Showing posts with label Médoc. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Médoc. Show all posts

Monday, 15 April 2013

M is for....


1) Médoc. This is where the third flashback in Despite the Angels takes place. It is the wine growing peninsula just north of Bordeaux. I took a camping trip there some years ago to research, and to find a surname for Lucy’s past incarnation as Eloise. I went to several graveyards, and finally picked ‘Seurin’ which appeared frequently. This is a tiny detail, but I get a quiet satisfaction out of getting things like this right. On the other hand, I have fun making up stuff too - David’s past incarnation is called Daniel ‘DeVrac’ which is a silly joke. I got good information about the wine and salt industries from my trip, and also a visit to Madame Cassou-Mounat in Bordeaux. She was a retired Professor of ‘Historical Geography’ from Bordeaux University, and lent me a wonderful document about the salt trade of the time.

2) Mediterranean Sea. If I have lived before, I think many of those lives were near the Med. I always feel relaxed and at ease there, whatever part of the sea it is. I love Provence and Crete, and on shorter trips to other parts have felt right at home. This is not just because of the weather and the palm trees- I visited Santa Barbara in California on my way to a hypnosis course. It is a Mediterranean-style town, with palm trees, lovely weather, and mountains rising behind, but I felt at sea there, like a real stranger. To use the language of reincarnation - I had never been there before in all my lives!

3)Merc Sol. If Hepar Sulph doesn’t hit your bacterial infection, Merc S might

Wednesday, 10 October 2012

Researching in the Médoc

Writing a book with historical pieces gives a good excuse for making trips to research for accuracy. This photo shows me in a graveyard in the Médoc region of Western France, reading the names on gravestones. I was looking at surnames, to find a common one to give my heroine, Lucy, in her life as Eloise during the French Revolution. There were quite a number of Seurins, so she became Eloise Seurin. David was called Daniel in that life, and I made up the name of deVrac for him, which is a joke - en vrac meaning wholesale, and a common way to see wine advertised: "Vins en vrac".
I found out much more about the Médoc and its history than I was able to put in the book, which is about Lucy and David, not France. But the overall 'feel' should be genuine.

Sunday, 6 May 2012

My photo at last!

As I said, I am only learning all this digital stuff, and am climbing a vertical learning curve with my (rather good) fingernails... But at last I have worked out a)how to scan in this nice photo, and b) how to get it onto here/twitter/facebook. So I am feeling that little bit more confident in my eventual ability to get my books up there too!  As well as having bronchitis this week, and making a 'Phrygian cap' for my part in 'Idols', I have been re-writing the prologue for 'Despite the Angels'. It is now much clearer for those readers who will not have prior understanding of the concepts of re-incarnation. Next I must work my way through the whole book and do the same. There are sections about Lucy and David's past lives in Crete, the Médoc, and Dundee, all of which I visited to get it as realistic as I can. A great excuse for travel - now, where will I set my next one......