Wednesday, August 08, 2018

A deleted scene from The Summer of Secrets...

Sometimes, when I'm finding my way into a new novel, I take a turn down a path that I later abandon. In The Summer of Secrets, I knew I had a heroine (Chloe Brown) with a loudly ticking biological clock and when her boyfriend tells her emphatically that he never wants children, she's left very much on her own.
Originally, I thought Chloe would then embark on an IVF program as a single mother and arrive in Burralea pregnant but determined. If you read the book, you will know this isn't quite the way things work out. But I thought you might still be interested in this scene telling how things might have been. I Loved this scene when I first wrote it...



So here's what I deleted...


When Chloe woke, she was in a smooth white bed with a sheet tucked tightly over her. She'd been moved to a different room in the clinic and the handsome Indian Dr Singh had vanished. Now, a lone nurse sat at a stainless steel bench in the corner of the room, conscientiously reading some kind of manual.


Chloe drew a deep breath. She'd been on an emotional roller-coaster over the past six months since she and Jason had gone their separate ways, and her highs and lows had escalated since she'd embarked on a mission to achieve single motherhood.
She'd worried about having enough money for IVF, of course, but she'd squirreled away a tidy little sum while she was living with Jason, in the hope of one day buying their own home. And she had a good steady job at as a journalist at Girl Talk magazine, with proviso for maternity leave. So she'd decided that if she lived modestly, she and her baby should be fine.

The IVF process had begun with a series of interviews and assessments and then Chloe had been sent home with a cooler bag of medication and instructions to inject herself daily – to stimulate her egg production. Which had posed a major challenge as Chloe was dead scared of needles and no longer had a partner to help her.

This had also been her reality check, an important test of her motivation. In the months since she and Jason had split – a very tidy process on the surface with a great deal of stormy pain underneath – Chloe's need for a baby of her own had become her entire focus. And if she wanted a baby, she had no choice but to get used to doing all manner of things without help.

So she'd practised by sticking needles into oranges and then, well, she'd just got on with it.
Today – egg retrieval day – was the vital next step.
Ever so slightly phobic about medical procedures, especially those that involved an entire theatre of medical staff staring at her lady parts, Chloe had been inordinately grateful for general anaesthetic while her ovaries were probed. As she'd gone under, her last thought had been one of hope.

Now it was over. Her precious eggs had been harvested and she was supposed to check the back of her hand.

The lovely Dr Singh, a surprisingly young man with kindly, liquid dark Indian eyes, had understood the huge importance of this moment and he'd promised to write down the number of eggs on the back of Chloe's hand.

Oh, God.

Who would have thought that checking her hand could be as nerve-wracking as looking up final exam results? Chloe closed her eyes and made a quick wish for plenty of eggs. So much was riding on this.

A chill flashed over her skin as she slid her hand from beneath the firmly tucked bed sheet. Just as Dr Singh had promised, the number was written in blue biro.

Four.

Chloe blinked. Only four?

Disappointment exploded hotly in her chest. In her face. The girls on the internet IVF chat forum had talked of much higher numbers. Fourteen or even twenty eggs. Certainly more than ten. Chloe couldn't remember anyone who'd had a number as low as four.

Her throat tightened and burned. Tears threatened. Last night she'd joked about this moment with her friend Josie. 'Just my luck they'll harvest thirteen eggs from me.'

Not that Chloe was actually superstitious about the number thirteen, but last night that trivial possibility had seemed the worst that might happen. It had never occurred to her to worry about a number as low as four. She was fit and healthy and the women in her family all seemed to fall pregnant with ridiculous ease.

But they'd been much younger than thirty-seven when they'd started their families, she reminded herself now.

Four. She gave a shudder of deep despair and felt terribly alone. Even the nurse had disappeared.
She wished she'd accepted Josie's offer to come with her to the clinic, but she'd been naively optimistic and confident. This was only the start of her IVF adventure and everything would be fine.
Now, though, the journey ahead felt so much more precarious. Her four little eggs had yet to be assessed for quality and then placed under a high powered microscope for fertilisation with donor sperm. Chloe had chosen to use de-identified sperm. She'd wasted seven plus years with a man she'd deemed perfect, and now her baby's father would be happily anonymous. No pressure. No disappointments.

Once the embryos were fertilised, however, they would have to be tested yet again – fingers crossed that at least one or two would be viable – and finally, if she was lucky, perhaps very lucky, a little miracle would be transferred back into her womb.
Not for the first time, Chloe wondered if she shouldn't have been a little more adventurous with unprotected sex.

