.Those of you who agree with the Royal Horticultural Society about garden gnomes may need to look away now, but Alan Titchmarsh has a gnome in his garden. He’s one of my favourite TV gardeners so I don’t see why I can’t have some too, especially at this time of year.
It’s almost ten years since I discovered the power of gardening at a very dark time in my life and I’m not ashamed to say that I don’t think I could have coped if I hadn’t. So, to mark the anniversary of what’s become one of my greatest loves, I buy the garden a present each year. It’s still a couple of weeks away but part of it has to be shipped from China so now seemed to be a good time to plan it.
I’ll have been married for 39 years on March the 22nd, and yes, the poor man would have got less if he’d murdered someone. He’s amazing, wonderful and all the other superlatives you like but he does have a nasty sense of humour. So, as you know, have I, so it won’t surprise you to know that we went to visit a Gnome Reserve when we were on our honeymoon and he claimed to be disappointed because he wasn’t allowed to shoot them!
My daughter has loved dinosaurs all her life and is now doing a thesis on paleo art. She had a batch of big dinosaurs that she used to play with amongst the ferns when she was small in the way that most little girls played with dolls. They have been out there ever since, and we recently found this - https://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit/galleries-and-museum-map/our-gardens.html so we decided to see what we could recreate now that the plants that were tiny ten years ago are tall and broad so you can’t see the row of poppy bird feeders any more. There’s something very special about the past meeting the future, don’t you think? She’s designing greetings cards so the dinosaurs will be back amongst the ferns as a backdrop for when she photographs them. For now, though, there is Jurassic Pathway, and here’s a picture of some of it
And beyond that is a nod to my past and my sense of humour. Yes, those are armed gnomes (or some of the final set anyway) And those dinosaurs are eating gnomes. The effect I’m going for is sort of Jurassic Park meets gnome reserve. Most people will never know it’s there, but I do, just as I know that life is too serious to take it seriously!
Now, on to being practical and serious and talking about the books that are on special offer at 99p in the UK and 99c in the US. If you don’t live in those places, search for Tia Brown or Eleanor Neville (or preferably both) anthologies and you'll find 3 books for £2.95 which is actually cheaper.
This week there are 3 from my Oldcastle series of gently, very cosy and family-orientated romances. They are The Toddler and the Tough Guy, Buried Trouble and Where There’s a Will. My favourite here is Sean Aylward a tough, no-nonsense Australian who knows nothing about antiques and is left a share of an auction house as long as he can help the heroine increase the profits.
Then, writing as Eleanor Neville, there are two romantic suspense novels from my Shadows series. These are Accidental Hero and Strange Harvest and feature two very different brothers who share an ability to find trouble and love in unexpected places.
I, obviously, never deliberately go looking for trouble. Why should I need to when it comes looking for me? But I did meet my husband at a self-defence class so I kicked him, stabbed him, threw him over my shoulder and then he asked me out for a drink and the rest is history. Have a good week till we meet again on Sunday
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