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The Pleasures of Men – Kate Williams

22 Jan

‘Catherine Sorgeiul lives with her Uncle in a rambling house in London’s East End. She has few companions and little to occupy the days beyond her own colourful imagination.

But then a murderer strikes, ripping open the chests of young girls and stuffing hair into their mouths to resemble a beak, leading the press to christen him The Man of Crows. And as Catherine devours the news, she finds she can channel the voices of the dead, and comes to believe she will eventually channel The Man of Crows himself.

But the murders continue to panic the city and Catherine gradually realizes she is snared in a deadly trap, where nothing is as it first appears.
And lurking behind the lies Catherine has been told are secrets more deadly and devastating than anything her imagination can conjure …‘

The Victorians were really keen on microcosm paintings, panoramic views of their society crammed full of faces, stories and activity like so many over dressed ants all busying themselves at the same time. William Powell Frith’s amazing sprawling The Derby Day and The Railway Station are perfect examples of this particularly Victorian genre, where the viewer is invited to greedily observe everything, their eyes scanning the myriad of different faces, pausing here and there to ponder what their story is.

In recent years, the ‘Victoriana’ novel has gained popularity and almost become a genre in its own right. Like the microcosm paintings of Frith, there are rules to this genre, certain period set pieces that must be included, descriptions and observations of a more contemporary nature that must be made and they are invariably populated by a vast cast of characters, mostly incidental but who must be described in great and lurid detail.

The Pleasures of Men by Kate Williams is one such book. I was very much looking forward to reading it, anticipating something akin to Michel Faber’s brilliant The Crimson Petal and the White. Now, The Pleasures of Men is very similar to The Crimson Petal but only in so far as most other ‘Victoriana’ novels are – there’s the usual description of dirt, decay and damp. The wails of unfortunate babies follow the characters wherever they venture. People drink gin like it’s about to run out. There’s an awful lot of prostitutes.

There are other similarities – like Faber’s Sugar, Catherine, the heroine of The Pleasures of Men is damaged by her past and keen on feverishly writing down fantasies that involve violence, death, murder and destruction. Fascinated by a serial killer, known as The Man of Crows, she writes lurid accounts of his murders and eventually decides to venture out into the city at night to walk in his footsteps, believing herself ‘protected’ by the evil that she has always been told dwells inside her.

This was a complex and often deeply unpleasant book. I’ve seen complaints that it is over written and I’d be inclined to agree with that assessment but I believe that it is intentionally so. The writing is full blown, lavish, feverish and often over wrought, creating a really horrible, almost suffocatingly intense atmosphere of heat, dust and dirt as observed by a sexually obsessed, disturbed Victorian teenager who has spent time in a lunatic asylum.

The narrowness of a young Victorian girl’s life is well described here – not just that of Catherine with her peculiar circumstances but those of her over dressed acquaintances, who sexually torment their maids and fantasise about serial killers while slyly keeping watch for suitable young men.

At times though, the plot, which when you think about it isn’t really all that complicated (you’ll be disappointed when you discover the identity of the Man of Crows) veers not so much into confusion as into vague slapdashness, almost as if the writer herself lost interest about a hundred pages before the end (which was a bit of a damp squib all things considered) and decided that she didn’t care who the Man of Crows was or who he murdered any more. I can’t blame her for that – I didn’t really care either.

Would I recommend this book? Well, yes and no. If you are in the mood for a dip into the revolting iniquity of London’s east end in the 1840s and have a thing for Victorian asylums and the deranged meanderings of cooped up young girls as well as splendid Victorian set pieces like visits to pie shops, trips to gin dens and a splendidly disastrous visit to the vaudeville theatre then you’ll almost certainly love this. Otherwise you’ll probably start to feel a bit queasy and long for something a bit less histrionic.

Personally, although I did, I think, rather enjoy myself while reading it (and also feel slightly alarmed as I have written about similar themes in my own Victorian effort), I went off and had a long bath when I’d finished reading and splashed the water about a bit while muttering ‘A MILLION POUND ADVANCE? A. MILLION. POUNDS?’ over and over again until I felt like booking myself in for a nice restorative stay at Catherine’s lunatic asylum, the lovely sounding Lavenderfields.

