Wait! Summer's Over?

 

How did that happen? 

I confess, I've been inside a lot since March so I barely notice the change of seasons from spring to summer and now getting ready for fall. And, added onto that is that whatever is growing outside bothers my allergies, so, I'm indoors most of the time. 

And, of course, this is no UCR (usual-customary-reasonable) fall either. Staples and other stores selling school supplies should be packed. Beaches should be filled to capacity in that last effort to relax before the real world comes back. I should be on my way to Scotland for a 3-week tour/reseach/writing trip. But no, we're all trying to make our way from an unexpected summer to an unconventional fall. 

 The one thing that usually means summer to me is a visit to a beach - I love sitting on a beach and watching and listening to the waves. But mostly I like people-watching AND reading. I remember when my family rented a place on Long Beach Island and I began packing books first! The best part of that trip (since I had 3 boys at the time) was the long afternoon when my hubby took them back to the house and let me read uninterrupted on the beach for 4 hours! Bliss, sheer bliss! I may yet try to get down there for a couple of hours of beach reading....

Now (literally today!) the temps will shift a tiny bit cooler, forewarning us of the change of seasons coming. Personally, I love the fall - the cooler temps, the crispness in the air, the colors changing around me, the coming holidays. The smells of fireplaces and more baking will fill the air. Ahhhhhh. 

How about you? Are you mourning summer's departure or cheering fall's arrival? Was there a high point to your summer? Or expecting something fabulous this autumn? Let me know by commenting and I'll choose a summer and a fall person to receive a copy of my latest release - An Outlaw's Honor - or my rereleased - A Highlander's Hope. I'll choose on September 5.

 

Terri is working on her next Harlequin Historical romance while waiting for the release of TEMPTED BY HER VIKING ENEMY in November. The final book in the #SonsofSigurd series, it arrives on October 27(print) and November 1(ebook). Visit Terri's website for all the info! 

 

Christina Hollis: September—New Starts, Old Friends

I love a quiet life. Writing lets me lead one. When you spend your days in front of a keyboard, the rest of the world passes you by—most of the time.  

My wedding bouquet

Everything changes in September!

For me, this month is on a par with December. There's something going on all the time. Much as I enjoy living like a recluse, there's too much going on over these thirty days to sit at home.

For a start, the birthdays of both my husband and his sister fall this month. When we got engaged, my then soon-to-be husband wanted to marry in September. "That way I'll never forget our anniversary," he said—and he never has.  My sister's wedding anniversary is a few days before us, so there's no excuse for forgetting that, either!

The Society of Authors has a small but lively local group which meets in the next county. I attended a meeting only last week.  I'm also a keen member of the Romantic Novelists' Association. Their local chapter has unmissable meetings too, so I've been to their September session as well. 

I also love cake!

A few years ago, the York chapter of the RNA hit on the great idea of hosting a formal afternoon tea  for people who live in the North of England and Scotland. It isn't always easy for them to make the London meetings of the association. York is much closer for them.  

York's a long way from me, involving a long car journey to the nearest station before a three-hour train journey, but my daughter is very fond of that historic city. She did some of her training as an archaeologist there so three years ago I booked us a weekend break there. She showed me round, and I took her to the York tea. A day's sightseeing followed by cake and fancy sandwiches in great company was a fantastic experience. The RNA tea is now an annual fixture in my diary. 

September is back to school time, of course. In my case it's back to university. I'm half-way through my Masters in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of Gloucestershire (you can find out more about that here) and I can't wait to get back to it after the long summer break. I've already been researching some ideas to incorporate in my final modules.

Find out more at mybook.to/BristolWomen

After working on my book, Struggle and Suffrage in Bristol, I've become interested in the way the simplest advances in technology have made huge changes in the lives of working people. I've taken out an annual pass for the Dean Forest Heritage Museum, and will be visiting it as often as possible to help with my research. The museum and its archive are stuffed with interesting items and books. They even have a miner's house on the site, decorated and stocked  exactly as it would have been in the late nineteenth century—complete with china chamber pots under each bed!

The final thing written in my diary this month is the talk I'm giving to the Bristol and Avon Family History Society.  I met several members at the Bristol city archive while I was researching Struggle and Suffrage in Bristol. They were very helpful, and friendly. Now I've been invited to their family history fair, and I can't wait!

Have you got anything exciting lined up for the last days of summer? 

Christina Hollis's first non-fiction book, Struggle and Suffrage in Bristol is published by Pen and Sword Books. You can find out more about that here, catch up with her at https://christinahollisbooks.online, on Twitter, Facebook, and see a full list of her published books at christinahollis.com

Christina Hollis—Beginnings and Endings

Goodbye, summer...

September and the beginning of the new school term is always bittersweet. The peace after a summer of comings and goings is tinged with sadness at another milestone passed in the children's lives, and our own. 

