People from my books: Debbie

She was a skinny little thing.  Scrawny.  She never put on weight.  As she grew in to adolescence she remained basically lanky and thin.  She had miles of legs.  When she tried ballet, as all little girls do, she was already taller than most of the others in her class and, although she had a grace of her own, it was nothing like what the teacher tried to coax out of her.

Oddly enough, Jasmina at this same age, was chunky. No, not overweight, just strong and chunky.  The French call it “bien plante” (well planted).  Mark you, Jasmina had horses and that made her immensely fit, so one can’t compare.  Odd, when you think what a muscle-maniac Hussein was.  I wonder if he ever thinks about Debbie and the children ?  And, if he does, would he be pleased that Jasmina has that same muscular physique …?

Extract from “A Call from France”:-

When we watched Debbie whizzing down the pistes, all her cares forgotten, we knew we had made the right decision. She skied well, with an instinctive elegance. She was cautious but fun-loving, and both she and Max braved the black pistes with no bother, invariably meeting us at the bottom. We rapidly gave names, as I daresay most families do, to the meeting points.

“We’ll meet for hot chocolate at Grizzly Bear café” one of us would announce, or perhaps “when we get to the end of Red Apple piste (named after Bernie ’s cheeks) we’ll go for lunch.”

Two weeks tripped by on the snowy slopes. We were both extremely conscious of Debbie and we did everything we could to make sure she really enjoyed it. Max had to pretend to be over sixteen (easy enough when you’re tall) in order to get in to the disco with Debs every night. We didn’t dare count how much we were spending, but they returned in the small wee hours full of fun, and Max told me there was nothing of any note to report. Debbie danced a lot, he told me, she chatted a lot.

“She can be SO EMBARRASSING!” he declared.

Girls are, I replied.

Ironically the café we skied past on our way to the first lift had to be called …. wait for it – Costa. It couldn’t possibly have been “The Coffee Shop” or “Café des Pistes” or something like that. No, it had to be called Costa. I don’t know if Debbie noticed – I certainly didn’t draw her attention to it.

A couple of times during day time Debbie and Max met friends they had made at the disco, but of course most people were there only the one week.

“Does Debs show any interest in the other boys?” I asked Max .

“Yes – in all of them!”

“Does she dance with them? Is she having fun?”

“Oh yes! She dances a lot. She’s quite good at it. She dances with all the boys. She’s having a great time.”

“And you, Max ?” I asked, looking up at his young face with just the first hints of a bit of hair on his chin, “are you having a nice time too?”

“Brilliant!” he grinned at me.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said, “but Debs has forgotten about Costa. She’s looking forward to going to college in Brighton next year. She told me so.”

Sometimes he was so wise for his tender years. He was certainly reassuring. I looked at him. Dressed almost entirely in black he still had the figure of a boy and I suspected he was extremely pleased at being able to go to the disco because of Debbie …

order from Amazon, Kindle or paperback:-

http://www.amazon.com/Call-France-Catherine-Broughton/dp/1475116659/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372262616&sr=1-1&keywords=catherine+broughton

- See more at: http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk/blog/people-from-my-books-debbie/#sthash.hMlHrPvQ.dpuf

Illustrations for my books

Extract from “A Call from France” by Catherine Broughton

I was happier at Les Cypres.

I was physically, if not mentally, considerably less isolated. It was only once we’d moved in that I realized just how much the distance between Tulips and everything else had added to my work load, just in sheer driving time. I hadn’t even been able to post a letter or buy a stick of bread without getting out the car and, worse, any form of entertainment or relaxation – beaches, restaurants, cinemas – were all miles away.

Les Cypres offered us more and at closer proximity. As the months flit by we tried a variety of things from jazz sessions to yoga, from archery to Amnesty International. It may be that we asked too much of life, but we were never able to become immersed in any way and remained permanently sitting at the edge. One of the things we got involved in was the village committee for saving the patrimoine – the local heritage – and we attended several village meetings where the restoration of an ancient bread oven was discussed. I suppose the problem was that it was not our country, not our village – hey, not even our language! – and we found it difficult to take any realistic interest in renovating a bread oven, not least because we had an ancient bread oven of our own.

