Raspberries, peas and hollyhocks. Oh my.

misty, foggy, humid this morning - now sunny and hot temps 28

Well, while we were away in NYC the garden went nuts! Happily corralled by Lise and Donna. But all the flowers have exploded into bloom. It's fantastic. The clematis all over the birdhouse, the climbing roses in full bloom. And as I walked Trudy around the pond I noticed raspberries! I wasn't prepared, no bowl, but we got a handful (between mouthfuls - I blame Trudy, dreadful influence).

I adore hollyhocks, and their spires are in full and magnificent bloom.

So lovely to walk first thing in the morning, especially when it's misty. Everything smells so sweet, and a different aroma with each step. Some sweet, some musky.

the phlox are out! I think they're my favorite summer flower - perhaps even eclipsing peony. Lovely little blossoms, but mostly it's the fragrance. Reminds me of childhood summers by the lake.

After breakfast Michael and I sat on the screen porch, sharing the table, each with our laptops...working on our books. He's still at it. Amazing. I stopped about 3pm. Again, more editing than I expected - but more fine tuning. there will be at least one more draft, I know, before anyone gets to see it. I hope to finish this one - the third draft - by the end of next week. Might take the weekend off...then head right back to the fourth draft. Hoping to have it all finished by the time we head to Stratford and British Columbia.

Oh, we've made reservations to go to London in November. Meet with the new publishers and editor again, have lunch with agent Teresa - but mostly...have fun after a very long tour!! Have rented a flat on Basil Street in Knightsbridge, right behind Harrods and around the corner from Harvey Nichols (aka Harvey Nics)

Can hardly wait!!!

but for now, how wonderful to sit on the porch, look out at the magnificent garden, thanks to Lise and Donna, and write with Michael. Bliss.

Home

Mainly sunny, rumbles of thunder, humid and hot temps 30

Home!

Arrived back by 4pm yesterday. Took JetBlue out of NYC - what a fabulous experience. Will immediately sign up for their frequent flier programme. We had the 2 hour drive home, easy and lovely drive through the Vermont countryside. Stopped to pick up steaks and fruit and vegetables, got Trudy, and arrived home. Spent the rest of the afternoon - which was sunny and hot - sitting by the pool, reading, drinking pink lemonade, looking at the gardens bursting with blooms. So beautiful and fragrant.

Bliss.

As was NYC, but in a whole other way. How lucky to have both experiences in our lives...and in a single day.

After a BBQ by the pool we went to bed, turned on the TV and saw the horrible news about Michael Jackson. Love his music - especially Thriller...but it felt as though 'Michael Jackson' left decades ago, to be replaced by a very unhappy man. And perhaps worse. So sad.

And also sad for Farrah Fawcett...I think we all knew she was dying, and perhaps this was a blessed release...but can't help feeling badly that her passing is so overshadowed by Michael Jackson's death. Still, both are beyond caring now.

Michael awoke to a cold...he was getting it last night, and sure enough, it arrived. Am trying to look after him, but like most men he both wants to make it clear he's ill (perhaps even dying) but doesn't want any special attention. Will go down and wave lunch in front of him...and some more pink lemonade.

Lise came today and the garden is looking spectacular...it practically giggles as she prunes and trims and weeds. One of the first things I did yesterday was go into the cutting garden and fill vases with peony and salvia.

Alarm guy showed up to put in a carbon monoxide detector in the basement.

Expecting FedEx to pick up some pages for the editors.

Did a call with CBC Radio for the CanadaReads books club - they're doing The Murder Stone(A Rule Against Murder), online, in August...and anyone can take part. I'll let you know more as it gets closer.

Take care and will speak to you tomorrow.

A life in bloom

heavy misty rain, then clearing, temps 15

Atmospheric day. Feel like Wuthering Heights here. Heathcliff!!! Cathy!!!

Took Trudy for her morning walk through the misty rain. We had four geese and at least eight, maybe 10 babies, all on the pond. Lovely sight...though walking around the pond is no longer a bare-footed event. Cannot begin to tell you the amount of you-know-what on the lawn.

Why am I surprised. It was about time for another event.

Still, this one is worth it. Very nice to have such life on the pond. But, by the time we went out later, they'd gone. Apparently mom and dad goose carry the babies on their backs. Never seen it, but heard it described. Either way, they're all gone.

Lise and Donna came today. The garden looks fabulous.

Janet and Bob arrived from Pittsburgh and are now in the guest cottage.

Am madly signing books for the US launch of The Brutal Telling. This is never a hardship - though there must be a thousand of them. Everyone I sign I think of you, handing over money you worked hard for, to read my book. And I'm filled with gratitude. That you'd do it. And that this is my job!

We have the fire on today. Michael's reading the proofs of The Brutal Telling, trying to catch all the small errors. Dear Man - he had plenty of his own work to do, but he reads my proofs.

Sent off an endorsement for a book, and a critique of the first ten pages of another one.

I've agreed to read another manuscript, with a view to endorsing it...but it will have to stop there, so I can catch my breath. Will also be doing a feature interview with Alan Bradley - author of The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. He's a Canadian, with an amazing success story...in his 70s! The interview is for Mystery News. Great publication...and I love being able to promote other writers, where possible.

