has its own cheeriness. A summer renewal is what the spirit needs to revive energy levels. In lands where the sun doesn’t shine for long periods or where cloud cover makes for what is termed SAD/ lack of sunlight deficiency it’s a wonderful festival to celebrate rejuvenation and look towards the light.

Building of Beltane fire features in my novel The Beltane Choice, the Celts paying homage to Bel (sun god) to bless and protect the tribe. By lighting fires in strategic rows for their animals to be herded through, it was a plea for Bel to protect their animals over the coming season and for them to be fertile before the summer grazing period began. The fires also burn away the blackness of winter and the warmth from the flames emulates what is to come from the summer sunshine.

It’s claimed that household fires would be extinguished and relit from the Beltane bonfires- though how old that tradition is, is an interesting one to postulate. The eve of Beltane is one of the times of ‘no time’, when the veils between the worlds of the living and the dead, the other time at Samhain. The Celts do appear to have been very superstitious people and the belief was that spirits could travel between the worlds during the transition periods before midnight of Beltane and Samhain. Rowan was used at the threshold for protection from wandering spirits.

Beltane daytime celebrations, dancing around the maypole and other festive events became popular- the flower garlands a sign of the blossoming plant life and a show that the earth was waking up from the long winter. 

Here's a little bit from The Beltane Choice, on the eve of Beltane when preparations are being made: 

Four days later, she still felt alone in amongst a steady stream of Brigantes from other settlements who arrived for the Garrigill Beltane festivities. Around her happy women prepared the Beltane victuals. Normally a cheerful time for Celtic tribes, it marked the coming of better weather, into summer and longer days, the time when the cattle were sent out after the purification rites to graze in the far fields, away from the winter feeding and closer protection around the settlement.

Tension and excitement built throughout the day as down in the lower fields, close to the riverside, the warriors prepared the large bonfire stacks of wood. They laid bonfires in two long lines, a walkway between them. Through the fire-lit walkway the farmers would drive the cattle, in a symbol of belief that forcing the beasts through the Beltane fires would protect them from disease, purify them and would keep them healthy throughout the coming months–fertility abounding in beast…and man.

Fertility and a new beginning, a happy time for most of the women, but not for her. After the purification rituals, feasting and dancing over, the women of the tribe would slip off with their chosen lover to find a quiet spot.

As the day progressed, the prophecy lay heavy on her heart. She wanted only to make love to Lorcan. He was the one man whose touch had stirred her desires, and melted the bones now telling her that her son should indeed be conceived that night, and that Swatrega’s premonition would be fulfilled. But how could it happen? Lorcan had not returned to Garrigill. Brennus–soon to be her husband–was expected to be chosen by her, since he had returned as the sun moved overhead in the clear sky. As part of the rites, the officiating druid would expect her to be at Brennus’s side…all through the eve and into the night.

Her heart ached for Lorcan.

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Youtube trailer http://youtu.be/igJmfBoXRh

Happy Beltane to you.

Slainthe!