Following Austen

A daily dose of Jane

I have started a new blog so you can get your daily JA fix.  Enjoy!

It's all in a name...

Drumroll please:  As you'll notice on the masthead above, we have an official title for the book.  It will be... A Walk with Jane:  Following Austen, Finding Grace.  I'm very pleased.  My thanks to the WaterBrook editorial team!

You go girl!

Sarah Hazel, whom I met through this blog, had her first gallery show in November, and I have been meaning to post about it since then.  Go, Sarah!  Congrats!

Finding Godmersham (part 3: the best cabbie in the world)

At that point, the absolute best thing that could have happened, happened.  A cabbie went by in one direction, saw my pitiful thumb sticking out, and turned around and came back a few minutes later.  Cue the trumpet voluntary.  God saved me.  At least, that is what it felt like.

Brian is officially The Best Cabbie in the World.  “You’re awfully wet,” he said.  He drove me to Godmersham, first to the church and then to the big house, turned off his meter and sat and waited for me twenty minutes while I walked through the fields to see the house (and when I got back in the cab, “You’re still awfully wet.”), then drove me all the way back to Canterbury.  He wasn’t creepy at all, which a girl might worry about in that situation.  He had short blond hair that might have been going the tiniest bit white, bright blue eyes and a solid build.  He was wearing a nice shirt and dark pants, nothing about him was messy.  We had a little bond going, Brian and I.  When he found out about the Austen connection, he wanted to take me out to Goodnestone as well (which was the Bridges’ home, Edward’s in-laws), but I couldn’t afford another adventure.  As it was, I paid him 30 pounds, and now it seems like such a bargain.  It felt wrong somehow to just say goodbye to him there in the tourist district of Canterbury, feeling like he had saved my life.  (Of course, it only took about five minutes to get to Godmersham once I got in the cab, but I don’t think I could have gone further, and I never could have walked back.)

Godmersham was one of the loveliest spots I’ve ever seen.  It stopped raining, though the sky was still heavily gray.  You can’t get into the house (at least, I couldn’t find contact info for anyone), which is now a professional school of some kind.  The walking path leads through the sheep pasture, next to the cows, and up a hill into a cornfield so you can get a better perspective on the whole layout.  None of my pictures do it justice.  It’s simple and grand, gorgeous red brick, classical lines with two rows of windows and two wings on either end, and maybe more in the back.  The house sits in the valley of the Stour (though I was in such a hurry I couldn’t figure out where the river was in relation to the house), broad hills rising behind and in front of it.  When Jane came to visit, they made a point of hiking (or walking, as they called it) every afternoon.  I wish I had hours to explore.

Jane and Cassandra spent a great deal of time there, usually separately, one being called from time to time to help with household duties after the birth of the latest child.  There were eleven children before Elizabeth died just after the youngest was born.  Cassandra seems to have been Elizabeth’s favorite.  No doubt Cassandra was more compliant, Jane’s wit more disconcerting. Jane's niece Anna said, “A little talent went a long way . . . & much must have gone a long way too far."   And Jane, who loved to laugh at everyone, herself included, no doubt found material enough at Godmersham.

At 5:09 P.M. in Faversham, on the train back, the sun came out.  My feet were still soaked.

here's one more...

I love this one!

head shots

I got my new portrait done for the book.  I'm thrilled with the way they turned out!  Generally speaking, I hate pictures.

These were done by J. Aaron Trotman in Nags Head, NC, and I can't recommend him highly enough.  He did family pictures for us as well, on the deck of my parents' house.  Fun!

Ack!

I had no intention of waiting a month to post again.  First there was a horrible I-was-only-capable-of-sitting-on-the-couch-and-moaning cold.  Then there was the manuscript to finish.  And then Thanksgiving, which plumb wore me out.