I can’t say I actively enjoyed the proximity of the village shops or the supermarket in Arabor, but I was aware it was an advantage. St Sylvain , the village, offered the basic essentials, despite being closed half the time, and Arabor was at least a town with real live people around, if not very many. It’s funny how you just don’t see French people in the streets in a French town, the way you do in England.

On a Sunday morning, particularly in winter, Euan and I went to the supermarket in Bourcefranc, some five minutes in the car. Afterwards we walked on the beach. I loved looking out over the sea to the island of Oleron opposite, seeing the boats bobbing about in the estuary and the cars passing by over the bridge.

There is something undeniably exhilarating about walking along a beach, even in the winter when that wind whipped in off the Atlantic, searing like a knife through our cagoules and thrashing my hair into a tangled nest. We always parked at the eastern end of the beach, at that time little more than a dirt road and utterly stinking with seaweed and shell fish, and walked directly along the shore line as far as the little sailing club at the far end. We walked briskly, breathing deeply, trying to counteract the stress and strains of the punitive week we had terminated. Big Harry always came too and would charge along that beach barking and leaping through the waves. We still walk on that beach, quite regularly. Sometimes we see Big Harry’s shadow, his ghost, still leaping joyfully in the sand. Bernie joined the little sailing club in the summer and spent many a sunny day out in the estuary, sailing sometimes beyond the bridge and out in to the huge ocean.

Our move to Les Cypres coincided with my little estate agency fizzling out. That is the only way to describe it: it just fizzled out. That last summer at Tulips I had made many sales and had had clients almost every day; by the following spring it was over. At that time the expression “burn out” hadn’t been coined but, looking back on it now, I realize I was all burnt out. Competition was greater, of course, for the proximity of civilization also meant not only proximity of other agents but sparsity of properties available: the abandoned little farmhouses simply didn’t exist, people moved house less frequently, abandoned their houses never, and there was generally little of any interest on the market. My great strength as an agent had been that I was willing and able to drive around all the isolated little hamlets in the countryside, spotting the potential for British clients in the huge old beams and stone fireplaces, which at that time were the very things the French were abandoning. I had seen how to play the market. But it wasn’t just that: somehow the energy and enthusiasm had gone. The need to earn money kept my agency limping along for a while, perhaps six months.

“I’m not doing this any more,” I said aloud as I drove home one day, “I’ve finished.”

And that was it: I finished.

- See more at: http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk/blog/illustrations-for-my-books-chateau-des-cypres/#sthash.fV6OjFmh.dpuf

Guest Blogger= Karen Laurence-Rowe, Wildlife Artist

“Harmattan King”  …. against the wind – like so much of our wildlife!

With the steady destruction of the worlds wildlife species I think the depiction of these wonderful beasts has almost become a personal obligation!   How tragic is it going to be, when one day, one of my grandchildren looks at a painting I have done of an elephant or an African lion and says to me “Granny – whats that?”    With the danger of this being so very real,  I now no longer sit in my studio daubing with complacency… I complete every painting almost as a matter of urgency!

I need to record it – before it is lost to this world forever!

- See more at: http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk/blog/guest-blogger-karen-laurence-rowe-wildlife-artist/#sthash.IaHzisyD.dpuf

People in my books - Manolo

Manolo was of Italian extract, with smouldering good looks.  Unusually, his eyes were a startling blue.  He oozed a sexuality that women of all ages found attractive … and he knew it.  He also had a manner to him.  It was a reassuring, wholesome manner.  He created a feeling of confidence and honesty – till you got to know him, of course.

He was probably quite clever.  Certainly, he knew how to manipulate people and get them on his side.  Had he been a  gangster he’d have been a multi-millionaire, one of those good-looking but ruthless characters you see in films.  As it was he was a down-and-out jail bird who had run out of luck … but who hoped more luck was coming his way.  Well, he was wrong about that.

