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Les Fleurs du mal
Aug. 11th, 2007 12:32 pmA three-party week is exceptional around here, but that's what we've just had: last Saturday was ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
samarcand's birthday party (with much sitting in the garden and drinking and talking and cheesecake); Thursday was Val McDermid's book launch in Alnwick, and last night was Valerie Laws' cocktail party (durham_rambler asked if she intended to provide another lunar eclipse, and she said no, but there might be Perseids if we were very good).
The book launch was in the Alnwick Garden, so we - durham_rambler, desperance, Gail-Nina and me - met at the Cluny for lunch (chips! many chips! with mussels, and mayonnaise, and perry!), then headed up to Barter Books (which was packed, on a fine sunny afternoon - clearly it is not just a bookshop but also a tourist destination), and then talked our way into the gardens and enjoyed the sun and then shade and a view of the grand cascade cascading grandly, while children careered around in tipper trucks loaded with shovels full of water.
The launch was very smart - good wine in big elegant glasses, and Friends of the garden, and stylish arrangements of darkly sinister flowers. Val spoke entertainingly - as always - about the genesis of the Tony Hill & Carol Jordan books, and the TV series, read an extract from the new book, Beneath the Bleeding and then took questions. It only now occurs to me that one sign that this was a seriously high-class event was that there were no questions about the TV series, they were all about the books.
Although writers joke about being asked "Where do you get your ideas from?", they often volunteer information about where a particular idea came from. And it seems that one of the ideas for Beneath the Bleeding came from the Poison Garden at Alnwick. So while Val sat and signed books for an endless queue, we went out into the evening, and joined a tour of the Poison Garden, led by a guide who was not only knowledgeable but also clearly knew all about putting the information across, tailoring the show to the audience, making it just theatrical enough... I had anticipated strange and exotic plants, and was intrigued how many of them I recognised, only partly because the garden was designed to raise questions about poisons, intoxicants, levels of toxicity: so there was nicotiana alongside the belladonna, marijuana secure in its cage, rosemary lurking by the wall (in sufficient quantities it can cause miscarriages). I didn't have a chance to ask about the sinister secret of the fritillary (ah, here we are: Wikipedia says the bulb is poisonous).
Which left just time to say goodnight to Val and Kelly, and home for an early-ish night. And I spent yesterday defrosting the fridge - it's not all glamour!
samarcand's birthday party (with much sitting in the garden and drinking and talking and cheesecake); Thursday was Val McDermid's book launch in Alnwick, and last night was Valerie Laws' cocktail party (durham_rambler asked if she intended to provide another lunar eclipse, and she said no, but there might be Perseids if we were very good).The book launch was in the Alnwick Garden, so we - durham_rambler, desperance, Gail-Nina and me - met at the Cluny for lunch (chips! many chips! with mussels, and mayonnaise, and perry!), then headed up to Barter Books (which was packed, on a fine sunny afternoon - clearly it is not just a bookshop but also a tourist destination), and then talked our way into the gardens and enjoyed the sun and then shade and a view of the grand cascade cascading grandly, while children careered around in tipper trucks loaded with shovels full of water.The launch was very smart - good wine in big elegant glasses, and Friends of the garden, and stylish arrangements of darkly sinister flowers. Val spoke entertainingly - as always - about the genesis of the Tony Hill & Carol Jordan books, and the TV series, read an extract from the new book, Beneath the Bleeding and then took questions. It only now occurs to me that one sign that this was a seriously high-class event was that there were no questions about the TV series, they were all about the books.
Although writers joke about being asked "Where do you get your ideas from?", they often volunteer information about where a particular idea came from. And it seems that one of the ideas for Beneath the Bleeding came from the Poison Garden at Alnwick. So while Val sat and signed books for an endless queue, we went out into the evening, and joined a tour of the Poison Garden, led by a guide who was not only knowledgeable but also clearly knew all about putting the information across, tailoring the show to the audience, making it just theatrical enough... I had anticipated strange and exotic plants, and was intrigued how many of them I recognised, only partly because the garden was designed to raise questions about poisons, intoxicants, levels of toxicity: so there was nicotiana alongside the belladonna, marijuana secure in its cage, rosemary lurking by the wall (in sufficient quantities it can cause miscarriages). I didn't have a chance to ask about the sinister secret of the fritillary (ah, here we are: Wikipedia says the bulb is poisonous).Which left just time to say goodnight to Val and Kelly, and home for an early-ish night. And I spent yesterday defrosting the fridge - it's not all glamour!