Having said that, I fully expect this to be made into a film at some point in the near future…

Ps. Where is the woman’s right hand in the cover photograph? Haha, now that I have made you look, you will never be able to UNSEE.

Inside Christ Church, Spitalfields

13 Jan

I’ve written about Christ Church, Spitalfields before but couldn’t resist writing about it again as it is such a stunning building and people don’t often seem to go inside to appreciate just how beautiful and harmonious the interior is.

Christ Church was built between 1714 and 1729 by Nicholas Hawksmoor and I think displays his genius more than any of his other constructions. It looms ominously over the dark Victorian buildings that surround it and dominates the Spitalfields area.

It is of course well known as a central location from the infamous Ripper murders of Autumn 1888, which, bar one, took place in the streets around the church. Fans of the book and film From Hell will recognise it as the classically austere white church beside the Ten Bells pub, where the victims allegedly drank and tried to attract punters. In those days it was a magnet for the prostitutes, dispossessed and hopeless of the area, who congregated on its white steps, which overlook Commercial Street.

More recently, the church has been the object of an amazing restoration project and has now been revealed in all of its glory. I was literally dumbstruck with admiration and awe when I stepped inside for the first time, the noise and bustle of busy Commercial Street fading away to a distant buzz as I walked around its light filled, luminous and serene space.

We’re planning to have a vow renewal ceremony on our fifth wedding anniversary this year, and I really want to have it at Christ Church. My great great great grandfather was married in Christ Church but they only let people whose parents or grandparents were married there have weddings there, alas.

All of the photographs in this post were taken by myself. I hope you enjoy them!

A quick visit to the Ten Bells, Spitalfields

12 Jan

The Ten Bells is right next to Christ Church in Spitalfields and directly opposite the entrance to the now trendy and bustling Spitalfields Market. There has been a pub on the corner of Fornier Street and Commercial Street since 1752, but the Ten Bells as we know it now has only been in existence since Victorian times, when it served the locals of Spitalfields and the porters and clientele of the market over the road.

The pub has an unsavoury reputation thanks to its connections to the Jack the Ripper case as two of the victims, Annie Chapman and Mary Jane Kelly are known to have drunk there, although obviously it is not known if Jack the Ripper himself was a customer.

The Ten Bells was briefly known as The Jack the Ripper between 1976 and 1988, but the brewery eventually forced into changing the name back to the original again after women’s groups, quite rightly, argued that a notorious murderer of women should not be commemorated by having pubs named after him.

I’ve had a love/hate relationship with the Ten Bells over the years. I still remember the very first time I went there: it was 2002 and I was going out with someone who lived in Wapping. It didn’t take me long to persuade him to walk with me up to Whitechapel at night so that I could poke around the murder sites and see Spitalfields for myself. He spent the entire evening worrying about being mugged or worse, but I was in love with the area from the first moment that I set foot in it. I knew that I would feel at home anyway, of course as my family came from there and I had always felt a deep link to the East End of London but I wasn’t prepared for quite how much I would love it.

I like to imagine my ancestors drinking there and the Truman’s sign never fails to make me smile as my great grandfather was a manager at their Brick Lane brewery in the last century. While HIS grandfather was a H Division police sergeant living in the Whitechapel police station during the Ripper investigation in 1888.

The first time we went to the Ten Bells, by now a thriving, dimly lit and hipster cool bar filled with a curious mix of cool young things and awkward looking tourists in anoraks, I found it unbearable though – the music, chatter and laughter were all too loud and I found myself needing to leave almost immediately, disappointed that it wasn’t at all how I expected it to be. To make matters worse, while we were standing by the door, I became convinced that I could feel someone put their hands on my waist, only to look around and realise that there was no one standing anywhere near me. Spooky!

And then to make matters even worse, my boyfriend then went a bit mad when we got back to his flat and claimed that voices in his head were telling him to hurt me. We didn’t last very long, as you can imagine. Actually, that’s not true as actually I almost ended up married to him, until merciful, blessed fate intervened.