Extract from “A Call from France” by Catherine Broughton:-

The double oak front door, thick with flaking navy paint and street dust, opened on to what had once been a fine entrance hall with unusual Eastern floor tiles in a faded red and gold, and a dado running along the wall and all the way up the stairs which must have been installed in the days of Napoleon III. The wallpaper had long been ripped off and painted and re-painted in dark yellow gloss, but at the far end of the hall a fine stained glass window survived, and in the centre of the ceiling, surrounded by exquisite, if very dirty, ceiling moulds, a wonderful example of an art deco glass lamp shade, echoed in the wall light fittings on either side. A traditional Charentais staircase, littered with empty fag packs and empty beer cans and emitting a strong stench of urine, led up to a first floor that had been divided and sub-divided so that nothing remained of the original landing where once – a long time ago – children had played and maids had swept. Now cheap hardboard doors led through to three little bedsits, seedy and smokey and reeking. Our girl shared one of these bedsits with a couple of old men and Manolo.

“There you go!” I said cheerfully as I dumped her boxes on the floor. I raised a hand in salute towards Manolo who was lying on the bed and who tried to leap to his feet when I entered. An old man leant against the far wall, nursing a cut lip.

He was wearing an ancient pair of baggy trousers, almost black along the thigh fronts, and old shoes through which protruded sockless toes.

“Stay!” cried Manolo grasping my hand.

I remembered his warm handshake from when I’d seen him outside the café earlier that summer. You can tell a lot about a person by their handshake, but with this man you could tell nothing. It was a firm grip, the accompanying eyes and smile were sincere. He was very good-looking. I seized the opportunity.

“I’d love to stay, Manolo, but I can’t right now. I can come back later, however. Deborah’s papa wants to get you to taste English beer!”

“Ah bon! Oui, oui, d’accord …!”

http://www.amazon.com/Call-From-France-Catherine-Broughton/dp/1475116659/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1371930502&sr=8-2&keywords=catherine+broughton

Click above for “A Call From France”, considered a must-read for mothers of teenagers.  Available from Amazon/Kindle, or can be ordered from most leading book sotres and libraries.

- See more at: http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk/blog/people-in-my-books-manolo/#sthash.M0SUzFZW.dpuf

French

Your ability to communicate in a foreign language does not simply depend on your prowess with the language.  It also depends on the ear of the listener.  Like giving directions – some people are good at giving them and others are not, but also some people are good at listening to and absorbing them, and others are not. - See more at: http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk/blog/french/#sthash.5kS6dAqo.dpuf

People in my books- Euan

First and foremost, and before anything – anything – Euan was a dad.  A husband and a father.  He was totally devoted to Catherine and the children and would have moved heaven and earth for them.

He was an old-fashioned Englishman, born and raised in the south-east. He liked bread-and-butter pudding, custard, bangers and mash, Yorkshire pud. Gravy. Lager.  Mint sauce. He liked straight-forward honest-to-goodness things. He read the Telegraph and watched the News and loved the Carpenters and Abba.  He never told a lie and never expected anybody to lie to him.  He always saw the best in people, was always kind, thoughtful, tolerant.  He believed in the old-fashioned values his grandfather had taught him.

He had always worked, and worked hard.  At 6’4″  he was a big, strong man, willing to tackle most chores – and good at it too.   His workers respected him totally and recognized a good boss who was always fair and who knew how to get his hands dirty – more dirty than theirs often enough. In many ways he was a fish out of water in France.  It wasn’t just that he couldn’t speak French … it was more that he was totally English … and, despite all efforts to fit in to the French way of life,  would remain English.

When his world started to topple, he was ill-equipped to handle it.

Extract from “A Call from France” :-

“Honey!” he exclaimed, seeing me sitting there, “are you all right?!”

I so loved this man. Big, tall, strong, smelling of warmth and comfort, I rose and fell in to his arms and he rocked me gently, quietly, waiting for the tears to subside.

“Auntie Dulcie has died,” I sobbed.

“Oh my honey, I’m so sorry …”

“And Debbie is pregnant!”

“Oh my honey, our stupid daughter …”

“And I feel upset!” I blurted suddenly, red face spluttering stupidly as I looked up at him, “really REALLY upset!”

He kissed my face. He didn’t need to say anything for he knew we both felt the same way. We stood for a long time in the big stone hallway and the light in the room quietly changed, darkening imperceptibly; we held our arms round each other, rocking silently as the same thoughts went through our minds.