As she stared at the blue number on her hand, she considered texting Josie, the only person she'd been prepared to confide in about this venture. She felt a bit guilty about her secrecy. She would have liked to have told her family, but her mum was still mad at her for breaking up with Jason.
'For heaven's sake, Chloe, how can you break up with him after all this time? You've left it too late to be choosy about men. Any half decent fellow will be taken by now.'

As for Chloe's older sisters, she could never seem to find the right moment to talk. Rachel and Lisa were always so incredibly busy running their clever little children to an endless round of activities.
No one at Girl Talk magazine knew about this either. Chloe hadn't wanted to risk breathing a word about it in the office and she'd had to fudge the truth just to wangle today's leave.
If her editor caught a whiff of a single mum IVF pregnancy, she would have hassled Chloe to record the whole experience in a serialised diary format for the magazine. Last year she'd bullied another journalist, poor Jane Starling, into reporting her stomach stapling ordeal, for heaven's sake.

No, thank you.

Chloe might have given in to tears of self pity, but the nurse reappeared, bustling through the doorway with a cup of tea in one hand and a plate of sandwiches in the other. She had a round, freckled face and short, flame coloured hair and her name badge said Hazel Bird.

'Hello there. I'm Hazel,' she announced with a mega-bright smile. 'How are you feeling?'

'A bit disappointed actually.' Chloe supposed Hazel already knew about her dismal egg count, but she held up her hand anyway, twisting it to show the number. 'That's not enough, is it?'
Hazel frowned. 'How old are you?'

Perhaps Chloe was super-sensitive, but the question felt brutally matter-of-fact. 'Thirty-seven.'
This brought a non-committal shrug. 'In our program, women under thirty-eight can have acceptable live birth rates with only three to six eggs.'

'Oh.' So there was still a statistical chance.

'Over six is better of course, but it's important to stay positive.'

Hazel's words were meant to be hopeful, but Chloe was sure she heard doubt in her voice. 'Right,' she said. 'Thanks.'

'Now, enjoy this cuppa and the sandwiches.' Hazel was brisk again, like a nanny jollying a sulky child. 'And then you should be right to go home.'

Home.

These days Chloe's home was a one bedroom flat in Glebe with a small study nook that she planned to turn into a miniature nursery. Not that she would dream of buying any nursery furniture until she knew there was an actual baby on the way. She didn't want to tempt fate.
She was happy enough in this new place. It was only a five minute bus ride from the Girl Talk office and on Saturday mornings she could go to the flea markets and stroll past the vintage clothing stalls, while fantasising about the interesting maternity outfits she might buy in the months ahead. Some weekends she had coffee at the café in Blackwattle Bay Park with its views to Anzac Bridge and she allowed herself to dream fanciful thoughts about bringing her baby here to this park in a pram, or later, when her little one was older, going for walks down to the water's edge. Perhaps there'd be ducks to feed.

Hazel asked abruptly, 'Is someone coming to drive you home?'

Chloe shook her head. 'It's OK. I'll get a taxi.'







Tuesday, June 26, 2018

Book tours and special events...

It's not long now till July 30th when The Summer of Secrets will be officially released. This will also mark something of a whirlwind time for moi with a book tour in South East Queensland along with fab fellow Penguin authors, Helene Young and Christine Wells, as well as events at the Cairns Tropical Writers Festival and at Mary Who? Bookshop in Townsville.

So, here are all the details below and if there's a chance you can make it to any of these, I'd LOVE to say g'day, sign and book, have a chat over a cuppa or a glass...

So first, here are the details of the Love Between the Pages book tour...




Then on August 7th, Helene and I will be holding a special event at the fabulous independent bookstore, Mary Who? in Townsville. And, of course, you are invited. Just don't forget to RSVP.




And on August 10th, Helene and I will also be the Cairns Tropical Writers Festival with a special event at the Book Fair at 2 pm. I hope to bring you more details about that soon.

Friday, June 08, 2018

Grab a bargain...

Over the next few weeks, before the release of my new novel The Summer of Secrets, you'll find some great reductions on books from my backlist.  It often bothers me that our ebooks are quite expensive, so I'm rather thrilled about this. Why not take advantage?

To make things easier for you, here are the ebooks currently reduced to $3.99 and the links.



amazon
iBooks
Kobo
Google Play



amazon
iBooks
Kobo
Google Play



amazon
iBooks
Kobo
Google Play

Friday, June 01, 2018

A giveaway

Winter has arrived all over Australia and that seems the perfect reason to give away an advanced reading copy of The Summer of Secrets.