After this, I made occasional forays into the Ten Bells but was always quickly forced out by the noise and hubbub and, I don’t know, a feeling of pervasive, intense gloom. I persevere though and on the last visit miraculously got a table at which to drink our gin. Even more miraculously, it was beside the window so we had an amazing view up and out at Christ Church looming over us. My companion told me that I looked somewhat wonderful with the flickering candlelight and gloomy looks up at the ominous white church, but I expect I just looked slightly crazed. It has that effect, you see. Or maybe it’s just the GIN.

I’ve noticed that the new owner has given it a face lift, which is probably much needed but I do miss the essential seediness. There’s a cool pop up restaurant in the top floor function room at the moment, the outside is freshly painted and, crikey, is that an awning as well? I have my own plans involving the Ten Bells, but I don’t want to jinx them by talking about them here…

The Ten Bells, 84 Commercial Street, Whitechapel, E1 6LY. One of the finest and most iconic pubs in London.

The 9th November 1888

9 Nov

Several weeks had passed since the dreadful events of the 30th September when both Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes had met their dismal deaths at the hands of either two separate killers or the same deranged madman. Their murders had not been forgotten but after the first few weeks of fevered terror and speculation, a calm had fallen upon the streets of Whitechapel and people were beginning to go about their lives as normal again.

Since embarking on this series of posts marking the victims of Jack the Ripper, I’ve become more conscious of the passing of time as it must have seemed to the people of 1888 Spitalfields as the days lengthened into weeks and then into a whole month. They must have felt just about able to heave a collective sigh of relief that the ordeal was all over when the morning of the 9th November broke and everything fell apart again.

It was a clear, cold morning and I can imagine Thomas Bowyer, a lackey sent by the well known local landlord McCarthy to collect a rent arrears from a mean lodging in Miller’s Court breathing into his cupped hands to warm them and shielding his eyes against the low winter sun as he hurried along, the wet leaves slipping beneath his boots. It was 10.45 in the morning and the streets would have been buzzing with activity and excitement as the people of the East End, always up for a party, prepared for the Lord Mayor’s Show, which was due to take place later that day.

The young woman who lived in the room owed over six weeks rent, around 27 shillings, and McCarthy, who had been uncharacteristically lenient until now, was determined to collect. It’s not known why McCarthy was willing to let her go for so long without paying rent – the girl, who was known variously as Mary Anne, Mary Jane, Marie Jeanette, Emma or Lizzie depending, presumably, on who asked, was said to be of an attractive appearance with a fresh, clear complexion, thick auburn hair and with a friendly, good natured manner so it may be that her landlord had something of a soft spot for her.

Until quite recently she had not been living alone but her boyfriend, Joe, who had taken the room with her in the first place, had moved out after she had returned to prostitution against his wishes and had started allowing her friends to stay in their home. Joe had not entirely abandoned her though and still continued to visit and probably financially assist her to some degree.

Bowyer would have known all of this as Mary Jane was well known in the Dorset Street area of Whitechapel and was frequently to be seen standing outside the Ten Bells pub beside the ominous, looming Christ Church next door or walking the streets with her friends. The slum landlords of the East End weren’t charities though and the situation couldn’t be left to go on forever, no matter how kindly they felt towards the tenant.

The alleyway that led to Miller’s Court ran off the mean, notorious Dorset Street, which was known to be a local hot bed of crime and iniquity, a place so fearsome that the local police (including my ancestor, PS David Lee!) had to go in pairs when they were forced to go there, so terrifying and volatile were the inhabitants. Bowyer would have been well used to it thanks to his work for McCarthy but it still can’t have been a pleasant vicinity to visit and he would doubtless have hurried along, avoiding eye contact until he reached the archway that led down to Miller’s Court.

Mary Jane Kelly’s residence was number 13: a roughly twelve feet square room, meanly furnished with a pine bed, a couple of tables, some chairs and a wash stand. It wasn’t much but in comparison to many of her peers in Spitalfields, Mary Jane, a woman without proper means of supporting herself, an erratic lifestyle and a liking for gin was living in relative comfort.