Also have a novella for literacy to write. I'm thinking of making it an 'early' Gamache...when he first joined the force...perhaps even his first murder. This is not book length, but longer than a short story and is both a fundraiser for adult literacy and a book meant to be read by adults reading at about a grade 4 level.

Am hoping to get everything done by the end of the year. And some things need to be done considerably before that. But if I pace myself it's not hard.

the rain has stopped. Will walk trudy, stroll the gardens (lupins up, irises exploding, alliums in bloom - roses in tight bud as are the peony. The clematis has climbed up the posts and is winding itself around the birdhouse. And the huge mature honeysuckle bush is in full bloom - yay lise!!!) Then off to Sutton for food, home to exercise, then flopping on the sofa with a movie.

Hope your day is going well!

Mmmmuffins

partly cloudy, cool, temps 23

Lovely day, really. Cool enough we needed a sweater for most of the day.

The delphinium are in full bloom and even some hollyhock! The garden's just exploding.

Woke up feeling very relaxed and invited Michael out for breakfast in Knowlton. There's a place called Cafe Floral that serves wonderful cafe au lait and the biggest freshest muffins in the world. We had a raspberry muffin, still warm from the oven, scrambled eggs with brie and a croissant. Then, just as it was time pay, the owner said Danny, who runs Brome Lake Books, had called to say he'd pay for our meal. (how he even knew we were there remains a mystery)

Danny clearly had NO idea how gargantuan our appetite was. We tried to pay for half, but the owner refused. So we bought Danny a warm muffin and took it to the bookstore where he and Michael chatted while I signed a pile of books.

pretty good work.

Then off to the Sutton food bank to make a delivery. Kept running in to people we know, and that's always great.

Lise and Donna came by this morning to work on the garden. I saw Lise's wounds from the noxious Gas Plant - it looks as though someone took a lash to her shoulders. Poor woman. But she just laughed and said it was all right. We gave her a cream, with very high SPF value. She gave me this huge basket full of her amazing home-made goods, like strawberry jame, bread and butter pickles and pickled beets. A gift for my 50th. REally, so kind. Can you imagine what she'd have given me had we not poisoned her?

Spent the afternoon editing book 5. Made great headway. there are times I'm just throbbing with excitement about this book. Really excited about the themes and how it's all coming together.

So, to recap. Book 5 is either the most brilliant mystery ever written, or it's crap. It changes from day to day, sometimes from minute to minute.

Kirk called and invited us for dinner tomorrow, and we had an email from a friend inviting Michael to give a speech tonight. So we're off for that.

Chateleine, a huge circulation Canadian magazine, has asked to do an interview with me for their October issue, which co-incides perfectly with the launch of THE MURDER STONE.

Still haven't written that Golbe and Mail column, and Scene of the Crime festival on wolfe Island wants to know when we're arriving so their volunteers can meet us. Need to do that, and send Left Coast Crime a bio and photo for the Feb. 09 event.

Our friend Nancy spent a couple of hours here this afternoon working with Michael to get our new satellite high speed internet working.

And now it does! Brilliant. A real revolution for us.

The coffee for the new espresso maker arrived. But no machine. Still, pretty exciting to be this close to making our own espressos.

Speak to you tomorrow. Be well.

Time for friends

mainly sunny, warm. temps 25

Lovely day - lots of sun. Spent the day on the screen porch doing the edits. It really is sublime. The Japanese tree lilac is out - filled with ivory blooms, and filling the garden with sweetness. For me, it smells like summer. Between that, the roses and the peony it really is amazing. Peaceful, calm, lovely.

Didn't have time to blog yesterday. Michael and I've re-instituted our 2 kilometer walks before breakfast, and yesterday on the walk Michael realized we needed to go into cowansville, to the bank and the paper place. So off we went for breakfast too...did errands until about noon, then home.

It was rainy and cold, so I lit a fire and sat there, editing - until 8:30 pm. The first chapters are the hardest, I realize, since I was really just tossing things onto the page. As the book progressed I picked up the most interesting threads. But all that crap is still there in the beginning.

Have decided to drop 2 characters too. One fairly major, the other not. But this gives the existing characters, and the other new ones, more space to grow. That's fun. But it does take a certain re-imagining.

Today I worked from 9 to just now - about 4pm. But it's getting easier. And what an amazing workplace! No complaints here.

On our walk this morning we ran into 2 sets of neighbors and had nice chats. As we were heading back a car pretended to run us down and out jumped Andrew and Lori. They're really wonderful people. You know how sometimes you're with people and come back just a little down? Sort of draggy? Well, Andrew and Lori do the opposite for us. They're just delightful. Full of enthusiasm, interests - and they're very warm people. I'm growing less and less patient with cynacism and sarcasm. I was like that for too many years. It's facile, and meaningless. to me. Others, clearly, delight in that sort of personality. I don't. So it was refreshing and fun to spend even a short amount of time with Lori and Andrew. Andrew's from New Zealand and his mother Helen has become a friend of ours as well. We saw her last year when we were there with the books.