I'm excited to be sharing this story with you. This is what my publishers had to say about it:

 'Penguin Random House is thrilled to publish the latest gripping tale by bestselling author Barbara Hannay. The Summer of Secrets is Barbara's most enchanting saga to date. Dealing with themes of love, loss, buried secrets and courage, Hannay captures the essence of what it means to be human in this riveting story.'


To be in the draw, you can leave a comment here on the blog, or on my Facebook author page.  Good luck!!


Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Ready for pre-order


I'm pleased to report that the ebook versions of The Summer of Secrets are now $12.99.

I've been waiting for the price to drop (from its previous point of $16.99) before providing all the links.
But now, here they are:

amazon
iBooks
Kobo
Google Play books

I'm excited to be sharing this new story from Burralea with you. As always, I thoroughly enjoyed writing this book and there's one character in there who kinda stole my heart. :) Watch out for more news in the coming weeks...

Thursday, May 17, 2018

Starting a new book...

Last week, I had a week away from my computer. Mr H and I travelled south to Noosa where we were joined by family members, including little people, which was just lovely and so important to us.

Noosa has always been an important holiday spot in my family, as my parents had their honeymoon there, many moons ago.



The honeymoon was just nine months before I was born, actually, and just getting to Noosa was quite an adventure for them, catching a train from Sydney to Brisbane and then continuing north to the very top of the Sunshine Coast. 

Noosa was, of course, a very different place in those days. They stayed at the Laguna Hotel and Mum has told me there were no doors on the hotel rooms, which opened onto a verandah.

Despite this daunting prospect, the natural beauties of Noosa must have been even more stunning then than they are now and after my parents settled in Brisbane, we returned, as a family, to Noosa, or other parts of the Sunshine Coast for many happy holidays. 




When Dad retired, he and Mum bought 3 weeks timeshare there and now I am the lucky owner of one of those weeks, which is why we go back regularly.

By coincidence, two of my writer mates were also on the Sunny Coast last week and we met up at the Spirit House for amazing, amazing Thai food in the most gorgeous semi-tropical garden setting. (I think Thai might be my favourite exotic cuisine) My friend Marion Lennox has taken some of my favourite photos of my husband and me and she provided us with another nice one this time, bless her.


To cap the week off, my daughter Emma, who lives in Brisbane, put on a lovely Mother's Day brunch for her mother-in-law and me. So yummy and elegant, with eggs benedict and croissants and blini with cream cheese and smoked salmon. And cake and champagne! Very special.





I felt very spoiled and came home refreshed and ready to dive into writing a new book. Unlike my last few books, which have all been set up here on the Atherton Tablelands, the characters in my new book are friends in their late fifties who live on the Sunshine Coast, so it all feels a bit strange and different at the moment, even though it's an area that I'm very familiar with. But it's good to push my boundaries and the stories involving these characters will certainly spread farther afield (quite a long way, actually). :)

Perhaps I'll tell you more as the story warms up. In the meantime, I'm getting ready for quite a busy time launching The Summer of Secrets. I'll be back here soon with extracts and deleted scenes, with the schedule of libraries I'll be visiting with Helene Young and Christine Wells, and a chance to win an early copy!
So keep an eye out for future blogs.



Wednesday, May 09, 2018

Love weddings? Here are two specially reduced stories for you...

Wedding fever anyone? I've just been notified about two special reductions just in time to make the most of the current Royal Wedding excitement. (I must admit I can't wait to watch the wonderful spectacle.)

So to help you feel in a wedding-y mood...

Bridesmaid Says: 'I Do' is on sale at the reduced price of $1.99 till May 31st...

Here's the back cover blurb:

How to be the Perfect Bridesmaid:
a) Smile and pretend to love your horrible dress.
b) Be patient as your best friend turns into Bridezilla.
c) Do not fall for the groom!
Thrilled to be Bella's bridesmaid, Zoe throws herself into her duties. But meeting the groom himself, stop–and–stare–sexy Kent Rigby, ruins everything...
What happens when you find the man of your dreams and he belongs to someone else?

You can find Zoe and Kent's story via these links:

amazon; Kobo; Google play; iBooks

Also on sale till May 31st is The Prince's Convenient Proposal...

To secure his country's future, reformed playboy Prince Rafael of Montaigne needs a wife. A convenient marriage seems the ideal solution…until his fiancĂ©e disappears and Rafe must ask her identical twin sister, Charlie Morisset, to become his stand–in bride–to–be.