Bowyer knocked on the door, then when there was no response, he went around to the windows that overlooked the water pump at the rear of the yard. One of the window panes had been broken for a while and either Mary Jane or Joe had effected a makeshift repair by shoving a piece of cloth into the gap. Bowyer poked this out then pulled aside the thin threadbare curtains, allowing the bright November sunlight to shimmer into the grubby bedsit.

What he saw when the gloom had dissipated enough for him to be able to see inside, must have terrified him and I can imagine him swiftly recoiling then scrubbing his eyes with his fingers before he turned and fled back to McCarthy to tell him that actually, he wouldn’t be getting his rent from Miss Kelly after all, not that day or any other day.

Take a look at this painting, ‘The Ninth of November 1888′ by William Logsdail, which depicts the Lord Mayor’s procession through the streets of London. Despite the glitz and splendour of the procession’s regalia, there is something very gloomy and menacing about this painting with the dark, wet streets, the sombre clothes of the crowd and the foreboding skies above.

It’s almost as though the artist wanted to evoke the fact that at 1.30pm only a few miles away, in a squalid, dank hovel in Whitechapel, the police, who had been loitering fearfully, waiting for both direction and a requested team of bloodhounds in the yard of Miller’s Court since their arrival just after 11am, had just broken into the room of Mary Kelly and were recoiling, their hands over their mouths as they encountered her body, lying splayed in a state of revolting, pitiful mutilation on her bed. While looking at the painting, you can almost sense the panicked, shocked whisper running through the ragged crowd – ‘There’s been another one in Spitalfields. A young Irish girl. She was left in pieces this time…’ while all the while the drums beat out a solemn, funereal rhythm as the Lord Mayor’s procession passes slowly by…

RIP Mary or whoever you were. Since 1988, I have had a vigil of sorts every year on the night of the 8th/9th November in the memory of you and your fellow victims and will never forget any of you.

The Double Event – 30th September 1888

30 Sep

 

On the night of the 29th September 1888, Elisabeth Stride, a slight woman with grey eyes and curling brown hair walked the streets of Whitechapel in search of clients. Unlike the flashy Victorian prostitutes of popular imagining, she was dressed soberly and rather shabbily in a black jacket and skirt and black crepe bonnet, accessorized with a posy of red roses and ferns.

She was far from home, having been born Elisabeth Gustafsdotter in November 1843 near Gothenburg in Sweden. As a teenager she had worked in domestic service before becoming a prostitute in her early twenties. Poor Elisabeth became pregnant as a young woman but delivered a stillborn child, probably as the result of a venereal disease picked up from one of her clients.

In 1866, she moved to London in order to escape her past and start afresh and after a period as a maid Elisabeth married a ship’s carpenter called John Thomas Stride, who was thirteen years her senior. For a while the couple ran a coffee shop in Poplar before separating in 1877, whereupon Elisabeth entered the local workhouse. The couple had an off/on relationship after this but had finally ended their marriage by 1881 and by 1885, she was living with a labourer called Michael Kidney with whom she had a very unstable and occasionally violent relationship, fuelled by her alcoholism which led to several appearances in the dock for drunken and disorderly behaviour.

Her husband died of TB in October 1884, but it seems that Elisabeth had been in the habit of telling people that he and two of their fictitious nine children had been drowned in 1878 in the sinking of the Princess Alice into the Thames. There’s nothing unusual about this – the lives of the fallen women of Whitechapel were so awful and dreary that they often made up stories to make themselves appear more interesting and also in the hopes it might make their clients cough up a few more pennies out of pity.

On the evening of the 29th September, Elisabeth left her mean lodgings on the notoriously dreadful Flower and Dean Street and went in search of clients. A witness later claimed to see her at 11pm near Berner Street with a man in a bowler hat and then she was spotted again forty five minutes later with another man, this time wearing a peaked cap. Then at 12.35, a PC William Smith saw her on Berner’s Street, standing opposite a working men’s club with a man in a felt hard hat.

Where would Ripperology be without the various types of Victorian male headgear?

Less than half an hour after this last sighting, at around 1am,  Elisabeth’s body was discovered by the steward of the men’s club in the next door Dutfield’s Yard when he led his horse and trap inside and almost tripped over her as she lay, her throat cut, on the cobbles.

