Love this…
A Winter Walk
This gallery contains 6 photos.
Originally posted on Meg Travels:
This is my second winter in Virginia and there has been a lot of sunshine during the month of January. I saw a little snow one morning but it was gone by the afternoon. Since…
Lovebird is a compact, small colorful parrot
Colorful Lovebird Picture
The lovebird is a compact, small stocky parrot mostly about 5-6 inches in length. They have a large bill and a tail that is either round or square. Their average life span is between 10-12 years with some living even longer. The lovebird has been recorded at 17 years and several people have reported their birds living even longer than that. There are many color mutations found in peach faced lovebirds and several mutations in some of the other species, so there are many color variations of lovebirds available.
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Guest Post from Hawai’i 4
I love this place…great photo.
The flowers on Hawai’i are exquisite . Here is a yellow Hibiscus, photo taken by my sister.
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‘White Oleander’ Author: What Makes Greatness?
This question was posed for me by a reader on my Goodreads page. For me, the best questions are the ones that make me think more deeply about the issues involved. This was a good one:
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“What makes a great story/book? There are so many writers out there, but only a few get any acclaim, and some of the best posthumously. It is a herd mentality that snowballs into popularity?”
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The questioner is actually asking four separate questions here.
1. What makes a great story?
2. What makes a great book?
3. Why do only a few books get acclaim?
4. Is it a herd mentality that snowballs a book into popularity.
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I answered them in order–but Number 2 is the one that interests me most.
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1. A great story is one which satisfies the question it raises in the beginning. It can be a…
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Leave the pen. Take the cannoli.
Love this city and these drawings…
Late last month, on the weekend before Christmas, I took a day in San Francisco, just to get out of Davis for a little while and sketch things on ground that slopes a bit. I didn’t have much of a plan beyond “go to the Ferry Building, have a cannoli, draw loads”. So I did. Here’s my sketch from the early morning Amtrak train, above. It’s not cheap, traveling the Amtrak, but it’s a lovely journey and you get free wifi.
So I got to the San Francisco Ferry Building, where they have the Saturday Farmer’s Market. I like getting here on a Saturday, and finding the little stall inside that sells Italian cannoli filled with chocolate, and sugary messy lemon-filled ‘bombolini’, little doughnuts. After cleaning my face I went outside to draw a panorama, which took about an hour and a quarter. Those sugary treats made me work…
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My beautiful garden extract from The Boomer Generation due out in May 2015.
I had checked in on the children and there were all fast asleep and that delicious sense of early morning peace was pervading the whole house. As the clock ticked, our golden retreiver Bella and our elderly ginger cat Fudge were fast asleep by the Aga and did not stir as I waited for the coffee to brew.
I had been grocery shopping the evening before and the warm kitchen was full of good things. On the pine dresser sat a Majolica dish of fat, purple plums and when you peered closer you could discern the bloom on their skin and catch the intoxicating scent of autumn. A jute sack of red apples was propped in the corner that had been delivered by to us by Mr Timms, a friendly neighbour from down the lane.
As I gazed through the widow at my beautiful garden, my eyes rested for a moment on my mother’s antique copper jug, full of purple chrysanthemums that I had picked the day before.
The air was like wine that morning as I knelt to lift the brightly coloured impatiens from their summer home. They had made a spectacular show all through the summer in their beds against the old brick wall that wound sedately around the front garden. The mellow ancient brickwork acted as a storage heater for the espaliers of peaches and figs that I had planted up against its whole length. I chose the best dozen specimens of impatiens and planted them neatly in pots ready to take into the office.
Extract from The Boomer Generation by Carole Mccall due out in May 2015.
Carole McCall Author and Coach 