I didn’t go to Auntie Dulcie’s funeral.

But I used it as an excuse and I knew that my old auntie would willingly forgive me for doing so.

“I can’t go by myself!” I exclaimed tearfully to Debbie, “Bernie and Max are in school, daddy is working and the only person who can come with me is you!”

“Hussein says no,” she replied, a slight tremor of hesitation in her voice.

“Whatever has he got to do with it?” I asked innocently, trying to look totally perplexed.

There was a moment of silence, so I added, equally innocently:

“He can come too if he wants. Could he take the time off work? The flights are about £200 each, tell him.”

“No,” Debbie replied, “he can’t afford that. But I’ll persuade him I’ve got to be with you …”

I’m not quite sure what I was hoping for. Of course, first and foremost I was hoping she’d ask for an abortion. Once away from Hussein it was likely she would feel totally differently. On the whole I was against abortion – certainly in cases like hers – but when it’s the future of your own child that is at stake it is different, and your values change. I tried to broach the subject a couple of times, without actually saying the word “abortion” – but it fell on deaf ears, so that on the last day in England I said to her:

“Debbie, you don’t HAVE to go back to France or to Hussein if you don’t want to. You are in charge of you …”

It sounded so weak. I was trying to give her a chance to change her destiny. I was trying to hold doors open for her, when they were slamming shut all around. Also I was hoping that seeing her cousins and her grandparents – the people who loved her the best – would help her to change her values, re-evaluate her situation and re-think her course of action. But girls of seventeen rarely have a course of action.

While in England I encouraged her to spend time with the family. Gran – who at this stage knew nothing about the pregnancy – took us out for a meal. Debbie was very animated. If she suffered from the waves of nausea she claimed to be having (one could never tell with her), she hid it very well. I tried to avoid the subject while not ignoring it. I battled constantly against blurting out to her that she was a total idiot. I wanted to tell her how disappointed in her Gran was going to be, I wanted to tell her how disappointed I was. When I told my father his mouth fell open in astonishment.

“Grief!” he searched my face for signs of tears, “you certainly are having a time of it with that girl!”

I nodded dumbly.

“A Call from France” by Catherine Broughton is a true story and considered a must-read for mothers of all ages:-

http://www.amazon.com/Call-From-France-Catherine-Broughton/dp/1475116659/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1371838427&sr=8-2&keywords=catherine+broughton

- See more at: http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk/blog/people-in-my-books-euan/#sthash.vHvLZ6R3.dpuf

People in my books- Bubble-Gum Michel

The children nick-named him Bubble-Gum.  It was a good name because there was something about him that made one think of bubble-gum.  He was fat (but immensely strong), not very tall, jovial, noisy, messy, talkative.  He was very familair with everybody, even his boss, and had he not been such a likeable fellow, it would have been bordereing on rude.  He had an equally over-weight, but intensely morose, wife about whom he made crude jokes. He had nine children, most of whom worked at one stage or another at either Tulips or Chateau des Cypres.

Bubble-Gum was totally illiterate, and what he lacked in education he made up for in good sense flavoured with brash determination.  He was devoted to the family and had an especially soft spot for Debbie – though his own daughters were treated with that grim resignation one sometimes finds in poor men who have fathered a huge family.  He wheeled Bernie around in his wheel barrow and sent Max to (discreetly he hoped) fetch him a beer from the fridge.

He worked at Tulips for four years and then at Les Cypres for another five.  He was totally loyal but in the end he was asked to leave. As his weight increased, and he grew older, he steadily became dangerous and the more he was warned about safety – on ladders, the roof, bonfires, whatever – the more sloppy he became so that towards the end it was impossible to leave him in charge of anything in case he set it on fire or fell off it and broke his back.  He wept when he was dismissed.

http://www.amazon.com/Call-From-France-Catherine-Broughton/dp/1475116659/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1371731045&sr=8-2&keywords=catherine+broughton

“A Call from France” by Catherine Broughton is a true story and considered a must-read for mothers young and old, especially mothers of teenagers.

