UK weather … Downpours set to
continue for rest of June thanks to unfortunate positioning of
Atlantic winds … so, it is pretty obvious the jet stream is
determined to stop any walking or gardening for the foreseeable
future. I did spend an hour cutting back a couple of shrubs this
morning; the plants love all this rain after all, but I gave up when
the secateur handles grew too slippery to cut with and my shoes
started squelching with water.
So - an ideal opportunity to write a
proper entry and maybe a good place to start is with character ideas.
The relationship Fleur Fern has with
her Aunt Marie in The Splintered Circle is a close and special one
and I hope I've written this in such a way as to provide the reader
with an idea of the warmth.
My great aunts and uncles, pictured in
their garden in 1967, gave me so much inspiration for character
development for the Fleur and aunt bond. In the book I do make reference to how the Islanders who were left behind during the Guernsey Occupation had to make do with old curtains and material scraps for making clothes. In the picture my three aunts in the front are doing just that, even though this is some years after the war ended.
I was close to all my aunts and uncles in the picture.
Not in the warm and soft way depicted in the book, but still, their
sporadic presence in my life and their recall of past events about
the Channel Island Occupation was amazing. Even in 1967, some
remnants of the War remained; such as German helmets left behind and
hung on hooks in their shed. Still today there is the opportunity to
see and sometimes enter the various fortifications built around the
islands. These are a constant reminder of the Occupation and the
effects of war – built by slave workers – not islanders though –
rather workers brought in from Russia and Poland.
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