I'm thrilled the manuscript is in.  I don't think I've been able to properly celebrate, but the morning I turned it in I was in North Carolina with my parents, at the beach.  We got doughnuts from The Orange Blossom in Buxton, which are the best in all of creation.  They make me ridiculously happy.  And then I sat on the beach for an hour in the sun, just thinking about the journey of this book.  A year ago I only had a draft proposal, and today--in spite of all the sickness and darkness of this year--I have a manuscript.  I'm very thankful. 

I have declared December the month of bubbly juice (because I am still forbidden real bubbly

) and flowers.  So far, I have tried apple, cranberry and blueberry.  I'm looking for pear.  And Trader Joe's may have pomegranate.

48: Finding Godmersham (part 2 - hitchhike like a librarian)

At 1:40 I caught the train to Chilham.  By 2:40, I was drenched, my hair soaked, my pants wet 4 inches deep, walking on a narrow slippery shoulder of an incredibly busy A road in the middle of the Kent countryside.  I didn’t know that A roads were the main routes, until Margaret told me just a few minutes ago.

One of my most frequent prayers of late is that I will just not be an idiot.  And I don’t mean the socially awkward, always saying the wrong things at the wrong time kind of idiot, though perhaps I should pray for that more as I have some talent in that area.  I mean, the kind of proud ridiculous idiot who thinks highest of themselves and as a result whose life adds up to very little in the end.  But this was idiocy of a whole other kind.  About fifteen minutes into the experience, I knew that this was one of the dumbest things I had ever done, and begged God to please do something to get me off the side of the road, even though I often question His direct involvement in my life as a result of prayer.  Today I believed.

It made sense when I started out.  Chilham was the smallest train station I had seen yet.  There were no cabs, not even a shack, no phone numbers posted on a sign anywhere.  Everyone who got off the train with me disappeared.  I started to walk in what seemed like the direction of town.  I passed a tea shop and thought perhaps I shoud stop there to call a cab, but just beyond it was a signpost that said Godmersham.  I remembered that Chilham was mentioned in the book I had, the one that describes all the Austen hikes.  I looked it up there at the side of the road and found it was only two or three miles, but the writer recommended a back way through fields and I couldn’t figure that out.  Better to stick to the road.  It had stopped raining, although it was spitting a little.  There was a marked walking path beside the road, even, so I set out.  What is two or three miles on a walking path by a country road in spitting rain to reach a village no one has ever heard of?  I could hear Marianne saying, It’s not going to rain.  And anyway, it’s nothing I mind at all.

The walking trail quickly veered off to the left and I decided to follow the road instead.  It started to rain again, harder, until it was raining so hard it seemed to be coming straight through my Goretex jacket, under which I was sweating from the exertion.  I tried to keep my hood up to keep my head dry, but it cuts off my vision and eventually it just annoyed me so I took it down and let my head get soaked.  The shoulder was gradually disappearing.

Fifteen minutes in, I knew it was a mistake.  But I thought, how much further can it be?  Fifteen more minutes, and the shoulder had completely disappeared so that I was walking in the road and jumping up on the bank between trees when I heard cars coming.  Like a horrible sitcom every car that went by splashed me with water.  The road curved so much and the cars were going so fast, I thought how easy it would be for a car to whip around a corner and hit me dead on.  I was officially terrified.  But now I was 30 minutes into the walk, and I know I can easily walk a mile in 15 minutes, so I thought it really couldn’t be that much further.

I slipped on the grass and my hand landed on nettles of some kind.  All I could think was, what if I had slipped into the road? I passed a simple, expensive-looking house with handcrafted bronze gates.  Feeling incredibly foolish, I rang the intercom, but the phone on the other end just rang and rang and no one picked up.

So when I made it to a little clearing, I did the only thing I could think of:  I stuck out my thumb.  Only I don’t know how to hitchhike the cool way, so I looked like a soaked crazy woman now having an incredibly bad hair day sticking out my thumb in the manner of a librarian and occasionally trying to wave cars down.  No one stopped.

to be continued...

Shhh...

The manuscript is turned in!  Whoo-hoo!