Monday, May 13, 2013

If you go down to the woods today...

Current work: Cherish romance (aka M&B #57 - working title 'Me and You and a Dog Named Baloo')
Listening to: Beethoven
Reading: Eliza Graham, The History Room (enjoying) and Jojo Moyes, The Girl You Left Behind
Gym: 121 (weights and cardio)

Yesterday, I wanted to go and find a bluebell carpet. DH was difficult about it, saying that we’d been to Foxley and Blickling plenty of times before. But eventually he decided we’d go to a patch of ancient woodland, i.e. Ashwellthorpe Lower Wood.

Cue a wander through woodlands to the sound of birdsong and no traffic. Just gorgeous.

And we found bluebells :o)


Plus a dramatic tree.




We also found a carpet of white flowers we didn’t recognise. I thought they were a form of allium (we’ve grown alliums before, but blue ones because I like blue flowers and I’m in charge of bulbs), plus we could smell garlic in the air. The noticeboard back at the car park said that they were either ransom or wood anemones. A little bit of net research told me that they were ransom – aka allium ursinum. Why the link with bears (ursa)? Apparently brown bears liked eating them and digging them up. These flowers are apparently associated with patches of bluebells, and in such situations they are an indicator of ancient woodland. So there you go. Nerdy facts for the day :o)




Tuesday, May 07, 2013

Sunshine - and elsewhere today

Elsewhere today - over at the Chocolate Box with a very heartfelt thank you http://www.chocolateboxwriters.com/thank-you-by-kate-hardy/ and at the Pink Heart Society with recipes for rye bread and green summer soup http://www.pinkheartsociety.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/kates-kitchen-rye-bread-and-green.html.

Yesterday was a glorious bank holiday - lovely to see the sun, so we went to the coast and had a paddle at Cromer.



One of the things I love about the East Anglian coastline is that often you can't see where the sea ends and the sky begins. Plus we were amused by these gulls lining up on the groyne:



Have a nice day!

Friday, May 03, 2013

and ANOTHER cover reveal

Current work: Cherish romance (aka M&B #57 - working title 'Me and You and a Dog Named Baloo')
Listening to: Queen
Reading: Eliza Graham, The History Room (enjoying) and Jojo Moyes, The Girl You Left Behind
Gym: Weights

Fabulous session at the gym today - learned to do deadlifts. (Have I mentioned how much I love weights? LOL. Am going to be verrrry boring about this.) And this 'eat more to lose weight' idea might just have something, because I lost 1/2 lb this week. OK, not a huge amount, but I was expecting a gain with the increase in calories and the fact I've tweaked my training to include a bit more weights. But hey. I'm functioning well on this way of eating, so that's fine.

And I have another cover to reveal. I’m in a 3-in-1 special release with one of my very favourite people – Liz Fielding. How cool is that? It’s a reprint of my Sheikh book, ‘Surrender to the Playboy Sheikh’ – I loved writing that book so much.



We have a nice holiday weekend lined up - picking out the Pandora bead for book 56 tomorrow, a barbecue with DH's best friend, and possibly a walk on the beach. Will be nice to have a bank holiday with some sunshine, for once! Hope your weekend is good, too :o)

Wednesday, May 01, 2013

new cover reveal!

Current work: Cherish romance (aka M&B #57 - working title 'Me and You and a Dog Named Baloo')
Listening to: Michael Buble and Fleetwood Mac
Reading: Eliza Graham, The History Room (enjoying) and Jojo Moyes, The Girl You Left Behind
Gym: Weights (all on my own as I was feeling brave), a HIIT circuit and pyramid training on the cross-trainer

Lovely to see blossom starting to unfurl on the tree in our front garden. And it’s warm and sunny today; makes a nice change to be able to put the laundry on the line instead of in the dryer.

Also lovely to see the cover for my July book, A Date with the Ice Princess – very pleased to be in a duo with my friend Jennifer Taylor.