This year is more poignant than most, as our son enters his last year at secondary school. It'll be final exams for him in summer 2018. A few weeks after that he'll be off into the big wide world. This is the last time I'll be doing the school run beneath dancing flocks of gathering swallows and house martins. This time next year, he'll be getting ready to fly the nest himself. 

In the meantime he's fine-tuning his skills in the kitchen, learning how to budget, and sitting at the top of the best local driving instructor's waiting list. I'm trying to step back, but it's difficult. He's got numerous health problems, but you can't keep them wrapped in cotton wool all their lives, can you? Not that it stops me worrying. 

Maybe leaving home will be the making of him. Maybe. You hear such worrying things about Generation I—the ones who live life at one remove, behind screens or via their telephones. How they're in danger of becoming Special Snowflakes because they lack the social skills we all learned in the days BC—Before Computer.  They're not so well-equipped to deal with the rough and tumble of daily working life, it seems.

...hello, autumn...

 

I'll look on the bright side. I worried about DD when she went off to university. Now she's back home and has a new career as an archaeologist. We could be toasting Son Number One's similar success in a few years' time, with wine made from our new grapevines!

When she isn't cooking, gardening or beekeeping, Christina Hollis writes contemporary fiction starring complex men and independent women.  Her books have been translated into more than a dozen languages, and she’s sold nearly three million books worldwide. Catch up with her at http://www.christinahollis.blogspot.com, on Twitter, Facebook, and see a full list of her published books at christinahollis.com

Her current release, Heart Of A Hostage, is published by The Wild Rose Press and available at myBook.to/HeartOfAHostage  worldwide.

Flowers to cheer - Kandy Shepherd

With some of the stuff going on in the world right now, there seem to be so many unpleasant things cluttering up my social media. I want to see something pleasant!

Autumn roses in my garden

So I thought I’d share some photos of my autumn/fall garden—Down Under in Australia that is! (I always find it a little difficult to get my head around the reversal of the seasons in the northern and southern hemispheres!)

Claret ash starting to colour

Our little farm has a lovely garden, planted by various people before us, dating back to 1928. We’ve added our own plantings over the years we’ve had the garden.

An abundance of camellias

Where we’re located in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, we have distinct seasons and a cold winter. Not cold like some of my northern hemisphere friend’s winters—we very rarely have snow although the frosts can be punishing. But it’s distinct from the sub-tropical climate that, say, Sydney enjoys where the winter is relatively mild.

Bees like the autumn garden

 Spring is my favorite time in this garden, thanks to the spring-flowering bulbs, blossoming fruit trees, roses and iris that thrive in this climate. But autumn is my next favorite when the leaves color and camellias are in bloom.

The shy charm of violets

It’s been a few weeks since I took these photos and frosts have wiped out some of the greenery. 

This rose is called Perfumed Perfection and it smells divine!

But there are still a few hardy roses and the sasanqua camellias are thriving. Soon the hellebores and jonquils of winter will be adding some color to the bare trees.

My cat Cindy likes her bed of autumn leaves

What’s your favorite season of the year? I’d love to read your comments!

Kandy’s most recent book Conveniently Wed to the Greek is a May 2017 release from

Harlequin Romance in North America; Mills & Boon Cherish in the UK; and Mill & Boon ForeverRomance in Australia and New Zealand.

Kandy Shepherd is a multi-published, award-winning author of contemporary romance and women’s fiction. She lives on a small farm in the Blue Mountains near Sydney, Australia, with her family and a menagerie of four-legged friends.

Visit Kandy at her website

www.kandyshepherd.com

Connect with Kandy on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram

Christina Hollis – Hedgerow Harvest

Coe's Golden Drop

After a practically non-existent harvest in 2012, we were hoping for a better year this year. It didn’t get off to a good start. Only two of my colonies of bees made it through to spring. Both were headed by new young queens, but the foul weather last summer meant neither had been properly fertilized. They couldn’t lay replacement workers, so those two hives soon died out as well.  It meant for the first time in  four years the hum of honeybees was missing from our garden. That was sad enough. Then forestry work out in the wood sent the deer in the direction of our garden.  All the lower branches of our cherry, plum and apple trees were nibbled to death. The lay of the land around  here means it’s impossible keep them out, so we resigned ourselves to having no fruit for a second year running. The orchard at Tottering Towers now resembles a Capability Brown landscape in miniature, with trees pruned drastically to livestock-height. We thought things horticultural couldn’t get any worse - until the rodent population exploded. Our cat can cope with the mice and voles, but with the garden encircled by trees, most of the squirrels can bounce out of his reach. When rabbits finally returned to our neck of the woods, it felt like the last straw. 

