The May newsletter is out! You'll be delighted to hear that this one involves sheep. For those of you who don't subscribe, you can also read it on my website:
/newsletter
Shout out to @peony_and_thread for making this gorgeous tote! I bought it for Lorraine. Normally, the only kind of gift I know how to buy is books. Now I have another excellent option 😄
For readers of The Willow Wren, this is the forest outside of Colditz where my 11 year old father foraged for mushrooms to help save his family from starvation after the war.
In the year 1593 my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, Nikol Schott, appears in the records in Ziegenburg, Upper Franconia (northern Bavaria). His son, Michel, operated a water mill where I am standing.
Now it's just trees, wildflowers, and birds by a clear running stream. I couldn't imagine a more beautiful place as an ancestral homeland.
Very little will reinforce the beauty of life as much as a band playing melodica, mandolin, and drum box doing a cover of Ace of Base's "All That She Wants" at an open mic night in a pub you stumble into down a quiet side street on a warm spring night. (And I don't even like that song.)
Last night, 36 people (4 musicians and 32 audience members), mostly strangers to each other, gathered at my house to experience the passion, energy, and pure joy of live Manouche (French Romani/Gypsy) swing jazz.
In a darkening, cynical age, who doesn't need a little pure joy?
Thank you, Swing de Mes Rêves!
Two big thank yous to Winnipeg readers this morning! The first for those who helped make Three Bengal Kittens #2 in Winnipeg! (I'm going to have to work a cute alien into the next Bannerman mystery...), and the second for those who turned out last night to make the official launch such a success! Thank you, thank you!!
(And bonus thank yous to @mcnallyrobinson , @ecwpress , and @joannemkelly_ for making this possible.)
