Thank you all for your comments - and it's a pleasure reading and answering. Linda, your river sounds lovely - I've never seen a really wide river but a pal and I had fun motoring along the river Shannon in Ireland for a week. It was so relaxing! (No men added to this) We read in our bunks till about half past ten, then made a huge cooked breakfast, consulted the map and pottered gently along the river until we got to the next town with a pub that sounded hopeful for a good pub dinner. I swear we were the slowest boat on the river! But it was so beautiful - the reeds each side, and cows grazing, and willow trees bending over the water, and houses in the distance. The Guiness was wonderful too! Patricia, that was how I got my voyage on the Sorlandet - as a paying crew. It was such fun - I was on the 4-8 watch; Luckily I can get up no bother - though ask me to stay up after 10.30 and you've had it. One of our kittens sends his greetings as well. He's called Major Petrov and his grandmother was a Russian blue, so he has the most beautiful thick coat, blue-grey with silver stripes, and white mittens, and the only way I can keep him off the keyboard is to encourage him to chase these letters that are appearing on the screen ... I must go - my next blog needs to be written! It's about Shetland ponies. We had two, but the oldest had to be put down a week ago - a very sad day, as I'd had her for 28 years, from a foal with a sale label stuck to her behind. Her son was just lost without her - but a kind friend lent us a young lady, a two year old, brown and white, and he is so smitten with love that he LEFT the food in his bucket to go and show her the best place to cross the stream. Awww ...
Thank you all for all your comments - it's SOOOO lovely, after writing away in my own room for so long by myself, to be encouraged by real readers! Thank you - and I do hope you enjoy the book - please let me know on my newly-launched website, marsalitaylor.co.uk I never thought of you all being so excited by a sea mystery - I grew up by the sea, and have always lived within sight of it, so I forget there are places with none ... how do you know which way is north? Pat, Carla, Shirley and the other animal-lovers, the pet in 'Death on a Longship' is a large, black and white Rat - called Rat. He belongs to Cass's Norwegian engineer, and is generally trustworthy on board so long as the biscuit / cookie tub is kept shut. The next book has a cat, though - Cass finds a tiny kitten - which gets called Cat. Carla, I have a water cat too - possibly the reincarnation of my previous water cat. He's called Magnus (he was a starving stray, so we gave him a big sounding name to encourage him - he now weighs 7kg, that's a stone!) He sits outside in the rain until he's drenched, then drips in to be dried with his own towel - and he likes being stroked with hands dipped in hot water too. Kathleen, I do so agree with you about stories set in a different place or industry - I love that too. When I go on holiday I try always to find a novel set there, to read while I'm there - otherwise it seems a bit daft, for example, to lie on a Greek beach transporting your head to London. Lynn, Maman specialises in Rameau - I was told that to make a living in opera today, as a soloist, you need to find a niche market. Clare, among the ships, did you notice my own Sorlandet? She's beautiful! - but they all are ...
Thank you all for those comments - I do hope you enjoy Death on a Longship. Debbi, sailing is wonderful, and I hope that you'll feel like you've tried it through reading (one publisher turned it down because it made her feel as if she was at sea, and she doesn't like boats ...) Peggy, our Siamese cat was the most beautiful creature, and he loved the boat, and going for long hill walks ... and finding shrews and hiding them among our rubber boots (you learned to turn them upside-down before putting a foot in). The only thing he really hated was the 5-hour car journey there. There's a family tradition that we were visited by the brother of film star James Mason, who brought a collie with him - Chula promptly chased the dog into the sea, and wouldn't let it come out. I have two kittens too, and I haven't yet tried to train them as sea-kittens - but I wouldn't put anything past them. One is a sweet fluffy thing, and the other is a small fiend who is sitting on my desk right now, and helping me type. That's m' cat! Shari, I hope you'll enjoy the characters - I got particularly fond of Maman, who only speaks English as a great concession, and sweeps in on a waft of 'Je reviens' and Callas eyeliner to make sure nobody is arrested. Candice, that sounds intriguing - what are your favourite sea mysteries? Have you read the classic 'The Riddle of the Sands'? It kept me spellbound all the way from Aberdeen to Greece, one summer. Best wishes to you all - and enjoy! Marsali
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