Click here for grand’mere   (same book)

- See more at: http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk/blog/people-in-my-books-bubble-gum-michel-2/#sthash.N3Z0wefN.dpuf

People in my books- Hussein

Hussein was not bad.  He was not good, but it would be wrong to say he was bad.  He was ignorant, is more to the point.  He had been raised in a household where fists and shouting were the solutions to most problems.  Men always had the upper hand, and were generally right … simply because they were men.

There is no denying that what he did was wrong, but on the other hand who can blame him ?  The rich kid from the Chateau … he thought he was on to a good thing.  He genuinely loved Debbie at first, and certainly loved his children.

Not that one should defend him in any way, but he lived in a confused world between Algerian Muslim culture and values, and France with all its advantages.  Sometimes he was fiercely Muslim and at other times he was far more like an ordinary Frenchman.  He wanted to please but felt that being “nice” somehow belittled him, as though he needed to prove his supposed superiority when there was really no need to.

He was good-looking in an obvious sort of way, and very muscular.  He went to the gym several times a week for la musculation. However, he never walked – let alone ran – anywhere and ate stunning quantities of junk food.  He didn’t smoke or touch alcohol.  He had vastly more testosterone than brain …

http://www.amazon.com/Call-From-France-Catherine-Broughton/dp/1475116659/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1371717221&sr=8-2&keywords=catherine+Broughton

Classified as a must-read for mothers both young and old, and especially for mothers of teens, “A Call from France” by Catherine Broughton is a true story.  Available from Amazon & Kindle, as an e-book on this site, or can be ordered from most leading book stores and libraries.

More about Catherine Broughton, to include her sketches and blogs from all over the world, on http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk

- See more at: http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk/blog/people-in-my-books-hussein/#sthash.oRAhcWLt.dpuf

People in my books-Grand'Mere

Grand-mere was born in Algeria and lived there all her life till her son moved to France after she was widowed.  Along with her daughter-in-law, Fatima, and her grandson, Hussein, they moved in to a HLM (Council flat) in a poor area in the suburbs of Paris.   The plan was that Hussein and her son would work, earn vastly more than they could in Algeria, and then they would all return to Algeria with enough funds to build their own house. 

- See more at: http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk/blog/people-in-my-books-grandmere/#sthash.uZbkklnT.dpuf

Tomorrow I am going to a Funeral...

… of an English friend, only slightly older than I am, who has died of lung cancer.  She was a heavy smoker, and although she gave up some ten years before she became so ill, it was the smoking that killed her. - See more at: http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk/blog/tomorrow-i-am-going-to-a-funeral/#sthash.4FHhgf66.dpuf

For my Father

Yesterday was Father’s Day, so I thought I’d show you the very first poem I ever had published:-

Prose.   (for my father – Shadows)

I went back to Africa, so sure I’d find you.  But you were not there.   On the boat – for a moment – was that you ?  Smiling in to the sun ?  The wind in your hair ?   Oh, the shadows of the yachtsman you once were beyond the African soil you loved so much.

I drove through Africa and I looked at the dust to find your footprints where you once stepped.   And there – for a moment – was that you ?  In that sound ?  Oh, my heart leapt at the shadows of the father you were.  On the African soil you loved so much.

I did not find you.  You were gone from that place.  Barely the touch of your ghost in the lands.  Or in the heat of the sun in the tropics.  Or in the waving darkling hands.

I think you are where I last saw you.  And I cried.   Your shadow moves in that garden in Kent.  Where you died.

The French language: More Confusion!!!

In no particular order or group, and just as they pop in to my head:-

( * designates that there is an accent missing )

c’est terrible!  does not mean it is terrible, it means that it is great – awesome is a good translation

mortel !  does not mean it is deadly but as above

mon oeil!  in English we’d say “my foot!”  (my eye)

For this blog in full and more please see  http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk/blog/the-french-language-more-confusion/

Speaking French- Les Difficultes

There are many things in the French language that are so different in the English language. Not only vocabulary and grammar, but entire ways of handling things and saying things.  Not only is the humour different, but the whole way of responding is different too.. - 

For this blog in full and more please see http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk/blog/speaking-french-les-difficultes/

Extract from 'A Call from France'

Extract from “A Call from France”, a true story and considered a must-read for mothers:

I took a sleeping tablet, fearful that the event of the day would give me sleepless night. I dropped off immediately but was woken in the small wee hours by Euan shaking me.