Down–to–earth Charlie accepts Rafe's convenient proposal – in exchange for the funds to save her baby's sister's life. Being swept in to a crazy Royal whirlwind seems a small price to pay…until she's finds herself falling for Rafe. A prince she knows she will have to walk away from…


Find Charlie and Rafe's story at these links...

amazon; Kobo; iBooks, Google Play

Friday, April 27, 2018

The more exotic research...

Last week I wrote about researching in the outback for my books, but I've been lucky enough travel further afield and to incorporate some of those settings into the single title books I've written for Penguin Australia.

This became especially helpful when I began writing dual timeline novels that incorporated a historical thread from WW2 alongside a contemporary story in an Australian rural setting.

I have been fascinated by Cornwall ever since we visited there in 1998, but also through reading Rosamunde Pilcher's novels, especially The Shell Seekers, and Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca (both of which I read long before Poldark hit the screens and wowed us all). So I was very happy to revisit this gorgeous part of the UK.

In my book The Secret Years, my heroine Lucy travels to Cornwall to find out more about her family and discovers a surprisingly aristocratic link. As we stayed in the grounds of a grand old house, I had plenty of inspiration.


Apart from the obvious beauty of the UK and Europe, I think I'm also fascinated by the huge differences between North Queensland, where I live, and these northern hemisphere "old worlds". It's not just the stately old homes and leafless trees (the whole seasonal shift that we almost skip completely here in the tropics) that enchant me, but also the very visible evidence of history.



In The Secret Years, a very romantic scene occurs in a boatshed very like this one here, and of course that magical Cornwall coastline gets a mention.




Also on that same trip, I spent  two wonderful weeks in Spain, primarily in San Sebastian, a city we'd also fallen in love with on a much earlier trip. This time we returned with friends, which always makes a holiday even more fun. The men on the trip were foodies, wanting to know all about making Iberian hams and about all kinds of smoking - that's smoking in cooking.( And, of course, they had to experiment with their own ham making when we got home, complete with Spanish caps.)




I was happy enough to share their eating adventures, of course, and to visit Spanish farms in the Basque country that specialised in making sheep's cheese or in raising pigs that graze in orchards filled with fallen chestnuts. But while these visits were very interesting, I also loved just strolling on the promenade - you can walk from one end of this beautiful La Concha Bay to the other, and, of course, the residents make the most of this beautiful walkway.

I decided that the Spanish must have terrible TV, because everyone seems to be out in the evenings, strolling in the moonlight, chatting on street corners, gathering in pintxos bars for delicious snacks (Basque version of tapas),  enjoying music (Spanish guitars, naturally)... It was especially great to see the elderly being included in these outings, either walking arm in arm with a younger family member, or being pushed in a wheelchair.



And I loved exploring the narrow streets, the old churches and markets where I could indulge in loads of people watching.




These experiences found their way into early chapters in The Grazier's Wife, but I didn't make it to Singapore to research the historical strand in that book. I had to rely on books and the internet to write about Kitty's time as a nurse in Singapore during WW2, but it's amazing how helpful these wonderful resources can be.


When it came time to write The Country Wedding, I wasn't planning to visit Shanghai where Lily and Rose are caught up in the turmoil of the late 1930s. I thought I'd manage once again with conventional research. I read Kazuo Ishiguro's When We Were Orphans which is set in Shanghai and I scoured the internet looking for just the right history books. I even had a secondhand dealer from a local bookshop trying to help me to track down Peking Sun, Shanghai Moon, a memoir by .Diana Hutchins Angulo

And then my husband developed a notion that I really should visit Shanghai. Just a quick trip. While I kept my head down on my book, he did all the negotiating with a travel agent and before I knew it, we were heading for China and what a wonderful experience it was.




 Shanghai is probably China's most westernised city. but it's also a city of huge contrasts . This was the view from our hotel across the Huangpu River to the incredibly impressive modern skyscrapers, and yet, we only had to walk around the corner and we were plunged into old Shanghai. (You can still see those skyscrapers in the background.)




Here, streets are still swept with straw brooms and the footpaths are crowded with stalls, and cooking paraphernalia and washing hangs from windows on poles. Busy, busy, busy, but clean and colourful and endlessly fascinating. Needless to say, the museum in Shanghai is incredible and too amazing to do justice to here.




