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The Orkneys

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Our final stop, before sailing to London and flying out to home, was Kirkwall. It is in the Orkneys. We were told that the Orkneys do not want to separate from Great Britain but remain. That, of course, is not the common view in Scotland. The National Party just had a vote to leave and enter the EU as a separate country. The vote failed but who knows what will happen next time?

Anyway, ruins here make even the Iron Age farm seem relatively recent. There are standing stones, similar to Stonehenge.

standing stones

Like Stonehenge, they line up to the solar equinox. There are a lot of speculations about the purpose of the stones but no one really knows.

We also saw ruins that date to 3000 BC. (Is the US a young country or what?) Trash was used in the walls to insulate inside. Plus, just like the ruins in Crete, there were indoor toilets. What happened that this little luxury went extinct and had to be reinvented in modern times?

neolithic ruins

 

neo ruins two

It is thought that the sea was further away then; again no one is sure. But the water is coming in now and threatening the excavation. The people who lived here ate fish and other things from the sea. No one is sure what happened to these people although there is another settlement nearby and one of the theories is that they moved.

The land upon which these ruins were found has belonged to the same family for generations. Incredible.

It was very cold and windy. We did not hit warm weather until we reached London. And, as with the other places we visited, there were a lot of sheep.

 

 

orkney library two

For all my fellow librarians, here is the Orkney Library. I was told this is the oldest Carnegie in the world. Something that amazed me. I thought all the Carnegies were in the U. S. The Orkney Library looks like it has been added to several times.

orkney library

Next time: some random thoughts.

Norway 2

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One of my favorite parts of this trips was seeing an Iron Age farm. Man, times were hard. The people lived in longhouses with sod roofs.

Peopel lived in the south, animals in the north, so the heat from the animals came down, Also the smells and other less nice things. I’ve read about the custom of keeping the animals in the house. Diseases that began in animals then jumped to humans.

But I digress.

I was very interested in the loom. The weaving was done top to bottom. The warp threads at the bottom were hung with weights. Weaving, which for me is a fairly quiet operation, must have been noisy.

loom weights

One of the things I found interesting was the green tape and the interpreter’s green shirt. I knew from my research for “Death of a Dyer” that there was no green dye in Europe. In Peru they used some plant but that had not been discovered in Europe. But they did have yellow, blue (indigo) and red (madder).

yarns

So, where did they get green? Here is a better shot of the green tape.

green tape

I asked the interpreter and he referred me to the Archaelogy Department. Answer: they over dyed, beginning with yellow and then blue.

For pictures of the dress and shoes I refer you to the blog by ArchaeoFox.

Witches – Salem and more

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I ‘ve had a couple of questions about my most recent book, Death in Salem. Why didn’t I fully explore the witchcraft angle? Well, as I’ve said in earlier posts, Salem by 1797, was a very cosmopolitan city. It was not only the sixth largest, one of the most diverse (with the first East Indian immigrant populations in the US) but it was also the wealthiest. Salem’s witchcraft past was more an embarrassment.

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House of one of the judges.

 

The witchcraft spell has never completely left Salem, however. On one of our tours, the guide was the descendent of one of the accused witches. Reminders of this past abound.

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Graveyard includes memorials to those that were executed.

 

 

Although Salem became something other – a huge center of shipping and trading, however, the belief in witchcraft did not fade. In an earlier blog I wrote about trials that continued, right up to one in Russia in 1999.

And I wonder what is behind these accusations? Belief? Greed, malice, revenge? Hatred of women. With Gamer gate and all of the Internet attacks on women we certainly cannot discount that as a motive.

Christianity certainly plays a part.I think most of us are familiar with the quote from the Bible about not suffering a witch to live. During the middle ages and right up to modern times this has been used to execute any number of innocent people, primarily women.

I will blog  in the future about my research into witchcraft and goddesses – I think the two are tied. I decided, that since I did not explore witchcraft and the psychologies behind it in Death in Salem, I would do so in the next book. That book, titled The Devil”s Cold Dish, will be coming out next year. Spoiler alert: it does not take place in Salem.

 

 

Death in Salem books

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I am thrilled to announce that I have received my first copies of Death in Salem and they look stunning. Here is the cover:

death in salem

The books look even better in real life. I will probably be having another Goodreads giveaway later in the summer.

To summarize the plot: Will Rees is on a weaving trip and stops in Salem to buy some imported cloth for Lydia. He gets stopped by a funeral and sees an old friend at the head. Anstiss Boothe, the deceased, has been ill a long time but the very next day her husband Jacob. a wealthy Salem merchant, is dead and this time it is clearly murder. Rees has already left Salem but his friend rides after him and draws him back to investigate.

Smuggling, piracy, prostitution, and of course all the dynamics of interpersonal relationships keep Rees investigating.

I had a lot of fun roaming Salem when I researched this book.

Musings on car colors

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My husband and I took a trip over the weekend to visit a friend (a friend that I have had for forty years!). When we drove down 95 I noticed that it was a sea of black, white and silver cars. There were a few burgundy SUVs but from a distance, just like the dark blue and dark green, they looked black. I love seeing the bright red cars. mostly Pickups, that look like bright red tomatoes riding down the road.

Finally, on 85 South, I saw a robin’s egg blue VW beetle and a copper colored KIA.

Where are the rest of the colors? My first car was a Chevy Malibu. It was a beautiful creamy yellow. (In 1973. Can you believe it?) If you go further back, to the time of the movie American Graffiti, the cars were all kinds of colors: Pink, light blue, yellow. I’d like to see royal blue and emerald green, bright red like the pickups, and taxicab yellow

I say, stand up for colorful cars!

flowering trees

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After the harsh winter, it is wonderful to see the flowering trees and all the other flowers.

crab apple

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the number of flowers on the apple trees, we will have a great crop. As the flowers fall off, the ground is white, as though with snow.

apple tree

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lettuce and radishes are coming out in the garden and I have transplanted the tomatoes, peppers, basil, eggplant and so on, some into the garden and some into the earth boxes on the deck.

earth eggplant

 

 

 

 

 

 

earth tomato

Goodreads Giveaway – Two Days left

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I think I will cross the 400 mark. My giveaway runs out Sunday night and I always see a big bump over the weekends. I am really excited since I, as the author, think this is my best. Salem is such an interesting town and with a fascinating history – right from the beginning. A community that evolved from witch trials to the leading shipping center of the fledgling USA – amazing.

Weekend talks

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Well, there was no housework done in the Kuhns household this weekend. I left the house on Saturday at 7 am to attend the steering committee meeting for my sisters-in crime chapter. The regular meeting began at 10:30 and I left at 12:30, after a very fascinating talk by a Colonie policeman, for a talk at Cohoes Public library.

What a great talk it was too. And I met an old friend from my days working with the New York Library Association.

On Sunday I spoke at a meeting of the Arlington Women’s group to an assemblage of 78 people. Another great talk. And they fed me lunch.

Now I have to return to real life. Sigh.

Spring Clean up

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I love the coming of spring but hate some of what I find. No, I don’t mean the sticks and all. I’m talking about all the plants that are winter killed.

Like my roses. I went into the winter with 11 bushes. I now have six and two of them do not look good.

I have two butterfly bushes. One is budding out very nicely. The other? Well, when the snow had melted I went out and found it lying flat on the ground. I replanted it but I doubt it will survive.

Thank goodness for the bulbs. Daffodils are blooming and now the tulips are coming up. I see the feathery spikes of the peonies and the first leaves of the daylilies. Did the azaleas survive? I don’t know. Stay tuned.