Damsons

Then unexpectedly, things began to look up. We finally shook off the cold, wet spell that lasted from winter right through to midsummer. The sun started to shine, and forgot to stop. Our local beekeeping group managed to raise enough new stock to sell replacement colonies to those who, like me, had lost all their bees.  Best of all, our garden went into overdrive.  The blackcurrant bushes produced about double their normal yield of fruit, while the remaining branches of  our fruit trees are bowed down with fruit. Even the damson tree my sister gave us for our wedding anniversary a few years ago rose to the challenge. Unusually, it didn’t have many flowers on it this spring, but just about every one it did have turned into a fruit. They looked ripe last week so I tried one. Big mistake. The taste was so sharp, it made me pucker up like a Siamese cat in a wind-tunnel. It’ll be a while before they’re even ready to turn into jam.

Blackberries

At the moment I’m busy trying to grab windfall apples before the deer can hoover them up. It’s been such a good year for brambles, the hedges are full of them. Here’s a really simple recipe for making the most of this hedgerow harvest. The amount and type of fruit can be varied according to what you have available. You just need to make sure you have about a pound and a half of prepared fruit in total. 

APPLE AND BLACKBERRY CRUMBLE

1.5lbs peeled, sliced cooking apples and washed blackberries

Sugar to taste

4oz flour

3oz butter or margarine

2oz demerara (brown) sugar

3oz rolled oats

Put the prepared fruit into an ovenproof dish with sugar to taste and a couple of tablespoons of water.

In another bowl, rub the fat into the flour. Stir in the sugar and oats. Spread this crumble mixture evenly over the fruit, making sure to cover it completely. Cook in the oven for around half an hour at 180°C, (fan oven 160°C) Gas Mark 4, or until the fruit is cooked and the topping is golden. Serve it hot or cold, with plenty of custard, cream or ice cream.

What’s your favourite fruit dish?

You can read Christina's blog at http://www.christinahollis.blogspot.com and see a complete list of her published books at http://www.christinahollis.com

Ode to Autumn! -- Anna Campbell

by Anna Campbell

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun.

How's that for a classy way to start a blog? Kant go wrong with some Keats, kan you?

Actually Keats was talking about a Northern Hemisphere Autumn. Here where I live in subtropical Queensland in Australia, there's not much mist! And the sun well and truly hit maturity when it was pounding down and baking us all through the summer.

We don't get the spectacular change of the seasons here that people in more temperate climates get. There's certainly a shift in temperature but it's hardly drastic. There's a few different plants flowering in the garden and the days get shorter. That's about it.

Nonetheless with the arrival of Autumn, there's a crispness in the air and a freshness to the days that you don't get during our long, hot summer.

I'm not built for the heat, sadly, so I suffer and whine from late November through until early March. All those Northern European ancestors put together a genetic package that is built to withstand Arctic temperatures. So I'm someone who hangs out every year for those first few cool days, especially through February when I feel like the sweltering, sultry weather is never going to end.

Of course, summer isn't all misery and there are things I miss about it before it rolls around again.

One is diving into my swimming pool as a nice break from sweating over my computer. Yes, that is me posing as a bathing beauty, snort! Another is that the wild bearded dragons who live in my garden go into hibernation and I don't see them again until the weather warms up. I love these little guys - it's like having mini dinosaurs hiding in the shrubbery. I miss the long evenings sitting out with my friends under the pergola and looking at the lake. Nothing like a lovely glass of sauvignon blanc and great company and a leisurely summer day.

But all of that finishes pretty much with Easter. I can sometimes squeeze in a week or so of swimming after the big bunny has been, but basically that's the end of summer for us.

But aside from the cooler weather, there are other things I look forward to in Autumn. And not just chocolate eggs!

I love the summer fruits, cherries and peaches and apricots and nectarines and mangoes. But my favorite fruit are the mandarins that kick in late March and hang around for most of the winter. I can eat them by the hundred - and I do. In fact, I turn a nice shade of orange during mandarin season. Well, slight exaggeration, but I bet my innards are orange!

Another thing I love about the cooler weather is that I replace my swimming with nice long walks. It's just too hot, even first thing in the morning, to go far in summer. And there are some pretty places to explore near my house. This is a picture my friend Sharon Archer (who writes wonderful romances for Mills and Boon Medicals) took of the beach five minutes away from me.

All round, I think the cool change will be extremely cool!

And if you'd like something new and fresh to read as the seasons change, why not enter my latest website contest? I'm giving away an advance reader copy of my June release MY RECKLESS SURRENDER. All you have to do is read the excerpt on my books page and tell me the old proverb that the Earl of Ashcroft quotes to Diana Carrick. Here's a clue - it's for the birds! Then email me on anna@annacampbell.info with your answer. For more details, please check out my contest page. Good luck!

So what's happening with the seasons where you are? I'm off to dive into the pool - feel I should take advantage of it while I can!