Winter in Provence

Last week in Provence the colours of the landscape were mistily beguiling, from first light to wintry sunset. During the day the skies were a cloudless blue with that sharp cold edge that makes everything look crystal clear. The trip wasn't intended as a holiday, as there were plenty of matters to be attended to, but as soon as the plane flew out over the sea at Marseille to make the approach to landing that's what it felt like. The Mediterranean was a mirror-smooth pool of that fabled inky blue and the rocky inlets of the islands in the bay bristled with small yachts.

The sun was out on the drive north, and so it stayed for six days. When you emerge from the general gloom of an English winter, the sun matters. Even just walking around the garden in Provence noticing the changes and pulling out weeds was a spirit-raiser. There's a real sense of the seasons turning here and hot as it gets in summer, it also blows icy in winter on these last southerly ripples of the Alps. I really enjoy the changes, and the small details like the clusters of nuts on the ground close to the almond tree:

The trees are dormant now, but it won't be long before the almond starts to push out its first green shoots and buds, and it looks like this:

But meanwhile, how did this rose manage to appear in January?

Lavande de Nuit

I've had several enquiries through my website recently asking whether the Lavande de Nuit scent I wrote about in The Lantern is available to buy anywhere. I've had to write back and say regretfully that Lavande de Nuit scent exists only in my imagination, and that I can only offer the key perfume inspirations.

Obviously there are lots of lavender scents, but my favourite is from L'Occitane de Provence. It's rich and sweet, and authentically redolent of the region. Then there is a perfume called L'Eau d'Hiver in the Frederic Malle range: this has the white scents of almond, heliotrope and spring flowers. The woodsmoke and vanilla comes from Serge Lutens' Un Bois Vanille. It is possible to mix either of these with the lavender (spraying in layers on the skin) - quite fun to experiment with the quantities of each, but if you do, go easy as the last two are both strong and distinct and easily overpower anything in their way!

The closest complex lavender perfume to Lavande de Nuit I've yet found is Absinthe Verte which is one of several scents in a range called A Taste of Heaven by Kilian. It's an unfolding blend of lavender and vanilla and thyme, with oak moss and a hint of patchouli and spices. Very lovely, very very expensive. But I happen to know there are samples at Saks 5th Ave in New York!

And then there's that fabulous old-timer, Jicky by Guerlain. Launched in 1889, it mixes lavender with a zesty sprinkle of citrus which dries into an alluring creme brulee note, but then after a while the vanilla hunkers down into smoky leather with a sexy animal note of civet. Dangerous stuff and a true inspiration for the fictional Lavande de Nuit.

Happy New Year!

An exuberant burst of wild flowers to wish you Happy New Year - pure as fresh snow, new as the year. May all your hopes and dreams come true or, perhaps more realistically for most of us, may patience and hard work bring just rewards.

Funnily enough, I'd been saving this photo for a time when it seemed right to look forward to Spring. It was growing on scrub in the garden in Provence, and all last year I tried to find out what exactly it was. No mention in my wild flower books. Nothing to match it on the internet. I was going to ask if anyone knew, but then - a few moments ago - I thought I'd just try again, and lo and behold Google images came up with a match. You may well know this lovely flower already; if not, I can now tell you that it's Star of Bethlehem. I'd heard of the plant, but never realised this was it.

It's officially classed as a weed, but even the entry in the Plant and Pest Digital Library (link here) admits it is pretty and suggests tolerance rather than destruction. We could all take something from that, not least in how we view bald classifications that consign us to think in empty black and white terms like good and bad, the expected and the unexpected, and even success and failure. In creative endeavour, the rewards so often come in the process rather than the end result judged by others.

A Spotless Rose

Like many people around the world, I'll be listening later to the Carols and Readings from King's College, Cambridge which are so much part of Christmas Eve. Here's my very favourite carol, A Spotless Rose composed by Herbert Howells in 1919.

I always find this breathtakingly beautiful. The echoes of the English Renaissance drift into a perfect marriage of words and music. If you are lucky enough to hear it live, especially in one of the Cambridge college chapels, the sound swells up into the high stone vaults and seems to swirl around like so many leaves in the wind. I first heard it at school in Sussex, where the choirmaster had been a choral scholar at King's and had brought all his passion and expertise to the music there. Then, when I went to Cambridge as a student, this was the song I always longed to hear by candlelight at Trinity.

A very Happy Christmas to you all!

