A pair of blue damselflies mating on our pond It's been a beautiful day here on the Wirral.  Lunch was taken in the garden, and then later in the day there were three pairs of blue damselflies courting over the pond, plus a fifth blue damselfly and a red damselfly resting on rhubarb leaves overhanging the water.  A family of pond skaters has hatched out, and a water boatman has been scooting around for the last few days. Work on the fourth novel in the Artisan-Sorcerer Series continues, and the word count now stands at 90,000 with a fair chunk of plot left.  I'm toying with murdering a popular character...  Maybe, maybe not; I've not entirely made up my mind yet, mostly because this is one of my favourite characters too and it would be a shame to wave goodbye.  But, hey, I can always create another one....

The first rose of 2014 The lawn already has a sprinkling of fallen rose petals.  The first rose to open was by the entrance to the grove.  This photo was taken from just inside the grove, which is approached down a narrow grassy path which turns sharply to the east-facing entrance.  Shade is cast by a towering contorted hazel tree ( Corylus avelana 'Contorta' ) and a wall of ivy.  Tucked next to the entrance is a small pond, which you can just about see half-hidden behind the ornamental grass in the lower left corner of the photo. Click on the images to view them larger. Within the Grove In the photo above, you can see where the circular lawn of the grove has been re-edged.  Bare soil is already disappearing under poppy seedlings and the allysum which I've since planted.  I also planted some French marigolds but they were eaten overnight by slugs and snails.  For the same reason, hostas don't survive long in my garden, which is a pity as ...

Tadpoles in May I'm really pleased with the new solar-powered fountain, which you can see working in the video above.  It's much stronger than the year-old one.  Do solar-powered gadgets have a life-span?  Last year's fountain has taken to emitting occasional squirts of water reaching 4" in height at the most.  I've thoroughly cleaned the filter and panel, and wiggled the wire to see if there's any obvious break, but no joy there.  Meanwhile the pond has begun growing an unpleasant crop of green algae, some of it bubbly, some of it fibrous; hence the new fountain, which shoots jets of water 24" high and should help to increase oxygen levels in the water, which should - in theory, at least - reduce the algae.     Green algae and tadpoles! (Click on the images to view them larger).   An adult frog basks in the pond. On Thursday, I'll be giving a talk at St James's Centre in Birkenhead.  This will be fo...

In appreciation of my Yahoo! newsgroup, some of whom have been members for several years already, I'm offering Tamsin: An Artisan-Sorcerer Story at the bargain price of $2 USD. If you're feeling left out of this offer, which runs until May 18th, 2014, then the solution is easy.  Join the TOTALLY FREE newsgroup to take advantage of this and future offers, chat via email to other members, and be among the first to learn of my forthcoming publications, public events and other news. Join here:- https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/adelecosgrovebray/info Or join by sending an email to:- adelecosgrovebray-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

I'm currently enjoying a week's annual leave from my day-job while writing more of Fabian.   I've also been busy in the garden while I've both the time and the weather for it.  Some of the borders were looking rather neglected, so I've been weeding and pruning and re-shaping the edge of the lawn where the divide between lawn and weedy mess had blurred.  The contrast between sitting still, other than from fingers tapping at the keyboard, and thinking creatively and analytically as I write, and moving around with tools, a bucket full of dug-up roots and pruned, leggy stems or fronds of invasive ivy, is marked.  It still requires analytical and creative thinking but of a different kind, (for eg., I'm planning to put in more spring bulbs this autumn, and move a young buddleia before it gets crowded by the holly tree, and can see that the forsythia needs pruning back now its buttercup-yellow petals are strew...

Tadpoles and damselfly larvae - click to view larger.     The pond seems to have become home to damselfly larvae!  I was doing a bit of pond dipping this afternoon, to see how the taddies are coming along and in the bowl were some fragile, insect-like critters which seem to have three tails.  Later, I did a quick Google search to find out what they might be, and quickly found photos of them.  I am genuinely surprised to find damselflies in a pond that's not even one year old yet - a pond which needs more plants to lift oxygen levels as algae is having a field day right now.  I wonder when the damselfly eggs were lain?  I love damselflies and dragonflies!  So I'm grinning like a big kid right now.   I once saw a HUGE emerald green dragonfly flying down Village Road, level with Mariner's Point in West Kirby.  I heard it before I saw it - a loud, droning buzz which caused me to look behind me in c...

One of Tim Hulme's many scale models on display at Bebington Central Library. Yesterday I travelled by train to Bebington, as a friend and fellow-member of Riverside Writers is currently exhibiting his large collection of hand-made scale models of castles, chateaux and historic buildings. Tim Hulme began making models as a boy, when his father would bring home huge cardboard tubes onto which silk fabric would have been wound at the Macclesfield silk mill where his father worked.  Later, as a young adult, he was touring a grand European house when he saw a scale model of it and declared, "I want one of those!"  He's been making them ever since. This is Tim's first exhibition, and a lot of  planning has gone into the display.  Nearly all the models have a photo of the actual building beside it for comparison, and there are information sheets offering historical backgrounds.  The models are very fragile.  Just transpo...