A new blog!

Well, revamped anyway. I've moved my blog from acumbrianlife.blogspot.co.uk, since I no longer live in Cumbria, and have restyled it a little bit. I also have an exciting new schedule for content, which is as follows:

Monday Meal: I'll share a meal with recipe, photos, and kids' reviews, that I've made this week.

Tuesday Treasure: I'll share a book I'm reading that I've enjoyed, or spotlight an author.

Wednesday Writing: I'll share a few lines of what I'm currently working on.

Thursday Throwback: I'll spotlight an older book of mine, with a possible giveaway.

Friday Photo: I'll post a photo from my daily walks or town life.

So hopefully there will be something for everyone, and it will be more interesting to visit with far more regular posts. So, to kick it off, I'm posting a few lines from my brand new work-in-progress, Marry Me at Willoughby Close, which is the last book in the Willoughby Close series and is out in July.  Here is the gorgeous new cover:

This story is a romance, but it is also about Alice James' journey to becoming a stronger, more independent woman. I've written three chapters so far, and am really enjoying how Alice is discovering her inner feistiness! Here is a snippet from the beginning, when Henry Trent is grilling her about being a companion to his aunt, Lady Stokeley:

Alice stared into Henry’s lean face with his bright eyes and straight nose and pursed lips and heard herself answering in a voice bordering on strident, “So I want to think about it for a moment. It’s a question I take seriously. The last thing Lady Stokeley should have is interrupted care.”

     Henry’s nostrils flared as he gave a quick, short nod. “A fair point, and yet you have already started your employment.”

     “True, but if I’m not mistaken, you are considering terminating it,” Alice returned, surprising both of them. She almost sounded bolshy. “So it’s worth making sure I want to fight for my cause.”

     Henry cocked his head, his gaze sweeping over her like a laser. “And do you?”

-->      “Yes.”

You can preorder Marry Me at Willoughby Close here. Stop by tomorrow for a Thursday Throwback and giveaway!

The Silence is Broken

Forgive me, readers, for the long silence on this blog. Life is starting to settle down just a little bit, after much turmoil, tumult, and tiredness! We moved from St Bees, Cumbria, on July 29, and then promptly went to Canada for three weeks to visit my family. Then back to our new house, new village, new life, all of us blinking in stunned surprise at where we'd landed. A few weeks on the boxes are mostly unpacked save for those pesky few that we'll probably cart, unpacked, to our next house. They're filled with a variety of odds and ends--spare batteries, paint brushes, an old scarf--that there seems to be no place or use for but I am reluctant to throw them out.

It's been hard to move this time, and we are, alas, Champion Movers. But we didn't want to move here; we didn't want to leave Cumbria. And so 'settling in' has taken on a whole new meaning.

The village we landed in is lovely, though, like something out of a Miss Marple adaptation. Roses round every cottage door, lovely footpaths through rolling fields, and we are living right next to the church (again!) so every Wednesday night we hear the peal of bells as the bell ringers practice their craft.

People, for the most part, have been friendly, although it can be tiring to have the same conversations over and over again. And while acquaintances are made in a day, friends take a little longer.  But we persevere. Every so often I pause, breathless with surprise that we are actually here. That we actually left Cumbria. And then I try to move on.

So prepare yourself for a new village life! I'm not the vicar's wife but merely an ordinary resident (as if I wasn't before!!) and I am still writing, still trying to mother five children and keep my head above water. Stay tuned for my further adventures in the Cotswolds…

Another village life

As I mentioned in my last post, it has been a very tumultuous month, with many ups and downs, and much (too much!) emotion. But at least one thing is settled; my husband has found a job and we will be exchanging a Cumbrian life for a Cotswoldian (is that even a word?) one.

It feels very odd and unsettling to contemplate moving. We came here four years ago intending to stay for decades, hopefully until my husband's retirement. It felt wonderful, like sinking into a hot bubble bath, to know you didn't have to move. To consider the next few years and be able to build into people, places, institutions and ideas, knowing you would be there to see things through.

In what felt like a moment all that comfort and security was gone, which I suppose shows me how fleeting and temporal this life really is. That notion has been brought home to me by my father's illness as well. How is it that one moment you can feel as if life stretches before you in an endless golden line of days, and in the next it feels as if it has been all snatched and scattered?

Well, back to the good news, or goodish news. We are moving to the Cotswolds, near Oxford. I'm not exactly sure what village we'll be living in, as we are still looking for a house to rent. But I suspect it will look something like this:

And yet I shall miss our village's steeply winding street, the glorious view of the fells and sea, even the bitter wind! I shall miss everything here, because I came here expecting to stay and now have discovered I can't.

But life is funny that way. Our ways are not God's ways, and I trust that He knows what He is doing in this as in all things. But it still feels hard and disappointing now, even though I am grateful that we have somewhere to go. And so my Cumbrian life will become my Cotswold life. I don't think I shall change the name of my blog, but watch this space for the further adventures of a village life!