“Wake up! Wake up!”

“God – what’s happened …?”

“Nothing – but I know she’s hurt – we just went to bed – Christ! How can we have been so stupid?! She’s hurt! She needs us!”

Suddenly wide awake I sat up.

For this blog in full and more please see http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk/blog/extract-from-a-call-from-france-3/

Istanbul

Our guest blog today comes from Amy Elliott. Istanbul is also one of my favourite cities, so I was interested to hear what she had to say:-

For this blog in full and more please see http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk/blog/istanbul/

Travels with a Biro- Venice

Somebody put a photo of a gondola on Facebook yesterday, and it made me remember the last time I was in Venice, about … I suppose it must be eight years ago now.

For this blog in full and more please see http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk/blog/travels-with-a-biro-venice/

Snippets of French History: Richard the Lionheart

King Richard I of England and King Richard IV of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Count of Maine, Count of Nantes and Overlord of Brittany, 1157-1199.

For this blog in full and more please see http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk/blog/snippets-of-french-history-richard-the-lionheart/

Snippets of French History: Mrs Conqueror

I mean Mathilda of Flanders, Duchess of Normandy, Queen of England, wife of William the Conqueror.

She was born circa 1031 and died circa 1083. She was the daughter of Baldwin of Flanders and Adela of France, and the grand daughter of Robert II of France.  Almost nothing is known about her early life except that she had at least one brother and that she was almost certainly very wealthy**.  Any pictures and portrayals of her are results of the artists’ imaginations, and therefore ficticious.  We do know, after scientists exhumed her bones in the 1990s, that she was barely 5′ tall – but that was quite common for her day.

For this blog in full and more please see http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk/blog/snippets-of-french-history-mrs-conqueror/

8th Wonder of the World in Belize

I am a regular visitor to Belize. I love Belize, and my favourite spot is Hopkins.

So, I was interested to see today that the Great Blue Hole off the Belize coast is being voted the 8th Wonder of the World.

For this blog in full and more please see http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk/blog/8th-wonder-of-the-world-in-belize/

Snippets of French History: Antoine de St Exupery

I read “Le Petit Prince” yonks ago – when I was a child I suppose.  I re-read it in English much later and, somehow, the magic of the story is lost in the translation – it is just not the same somehow, though I couldn’t say why.  I also read “Vol de Nuit” (Night Flight) in French and it has the same haunting feel to it.

For this blog in full and more please see http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk/blog/snippets-of-french-history-antoine-de-st-exupery/

Snippets of French History: Bluebell

Margaret Kelly (1910-2004) was born in Dublin and was immediately given up for adoption. She never knew either of her parents and grew up with one Mary Murphy, a spinster, who then moved to Liverpool.  There a doctor suggested Margaret go to dance lessons in order to strengthen her weak legs.  In no time her great talent was discovered.

For this blog in full and more please see http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk/blog/snippets-of-french-history-bluebell/

Snippets of French History: Mary Queen of Scots

Mary Stuart (1542-1587) was born to the king of Scotland, James V, and his French queen, Marie de Guise, at Linthigow Palace in Scotland.  Her father died less than a week after her birth, so she was only 6 days old when she became Queen of Scotland.  Although there is evidence to suggest the baby was premature, she was healthy and thrived quickly.

For this blog in full and more please see http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk/blog/snippets-of-french-history-mary-queen-of-scots/

Extract from 'Saying Nothing'

“Saying Nothing” by Catherine Broughton is a novel set in Spain.  A recent review: I just didn’t know what to think about the decisions the young woman, “Jane”,  in this book made, and I blew hot and cold over her. It is a love story that is quite different from the norm, and I really enjoyed it.  The author weaves the different personalities through the plot, and the plot is clever.  The story unfolds in an unusual way. Some of the descriptions were brilliant too. I think perhaps I didn’t agree with what “Jane” did … it would be interesting to know what other readers think!

For this blog in full and more please see http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk/blog/extract-from-saying-nothing-2/