After a string of late nights and many hours spent staring at words until the words themselves lose their meaning (‘curse? cu-rse? c-ur-se? That’s not a word. Wait. Is it?’) I felt rather drained this morning.
The sun was bright and shining, and the sudden urge to sit in a coffee shop, drink coffee and read a nice comforting book seized me.
But then I realised that coffee shops contain coffee, chairs, toilets, food and people. I decided that the garden was a better – and quieter – option.
// pictured: a cup of tea, a pink Bible, Marcia Schuyler, by Grace Livingston Hill – ‘Tales of a Child Bride’ as it ought to be subtitled – and an edible creation entitled: Let Me Just Bung This In With That and I Might Have Overdone The Cinnamon’ //
It was quite a pleasant brunch. But then dark clouds appeared and I beat a graceful retreat. It started raining soon after, which prompted a hasty trip outside to retrieve the washing.
The Curse of Cackling Meadows is officially released tomorrow. I’ve decided that deadlines are actually quite useful things. As are dictionaries, without which I wouldn’t have learnt that ‘draconian’ doesn’t describe something as dragon-like. The correct word for that sort of thing is ‘draconic’.
Draconian means unusually cruel or severe, and derives from the Athenian statesman Draco and his severe set of rules. It is also the name of a Swedish Doom/Gothic Metal band.
You learn something new every day, and I managed to avoid describing a cloud as ‘draconian’, which would have odd. I mean, ‘a draconic cloud’ still sounds quite odd, but in context it’s perfectly fine.
Or so I like to tell myself.
of words & books 