Monday...

We spent the weekend at Estes Park in the mountains, helping with the Colorado Welsh Society booth at the Long's Peak Scottish-Irish Highland Festival and telling stories. I got a chance to do the Mongan story for the first time. It still needs a little more polishing, and preferably a venue with *slightly* less overwhelming background noise, but it's coming along. I also did a few others - "Arthur and the Three Truths", "House Was Too Small", "How Cuchulain Got His Name", and "MacCrimthann's Three Treasures" are the ones I remember. Also got to tell a lot of people about my books. I could have sold a few, but the Long's Peak festival doesn't like that unless you're an official merchant (and pay through the nose for the privilege).

We also found a Celtic jeweler named Michael Hayman whose work we hadn't seen before but really liked. I bought two pieces from him, and would have liked to buy more.

An Estes Park picture to close:



The white tents are the festival.

-GRG

Monday...

First, our performance as Dwygelli at the fundraised Saturday night went well. I've set up a new website for us under that name here - take a look and tell us what you think.

While I was at it, I finally got the .com domain name for Tregwernin and set that up. the old blogspot address will continue to work, but you can also get to this page now by simply typing "tregwernin.com".

Yesterday we spent recovering from the fundraiser. The garden is still in full flood, and I snuck a few early new potatoes out of the raised bed yesterday. The last two nights have been quite cool - 42 F by my back door, so probably a little lower in the vegetable garden - and the end of the squash / tomato season is in sight. We'll probably have our first frost in two or three weeks. Squash production is already tapering off with the change in the light, and the only tomatoes still setting are the Sweet 100's, but it's certainly been a good year.

Today's picture is of a huge caterpillar I saw in the driveway Saturday. We think it might be the kind which turns into a big moth - anyone have a better idea?



Hoping to get back to writing today or tomorrow.

-GRG

Monday...

The weather's a bit cooler today, so I'll be canning tomatoes. The Romas in particular have been very productive this year, so we'll have a good supply. I'll put up pictures later.

On other news, we'll be doing a short set of songs and storytelling to open for a charity event this coming Saturday. Links later...

-GRG

Thursday...

Oops, running late again. Here's the book review for Lionheart I mentioned in my last post, and the story I've been preparing to tell. Also, on my LibraryThing discussion thread, a list of the stories I've told or could tell. Being busy with the latter was why I forgot to post here yesterday.

One more garden picture:



And that's it for today...

-GRG

Monday...

Oops, forgot Friday again... I was preoccupied with canning tomatoes, among other things. At this point almost all our vegetables come from my garden, and I have excess to can or give away. Won't last much longer, though - first frost here is usually mid-September.

The beans have recovered from last week's mishap. The only question is whether the post extension at the west end of the fence will survive for another month:



The story I was working on last week is more or less set, and I've been practicing telling it. Getting close...

I spent a good bit of the weekend reading Sharon Penman's newest book, Lionheart. Since I was lucky enough to win an advanced review copy (it comes out in October) from LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program (at 50:1 odds!) I thought the least I could do was read and review it asap. I've finished the reading (which took a while - 594 pages and not a quick read), so should be reviewing it soon; I'll post it here when I do. Normally I don't read new historical fiction (new to me, that is) while working on one of my own books, but both her style and period are so different from mine that I'm not worried about cross-contamination.

That's it for today.

-GRG

Wednesday...

Trouble in the garden yesterday evening - the bean fence fell over! Under-engineering, basically, plus very healthy beans this year. We got it part of the way back up, and are hoping it will hold for the remaining 5-6 weeks before our usual mid-September frost. Must do better next year!



The last two days I've been writing, but not on The Druid's Son. With all of the storytelling we did over the weekend, I felt the need to expand my repertoire, and decided to try and pick up an old Irish tale I heard Patrick Ball tell ten or twelve years ago. By googling a couple of phrases, I found the original story on line, and have been working up my own version. With luck I might have it ready for the Long's Peak Highland Games in September. My version is somewhat different from both the original and what little I can remember of Patrick's - I added bits and took out bits, as one does, to adapt the tale to the anticipated audience - but I think it's shaping up well. I might post it here by and by if there's interest.

Back to work...

-GRG

Monday...

Apologies -- looks like I missed last Friday. Blame it on the hot weather.

We had a fun weekend at the Rocky Mountain Highland Games with the Colorado Welsh Society. Lots of storytelling with some good audiences. It's always great to have a chance to perform, polishing old stories and trying out new ones. Performance always requires two necessary parts: the audience and the performer. Without either, only silence.

It's tomato season now, full flood. In about a weekend I'll be canning the Romas, which have been very productive this year. Only so-so for fresh eating, but good for sauce. All of the big tomatoes are ripening now too, and the sweet 100's are going crazy:



That's it for now...