Then - back to work. Still - other people have real jobs. This is self-directing and I put as much or as little pressure on myself as I choose.

Michael's been invited to Cambridge (UK) in September, so we're considering going. That should be loads of fun. But enjoying being home for now. Hoping to get together with Andrew and Lori before too long. And really looking forward to seeing Cheryl, Gary and Joan shortly too.

I find the only struggle in my life now is finding that balance between work and friends. I'm afraid the friends and the social life have suffered. Happily, some are holding on for dear life.

Having dinner with Cotton and a few others tonight, then off to Montreal tomorrow for early morning drs appointments Monday. Just check-ups.

Talk to you tomorrow.

What remains

sunny, warm, temps 26

We're in Toronto. Had a fun day today. Checked in to the InterContinental, Front Street. McArthur, my Canadian publisher, has very generously put us on the Club floor, which means a private lounge with breakfasts, afternoon tea, cocktails, DVD's, newspapers etc. It's like a British Airways lounge (by which I now measure every aspect of my life).

Then, as Michael cringed and tried to teleport himself somewhere else, I asked if there were any suites available. Can you believe it, there was! So they upgraded us to a suite.

Then we hopped out and caught an early showing of the new Indiana Jones film nearby. I love matinees! Always feel like such luxury. We got buckets of popcorn and diet cokes and sat in the near empty cinema. Heaven.

Loved the movie - but the bar isn't very high for Harrison Ford. Anything he's in is fine with me. My favorite Indiana Jones was the previous one, with Sean Connery. We own the DVD and I watch it every 6 months or so. I can practically mouth the lines. What fun. As you see, we run a vigorously intellectual household.

Just got out of a shower. Had dirt wedged under my fingernails. It's been a while since I had the earth smeared on my hands - and it felt good. We were in the village of Elora for the past two days. Visiting Cousin Marjorie.

Elora was one of the principle inspirations for Three Pines. In fact, Gabri is loosely based on a man named Steven in Elora, and Cousin Marjorie inspired both Ruth and one of the Three Graces from the second book. She has two very close friends and they did almost everything together. If you saw one there was a pretty good chance another was close. Like a pack. Marjorie, Margo and Kay. All over 80. The Three Graces.

This trip, though, was quite different. Margo has sold her lovely old stone home in the centre of the village and moved into a brand new seniors residence. Kay has left Elora for Toronto to be closer to family. And Wednesday when we arrived at Marjorie's from Montreal, for the first time ever she wasn't at the door waiting.

The inside door was open and we opened the screen door and called. No answer. Called again. This time we heard a shuffling.

It was Marjorie. With a smile, but looking weary. Then it came out. She'd only the day before returned from a week in the hospital. We were horrified. That we didn't know and that now this suddenly frail older woman had two guests. We immediately asked the obvious.

What was wrong? What happened? Afraid of the answer.

Atrial fibrillation. I could see Michael relax. He knew what it meant, and while it wasn't brilliant news it wasn't the disaster it might have been.

A lot of people have it. It's when the heart speeds up, and won't slow down. It can be extremely serious, if not treated. But Marjorie came home from the hospital with lots of drugs.

Still, this once energetic woman who zoomed all over the world, helped organize the local book sale, played bridge, gardened and has countless friends was suddenly weak and exhausted.

We sat with her and asked questions. Michael looked at her drugs, and took her pulse-rate. But I couldn't shake the feeling we shouldn't be there. We would be a burden when all she wanted to do was rest.

I made dinner. (No, not peanut butter sandwiches - I surprised even myself by producing chicken breasts with fresh tarragon and elderflower and newly cut asparagus.) Michael made a salad - we washed up and all went to bed early.

The next morning we made breakfast then Marjorie asked me to put in her vegetable garden. She could have given me the winning lottery ticket. I was relieved and thrilled. We could actually do something useful. So under Marjorie's stern, percise and exacting eye in went the lettuce, basil, parsley, red onions, zucchini, squash, scarlet runner beans and another sort of bean. Then I weeded for 2 hours while Marjorie napped on the sofa and Michael, bless him, called her doctor and talked to him, doctor to doctor.

As I weeded I realized how sad I was. That the vacations to see Marjorie had clearly changed. She who always met us and had a gourmet meal prepared and had planned dinner parties and trips to the theatre and restaurants, was human after all. And needed our help.

Of course, there's every reason to believe once the medication is adjusted and she gets some rest, she'll be fine. Perhaps better than ever.

But it was a wake-up. And it was a feeling I suddenly recognized. From visits to my grandmother many, many years ago, as she aged. And to my mother, who went from striding ahead of us even in our adulthood, to falling behind until we needed to walk very slowly and pretend we weren't so as not to upset her.

Roles naturally change. But we don't have to like it. We do need to accept it, though.

And it felt good to get dirt on my knees and see the earth under my nails, and have a few hours to reflect on what really matters.

Michael came out and watered the new vegetable garden and as I watched him I remembered a prayer he told me about. One someone told him when he thought he'd die from sorrow when his first wife died.

Thank you God for everything you've given me,
Everything you've taken away,
And everything that remains.


This too I've learned in the garden.

Be well, please. I'll talk to you tomorrow.