We  also lined up a tour of The French Concession, as I knew this was the area where most of the Europeans lived in the 1920s and 30s and most definitely where my character Lily's parents would have lived. In those pre war years, Shanghai was incredibly exciting. (By the way, the Chinese refer to the 1939-45 war as The War with Japan. My guide hadn't heard of WW2 and had no idea that Australia or PNG had ever been involved.) 

Anyway, back then, Shanghai attracted artists writers and musicians from all over the world and was often referred to as the Paris of the East. Jews and White Russians were also flooding into Shanghai to escape the Fascists and Bolsheviks in Europe. Here are pics from the French Concession and you can see that it is very different yet again.

 


Our guide was excellent - knowledgeable, energetic and enthusiastic and very happy (make that excited) to be helping an author.  Under her guidance, we had some excellent street food (dumplings) and she also took us to a coffee shop (unusual in China) that also housed a fabulous collection of secondhand books. And it was there that I found - !! 




Yep, I was ecstatic. The perfect discovery to round off an incredible trip.

I'm afraid I didn't travel far afield to research my new book The Summer of Secrets, but there was still plenty I needed to discover to round out the historical background for my character, Izzie. I'll come back later to tell you all about her.

In the meantime, happy reading!

Saturday, April 21, 2018

Researching my settings...

Wherever possible, I try to set my books in places I've visited. I'm not a country girl born and bred, so, although for a long time, my stories have been mostly set on Queensland cattle properties, the inspiration has come from visiting these places, rather than living there. However, I suspect a love of the bush and the countryside is in my DNA. Most of my ancestors in the UK worked in farms, one way or another, as crofters or servants or ploughmen or general labourers. Yes, I come from good peasant stock. And my parents moved from an inner Brisbane suburb to rural acreage for their retirement years.
As well, a memorable experience occurred when I was sixteen and I visited my cousin's sheep station at Tooraweenah in NSW.


What an adventure that was, riding horses up into the hills with my sister, feeding baby lambs with formula in bottles... I guess it was my first true adventure away from our parents, which no doubt added to the impact.

Then later, with my husband and our kids, I had many happy holidays camping at Burdekin Downs (a cattle property near Charters Towers) and canoeing on the mighty Burdekin River. The homestead there was huge and sprawling with beautiful gardens rolling down to the river, and has inspired most of the homesteads in my books. My husband and I also attended a ball there, held in the grounds. The guests camped in tents and emerged in their finery at dusk. I remember I made a special red silk dress for the occasion.  A wooden platform was set up for dancing and the band rolled their car when they were driving the rough track in, so that one of the singers sang that night with his arm in a sling.

I recalled that ball for scenes in Outback Baby, one of my earliest M&Bs, and then later in Moonlight Plains. More recently, when I was writing Home Before Sundown, I visited the beautiful and fascinating Cobbold Gorge and the station owner was very happy to answer all my research questions.



Another valuable research experience was visiting my husband's cousin and her family at their property, Clissold, near Roma. While here, I also visited the Roma sales yards and watched, with fascination, as the cattle were sold at auction (yes, with all that noise and men in akubras leaning over pens of cattle). Later, at dusk, the new steers were shipped to the property and the next day, I "helped" in the stockyards (as in worked the gates) while the cattle were ear-tagged and vaccinated and branded. Variations of this experience have found their way into several of my books, including A Parisian Proposition, which, despite its title, is mostly set in the outback and has reappeared recently in The Cattleman's Journey.





When it comes to writing about Christmas, however, I find myself deserting Australia and turning to England every time. I confess that for me, who has still never seen snow, a romantic Christmas fantasy must always involve cold weather and snow and firesides and everything that's different from a hot Australian Christmas.



A few years ago, I was lucky enough to be in Londona few weeks before Christmas. No snow, but lots of pretty lights and shop windows.




These found their way into A Very Special Holiday Gift, which will be republished later this year, I believe, as One Winter Sunrise.

OK, that's probably enough for now. Another time, I'll write about some of the exotic settings I've researched for more recent books.



Sunday, April 15, 2018

My reading for this past month...


I started this month by reading The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel by Deborah Moggach, a book that was previously published as These Foolish Things and was later transformed into the wildly successful movie. I was interested to see how similar the book was to the film and to note the differences.