-GRG

Wednesday...

Weather's a little cooler today, which is nice. Garden continues to burgeon. The few Scarlet Runner beans I managed to start are blooming now - little sparks of red among the green:



We'll be storytelling again in the Colorado Welsh Society booth at the Rocky Mountain Highland Games this weekend. Should be fun!

-GRG

Monday...

A busy weekend. I spent most of it at the Elizabeth Celtic Festival, doing storytelling with the Colorado Welsh Society. The relatively cool weather we had been having broke on Friday, so the festival was sunny and warm - a little too warm for my taste. However, it's good for the garden:



That's a pumpkin vine in the picture.

Now back to work...

-GRG

Monday...

Saturday was busy. I spent a couple of hours finishing chapter 7 - at least, I *think* it's finished - and then dove into preparations for the CWS St. Dwynwyn's celebration that night. Because St. Dwynwyn is the Welsh patron of lovers, I needed something less grim than my usual Celtic fare, and had settled on the story of Pwyll and Rhiannon from the first branch of the Mabinogi. The only drawback was that I'd never told that story before... First I read through that section in three different English tranlations - Ford, Davies, and Jones & Jones. Then I started walking around the house paraphrasing and revising. A straight reading of any of the English versions would have been too long, and also there's a certain amount of repeated material (the section where Rhiannon tells Pwyll how to defeat Gwawl) which slows things down and diminishes the impact. Cutting most of that helped with the time problem. I worked through the story three or four times, trying to get all the important bits in the right order, but not worrying about exact wording. In between, I ran through my poem "Blodeuwedd", which I also planned to perform. After we arrived at the site (early, to help set up) I found time to go into an empty room and practice the story twice more. In the event, aside from one minor bobble, it went very well, and the audience clearly enjoyed it. I'll have to keep that in my repertoire for the future.

Yesterday was gray and cold, and I pretty much took the day off. Today I've been back at work on the book. No actual writing so far today, but a good bit of map work and planning, making up my mind about the locations for some of the key incidents and making sure they're consistent with things Gwernin's told us in past books. Just about set now. I'm aiming right now at one chapter per week, but hopefully this will speed up as I get into the swing of things again. We'll see!

References so far this week: Temples of Stone: Exploring the Megalithic Tombs of Ireland and The Life of Colum Cille.



Now back to work!

-GRG

Monday...

Lots of seasonal chores today - wrapping presents, going to the post office, and so forth. Saturday night we celebrated Yule with ADF in a rather low-key ceremony; so, feeling the need of more ritual, I will be celebrating the Solstice again myself tonight - and hopefully observing the Lunar Eclipse as well. So far the weather looks good...

After the first of the year I'll have a couple of public appearances: a book reading/signing (date still to be arranged) with a local venue, and on January 22nd some storytelling as part of the Colorado Welsh Society's St. Dwynwyn's Day. More on both of these later.

Still looking like a brown Christmas in Denver, although the mountains have been getting heavy snow.

Picture later...

-GRG

Follow-up

Cold today, windy, cloudy this morning with a little sunshine now. I'm glad I spent last weekend mostly doing yard work while the weather was good. Today's for reading, thinking, a little light housekeeping.

The St. Dwynwyn's event went well, and we all had fun - llawer o hwyl, yn Gymraeg. Harping, singing, storytelling, dancing, poetry, and a mummers' play to finish things off. My "three goats" story seemed to go over well. The third word I used, instead of "pont" = "bridge", was "bwyta" -- "eat". Seeing that the goats want more grass to eat, and the giant wants to eat the goats, it seemed more central (grin). It got a good response, too.

Back to reading and thinking now.

-GRG

St. Dwynwyn's Day

The Colorado Welsh Society is celebrating St. Dwynwyn's Day tonight, and I'm telling a story. This sounds like a normal thing for me to do, but there's a catch. I'm planning to tell a story in Welsh, to a (mostly) non-Welsh-speaking audience.

It isn't as crazy as it sounds. The story is one that should be familiar to everyone - the children's tale of the three goats, the bridge, and the giant. I'm planning to teach the audience three words before I start - "gafr", goat; "cawr", giant; and "pont", bridge. And I'll include interjections in English, like running footnotes. I did something like this at the Elizabeth Celtic Fair last summer, which is how I got asked to do it tonight. We'll see how it goes.

On the writing front, things are more or less stalled. This is partly due to some mundane issues I'm dealing with, and partly because I needed to think about just what story I'm telling here. Some of the subplots were showing signs of taking over, which is not good. I also thought about changing the title, but... well, it depends. Anyway, thinking, background reading, but no writing since the last post. It will come when it's ready.

-GRG