The missing partridge and other matters

“We are literally living the twelve days of Christmas. Last night was the seventh carol service, six grown-ups parties in a row, we have had five flute concerts, four children’s parties, three work events, two elderly parents staying and only missing the Partridge because I haven’t made it to Waitrose yet.”

So reads the email this morning from the friend who has been making me laugh ever since we were sixteen. All the mad rushing around and suddenly it really does seem like Christmas.

Here’s this scene set for a family party at home yesterday that marks the point for us when the festive season truly starts. As befits a Georgian house (built circa 1750) the dining room is cosy and lit only by candles. It may be an affectation, but when we renovated the house and took out neon strip lighting (nice) we very deliberately decided not to have any electric lighting in here. In all the years since, we’ve never regretted it and our dinners and winter lunches with friends and family have always taken place in a warm convivial glow against the dusky red walls.

The tree has been dressed, most of the shopping is in, presents are wrapped, and now it’s just a question of keeping up with the entries on the calendar.

All writing stopped with the end of the school term and the really important concerns of life like the promised  iPhone for the Teenager and the logistics of the Rhianna concert at the O2 in London. Still, as all Two Regular Readers of this sadly neglected blog may know, there was a word count in operation before Christmas, and the results are in. I was aiming for 50,000 words, and managed 48,000 of the first draft of the new novel before deciding to hive off a section and make that into a separate novella. That now stands at 12,000 words, so all in all I’m feeling pretty pleased. Or I would be if I weren’t convinced that at least 30,000 were rubbish. They may well be, in which case I will simply have to try harder in the New Year.

For those who are curious about the setting and subject matter, I can reveal that I am back in the lavender fields of Provence during the Second World War. Those pictures of the workers haunted me (you can see them here) and life couldn’t really have been as apparently simple there as Bénédicte claimed in The Lantern, could it?

Anyway, I raise a glass to you all and wish you a happy and calm week before Christmas! 

The village in Kent

Phew! What a weekend. The village Christmas fair opened on Friday morning, became a night market with live entertainments on Friday night and then went on all day on Saturday. It was a triumph of organisation by many of our lovely friends and neighbours and a real community event to raise money for the village's 14th century church and a local cancer drop-in charity.

All the fantastic array of stalls had a local connection, and the idea was that we could all do plenty of our Christmas shopping while supporting home-grown businesses - everything from aromatherapy products to jewellery, pottery and paintings, to fabulous hampers and Christmas trees, decorations, baby clothes (there have been a lot of new babies in our vibrant little community), bags and vintage clothes, handmade chocolate and amazing cakes.

I was offering signed copies of The Lantern as my contribution and it was a great chance to chat to new as well as familiar faces. Rob played the piano and premiered a lovely new song with vocals from Grace Butler. Steve J gave us his Elvis, though there was quite a bit of competition from John. There were winter morris dancers, a sweet school choir and a ukelele band - it really was a great party atmosphere.

Not the greatest photos, I'm afraid - camera hand rather wobbly after all the signing, and the glasses of wine - but they give a small snapshot of the event. Note the backdrop up on the stage from the last panto - the village square as scenery designed and painted by Graham and Fred who worked so tremendously hard for days to get everything set up.

It was a terrific event, that ended in champagne at Graham's birthday party across the road, where there were a great many tired but happy faces. Huge thanks especially to Liz and Sophie, Claudia, Deirdre and Graham, Karen, John, Fred, Ivan, Derek and Gwen, who were right in the thick of it. 

The falling leaves

Nearly the end of November, and no writing update yet this month! It’s always the way: just when it all seems to be going so well, life has a way of pulling you up short. I made it to about 45,000 words, then had a fortnight dominated by a couple of nasty migraines that each lasted for days on end and made further progress impossible.

It was during that time of feeling disengaged that I realised that part of the draft would work much more powerfully as a separate story, perhaps a short novel. The more I thought about it the more convinced I was, although I was hesitant to suggest it to my literary agents in New York and London. To my amazement they understood my reasoning and got behind the idea immediately. With still-searing head I found myself writing publishing proposals, and then waiting on reactions.

When I did get back to my desk, it was to make tentative attempts at the new novella, leaving this autumn’s work in limbo for a while. But the stories are connected, and the idea is that the three books will form a very loose trilogy with The Lantern.

So I’m only now easing myself back into my writing routine, and building in plenty of relaxing walks which really do help focus the mind. I took my camera out the other day – a nice uphill metaphor here I think!