First up, I should say that I enjoyed the book just as much as I did the film, although I note that, on Goodreads, not everyone agrees with my reaction. The basic premise is the same for both book and movie – a conglomerate group of ageing British folk settling into a 'retirement hotel' in India. The setting is similar, although it moves from Bangalore in the book to Jaipur for the movie. And for the most part, the mix of characters remains much the same. There's a character who dies, a couple who split up, and another character with a secret – but these story lines are moved to different characters for the film, no doubt to suit particular star actors.
I won't burden you with too many details, but I'm glad I made this little case study and I thoroughly enjoyed the read and then watching the film again. It's all part of my self-motivated, ongoing education as an author.


Next I read another book for my book club. Mateships with Birds by Carrie Tiffany is an award winning novel (including the Stella Prize). It has a rural setting and is about relationships between men and women (as well as being about birds) and, for these reasons, I should have enjoyed it, but I'm afraid I didn't. 

I believe the author deliberately explored everything that is ugly and unattractive about relationships and sex. No doubt this was a direct, post-modern reaction to romance novels (I know we are criticised for making life too beautiful and happy) but it wasn't done cleverly enough to impress me. Most members of our book club agreed.












Over Easter I wondered into a secondhand book shop in Yungaburra and found MyDear, dear Betsy; A Treasury of Australian Letters .This gem, compiled by Warwick Hirst, is quite, quite fascinating, with letters from Captain Cook and Convicts right through to Lloyd Rees (talking about the insecurity of an artistic life) and other 20th century notables.

But the letter that really spoke to me was from Banjo Paterson to the author Ethel Turner. As a child I adored Ethel Turner, who wrote Seven Little Australians etc. I read most of her books, including Family at Misrule, Little Mother Meg and my second favourite was The Little Larrikin.

I remember Ethel died when I was in Gr 4. Our teacher was Charles French, a WW1 veteran who’d been brought out of retirement because of a shortage of teachers. (He also owned the land that my high school at The Gap was later built on and was memorable because he was SO old.) When he asked us if anyone knew of a famous Australian who had died that day he was quite surprised that I knew (I’d heard it on the news) and had read her books. It was one of those moments from childhood you somehow never forget, when you realise you’ve made an impression. Mind you, he later sent me back to Gr 3 because I talked too much in class and I had to beg his forgiveness (sobbing) but that’s another story.

The above is just context for my appreciation of the letter that Banjo Paterson wrote to Ethel T about her book, which I think expresses sympathies we all understand  and just proves that feel good stories and happy endings will never go out of fashion.

Here's just a snippet of what Banjo had to say. 'For myself I candidly say I like the good old style of story – more beautiful women and finer men and more extraordinary things than one meets in real life – Stories where people don't have luck at the end annoy me.'








This month I've also reread the famous Australian classic, My Brother Jack by George Johnston. I'm mainly reading this as research to help my husband who, like Johnston, was a journalist and has written his memoirs, but is now exploring the possibility of turning them into a work of fiction. Johnston's classic is wonderful inspiration.

















Right now I'm reading So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport, which is basically a study into achieving job satisfaction by working hard at your craft, loving what you do, and gaining control over your work.


















And next up, I'll finally be rewarding myself with a book that I know will be luscious, moving and
beautiful. A regency romance – Marry in Scandal by Anne Gracie.



I hope you've had a great reading month. I'd love to hear your recommendations.





Monday, April 09, 2018

My love affair with autumn...



To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close-bosom friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel, to set budding more,
And still more later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has oe-r brimmed their clammy cells.

First verse from the poem by John Keats.

I have always loved autumn. I guess, being a Queenslander, I'm always relieved to finally arrive at cooler days after the long, hot summer. And John Keats's poem has always been a favourite since my school days. 
Seasons of mists and mellow fruitfulness... 




That opening line is so evocative, isn't it?

Here, in the Far North of Australia, our autumns aren't quite as Keats describes - we don't have apples or hazelnuts. But I live in the mountains, so we certainly have mists and we grow pumpkins and sweet potatoes (they count as gourds??)




  and we have a tree laden with  macadamias.



We do have afternoons where the sun still lingers, but now the days are shortening, I'm starting to think about making soups and about collecting fallen pine cones - they're such great firestarters.

And while your'e here, I thought I'd show you a scene of my favourite view (and tree), painted by a young cousin, Carmen Hannay. Check out Carmen's website Isn't she brilliant? Her work is diverse and gorgeous and she's just leaping from strength to strength.


My kids commissioned her to produce this painting for a significant birthday ( quite a few years back now) and I love it. Carmen really captured the whimsical feel of the landscape without ever having been here.



What's autumn like at your place? Do you have lots of gorgeous colour? Or what's your favourite season? I'd love to hear.