My next Oldcastle cosy romance is out tomorrow and it's a special one for me because it was inspired by my long-term love of an old Archaeology programme called Time Team. No sexy presenters, no manufactured drama. Just 3 days to uncover history and learn not just about the big important times but about how ordinary people like us lived and loved. Whenever they found a brooch or a comb I imagined the woman being furious about dropping it. When coins were found, I wondered why they were hidden or how they came to be lost. When the dendrochronologist dated the beams of houses I thought about all the people that house would have sheltered over the years.
I love history. I love old houses. I love the sense of being a link in a chain and that we can still learn from those who came towards us now as the need to be more careful with the earth's resources makes us challenge things we once took for granted. There again I'm quite happy to be an old-fashioned woman. I love my garden and my quilting and embroidery and cooking and making a house into a home. I love putting my washing out in the first light of the day and watching my black cat turning back to kittenhood as she scampers up the yellow-flowered forsythia. I wish I could have taken a picture to share with you, but I stood and watched the brief moment and promised myself to take my camera outside with me in that golden hour from now on and combine necessity with pleasure.
How do you feel about the past? Do you live surrounded by it like I do because I live in a conservation area? Or are you making the past for other people as you live in a new build? Please share, because most of all, people fascinate me!