Later, a witness, Israel Schwartz would come forward to say that he saw Elisabeth being attacked at the yard’s entrance by a man who threw her roughly to the ground. Clearly she had had a busy night but no money was found on her body, which adds to the possibility that the unfortunate Elisabeth was not actually murdered by Jack the Ripper but by someone else, who escaped justice thanks to the hysteria and panic surrounding the Ripper case in 1888.

At 8.30pm on the 29th September 1888, Catherine Eddowes, a short auburn haired woman who was known for her hot temper and loud, ready laughter was discovered lying drunk on Aldgate High Street by PC Louis Robinson, who arrested her and took her to Bishopsgate Police Station where she was held until 1am, when she was considered sober enough to be released onto the streets again, just as not far away, Elisabeth Stride’s body was being discovered.

Like all of the Ripper’s victims, Catherine had had a chequered past having been born in Wolverhampton in April 1842 then moving to London as an infant before going back up north again as a teenager to work as a tin plate stamper. This job doesn’t seem to have lasted long before Eddowes was sacked and moved in with an ex soldier Thomas Conway, with whom she had three children after they moved down to London together.

In what is now becoming a familiar tale, Eddowes became an alcoholic and she and Conway split up in 1880. Catherine left the family home while her ex boyfriend changed his and the children’s surname so that she wouldn’t be able to find them. Within a year she was living with a new man, John Kelly at a lodging house on Flower and Dean Street, just down the road from Elisabeth Stride and here she made a living of sorts from prostitution and whatever she could find.

In the summer of 1888, she and John Kelly left London to spend the hot months hop picking in the Kent countryside but didn’t manage to hang on to their wages for very long so that on the 29th September, they were forced to literally split their last sixpence and go their separate ways until things improved. Catherine had two pence, enough for her lodging for the night but had presumably spent the evening working so that she had enough money to be sufficiently drunk to be drunk and disorderly on Aldgate High Street.

When Eddowes was released from Bishopsgate Police Station in the early hours of the next morning she gave her name as Mary Ann Kelly and disappeared into the night, choosing not to return to Flower and Dean Street but instead return to Aldgate, possibly in search either of more booze or a few more clients for the night.

She was last seen alive at 1.35am by three men who were leaving a club together on Duke Street and saw her standing at the entrance to Church Passage, which led from Duke Street down to Mitre Square. Her horribly mutilated body was discovered ten minutes later at around 1.45am by the beat police officer, PC Edward Watkins who had walked through the square at 1.33am and seen nothing meaning that the unfortunate woman had been killed in the space of just ten minutes before the killer made his escape…

18 Folgate Street, Spitalfields

6 Jul

‘Aut Visum Aut Non!’ – You either see it or you don’t. (The motto of 18 Folgate Street)

As I may have mentioned a few times before, Spitalfields is the place that I feel most comfortable, happy and at home and of course no one who is interested in the area and its richly diverse history can fail to visit the former home of Dennis Severs at 18 Folgate Street, which serves as an echoing monument to the past.

To briefly explain, Californian artist Dennis Severs bought the then dilapidated 18 Folgate Street in 1979 and lived there until his death in December 1999, making it his project to transform the house into a living time capsule of various different periods in the district’s history with each room as you travel from the bowels of the house to the attics above transformed into a multi layered and sensuous set evoking a whole host of memories and stories.

Although I had seen photographs of the Marie Celeste like interior with its unmade beds, abandoned meals, spilled tea and mess of crumbling clay pipes and everyday detritus in the fireplaces, I didn’t really know what to expect as I turned off busy Commercial Street and headed down narrow Folgate Street to number 18.

Just as I was beginning to wonder if I had accidentally walked past the house, I spied some flaming torches outside and a notice asking visitors to ring the bell discreetly stuck to the outside of the door. Embarrassingly, I thought the bell was a push one and it took a few moments of loitering on the doorstep to realise that it was an old fashioned Pull Out Then Let It Go business, which makes sense of course!

We were greeted very warmly by the curator and led inside to begin our tour. Although the website suggests that this is not a place to take children, I decided to take F along with me as he is very keen on history and I thought he would really enjoy the visit. I was really pleased when the lovely curator immediately directed all of his comments to F, shook his hand and even crouched down to his eye level to talk to him. It’s not a place to take boisterous, noisy children but a quiet, thoughtful child who can be trusted to Look But Not Touch would make excellent company while walking around. F was great although he came away with a LOT of questions about tricorn hats, quills, chamber pots, hair feathers, oysters, tea leaves and the lives of little boys like himself in Georgian times.

At 18 Folgate Street, the visitor is told that they have just interrupted the Jervis family, who are well to do Huguenot silk weavers and who are always one step ahead as you walk through the house, so you can hear and smell their shades but never catch a glimpse of them. It’s like stepping into a ghost story or a fairytale as you creep silently through the house like Goldlilocks in search of a family who remain tantalisingly just out of reach, until you finally realise that they are there the whole time with their murmurings and soft laughter…

The tour began down some rickety stairs in the basement of the building, where there is a small dark and untidy Georgian kitchen with windows that look up onto street level so you can see the legs of modern London gamboling by. Visitors to the house are requested to remain silent at all times so as to listen to the sounds of the house – this is a highly sensory experience that needs to be savoured slowly as you walk around each room, taking in and being inspired by the smells, sounds and sights that surround you.

From the kitchen we went back up the stairs to the rooms on the ground floor and then up the rickety staircase to the rooms above. Each of the ten rooms had its own distinct style, with occasionally overpowering smells that effectively evoked the echoes and stories of the past from the heavily and cloyingly perfumed lady’s bedroom at the front of the house, where the dressing table is scattered with jewels, rouge, powders wrapped in pieces of paper and letters to the room on the first floor which evokes the aftermath of a Hogarthian orgy, complete with strewn oyster shells, spilled wine and the heavy smell of tobacco and dirty men.

As you can expect, there is no electric light inside the building so each room is lit only by flickering candle light that gives the house a dimly lit, occasionally eye smartingly sooty ambience that more accurately takes you back to the past than the more sterile reconstructions you may find in museums. It’s like stepping into a painting and finding that what lies behind the canvas is so much more than you could ever have imagined.

I felt extraordinarily sad when we had descended the stairs for the last time and found ourselves back on Folgate Street again, surrounded by the sirens, buzz and chatter of the modern city. I had high expectations of 18 Folgate Street, but actually it was so much better and more magical than I could ever have imagined and I came away extremely inspired by what I had just experienced. In fact I can’t remember the last time I felt so inspired. I’m trying not to give too much away in this post by the way, as I think this is something very, very special that you all deserve to discover properly for yourselves and I really do encourage you to visit if you are in the vicinity when it is open.

Thank you so much to Mick and David for letting me visit and for your amazing hospitality. I’m still in awe of what Dennis Severs achieved and really thankful that he so generously shared his utterly incredible and bewitching vision with us all. From now on I won’t be considering a visit to London complete without a detour to this enchanted corner.

You can find out more about visiting 18 Folgate Street at their website.

All photographs are posted by permission of the Dennis Severs’ House.

Exciting things to come!

16 May

I have a couple of exciting things coming up for this blog that I’d like to share with you! The cool thing to do, of course, would be to keep schtum and for it all to be a lovely surprise but I’m afraid that isn’t how I roll. I’m an impatient, excitable sort of person, you see.

First of all, I will be attending the advance press day of the glorious new exhibition Dressing the Stars, which will be running from the 12th July until the 29th August at Bath Fashion Museum! This show sounds utterly gorgeous and will include costumes from The Duchess, Elizabeth, Pirates of the Caribbean, Sense and Sensibility, The Young Victoria, The King’s Speech, Gladiator, Shakespeare in Love and more.

‘On display will be around forty costumes worn by stars including Colin Firth and Helena Bonham Carter in The King’s Speech and those worn by Keira Knightley in The Duchess, much of which was shot at the Assembly Rooms in Bath. Other costumes on display will include those worn by Kate Winslet and Emma Thompson in Sense and Sensibility, Orlando Bloom in Pirates of the Caribbean, Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth, Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare in Love, and Meryl Streep in The French Lieutenant’s Woman.’

Can’t wait to see it and report back to you all!

July looks like it’s going to be a busy month for Madame Guillotine as I will also be making a trip to Kensington Palace to see the gorgeous and magical Enchanted Palace exhibition in the state apartments there and also, more excitingly, meet with one of the curators of the costume departments for a behind the scenes view of some pieces from their amazing collection of Royal ceremonial garments. I don’t know yet what I will be seeing, as they will be choosing them for me which makes it even more exciting!

What I do know is that I won’t be seeing the Duchess of Cambridge’s wedding dress!

As we don’t go to London all that often these days, we’ve decided to go for a couple of days so that the boys can go to the Doctor Who Experience at Earl’s Court. We’ll also be visiting the Natural History Museum, Science Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, Tate Gallery and Dennis Severs’ House in Spitalfields. I may try to get to the Titanic exhibition at the O2 as well, but it sounds like we already have our days packed with goodies! It’s just a pity that I will be there too soon to visit Buckingham Palace, but I can always go later on in the year when I see the Fabergé exhibition.

Rest assured that I will have my rather scary new camera with me at all times so that I can report back to you all afterwards!

More treats that I have in store for you include an interview with one of my all time favourite writers, Karleen Koen, whose new book Before Versailles: A Novel of Louis XIV is due out on the 28th of June. I can’t wait to read it, although this will mean breaking my rule of not reading novels set in the same period that I am currently writing about as I’ll be immersed in Louis XIV’s Versailles myself at the end of June!

Snapshots from my life

14 Mar

We’ve only just got round to uploading the contents of my old phone camera folder after my rather nice husband got me a lovely new iPhone 4 for Christmas and I thought I’d share some pictures with you all as I often feel like I write and write and write but you don’t know me at all!

The picture above is of the Circus in Bath, which is a very stately round square indeed. Um, a round square? You know what I mean – it’d be a Square if it was square but it isn’t, it’s more of a circle, which makes it an um Circle? Anyway, it’s very nice.We’re lucky enough to live quite near to Bath so I get to go there quite regularly – I’m going at the end of this month in fact to visit the Fashion Museum and study some eighteenth century dresses.

This is me. I thought this haircut looked terrible but actually it’s not that bad is it? I don’t know where this photograph was taken – I think it might have been in Giraffe in Bristol, thus the red tinted glooooom. I look a bit WILD EYED don’t I? Sadly, I was probably sober when this was taken.

The Eden Project in the winter dusk.

SNOW. Yes, we’ve mostly all seen it before but I love the eerie almost neon blue of the light in this picture.

Bristol Suspension Bridge.

This is why I have trouble losing weight.

Trafalgar Square on a sunny morning before I ventured into the bowels of the National Gallery to see the Lady Jane Grey exhibition.

Christ Church, Spitalfields. There’s only one thing to be done when in the grip of a merciless GIN hangover – head to Whitechapel…

The Ten Bells, Spitalfields.

A bright corner of Bristol.

A happy young man.

Yo! Sushi, Cabot Circus, Bristol. The tower on the left is mine, the one on the right is Dave’s.

A metro station by the Palais Royale in Paris. This was our view as we ate our supper on our first night there last year.

Vegetarian lunch on the Rue Bac in  Paris. Dave and Felix were at the top of the Eiffel Tower while I ate this.

A Queen’s head that had mysteriously appeared on the side of a dryer in our local laundrette. It’s okay, I don’t live in Eastenders – we have a functioning washing machine but it decided to break so off to the laundrette I went for a very happy hour of reading and crisp eating.

At some point I realised that as I work from home and don’t have to see anyone if I don’t want to, I can go back to my sad youth and have pink hair again.

Well, I like it anyway.

The view from our bedroom window at The Hurst Arvon Foundation centre in Shropshire.

More reasons why I will never be slender – these beauties are from Swinky’s on Park Street in Bristol.

A fake incident room at the Whitechapel II advance screening in Mile End.

Montacute House on my last birthday.

Felix and I.

I think that sums me up quite nicely actually! Even if I missed out the random photos of gin bottles, miniature Marie Antoinettes, boots, sandwiches and curry…

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