Watercolour Postcard From Saint Savinien

A River Runs Through It

Oh - do we have eau! Saint Savinien carries the tag line - village between water and stone. Well dear me - there sure is water and luckily plenty of stone for folk to stand on. Although I have not seen a drop of rain myself, the natives assure me that it only stopped about an hour before I arrived. Not even a cloud has entered my sky but seemingly this has been one of the wettest ever winters. Last year was definitely the coldest ever. Oooh - I'm starting to sound like some old granny over the garden fence.

Relax - put your feet up. 

Nothing can hide the beauty of this place and a slight surplus of water merely adds to the quality of reflected light. It is oddly comforting for me to know that the only way to travel between the village of Taillebourg and the opposite bank of La Charente is by means of a causeway built by the Romans using hand tools, eye sight and pots of red wine. The tarmac road built by helmeted sober technoids with lasers and 4G connection to Head Office is under water and crumbled into pebbles. It  fully exonerates my Luddite follicles. 

Time to reflect.while reflecting on Time.

Which one is the real me?

The French were of course, never conquered by Les Romans. They were merely a band of heavily armed civil engineers who were allowed to stay on condition that they did some building work in exchange for the recipe for Moules Marinieres. Believe me, the Romans got a good deal.

 Oooh - last night we had the neighbours in for a sea food blow out. Today I feel like the last of the red hot mollusc mamas. If you've not tried harissa paste cuisine get some and get stuck in! I was gonna ask for advice on pruning my vines......but in the end I chickened out. I can't deal with information overload. Vine pruning is a kinda genetic gift from the jolly green Gallo-God. I got up and just had a chop. Usually I do Oscar's hair. He's getting a bit woody but still alive. 

Baguette in the flow of life  in search of a back story

When I was a young temp in London I once worked in the art world. I actually helped to organise a surrealist exhibition. It was a difficult job because the gallery owner thought he was a fish and only communicated in speech bubbles. I made up the last sentence because I've allowed a couple of glasses of Chablis to pass my lips. The memory entered my sozzled brain as I snapped a passing baguette. You know in any narrative there is the problem of back story....


Emma Thinx: Stop wine on empty stomachs. Prohibit stomachs.

Springtime Postcard From Saint Savinien

My wonderful home.

I cannot hide my joy at just being alive here in France. Springtime is special of course, wherever you are. It represents something of a forgiveness to me - that the great generous heart of the universe has  once again let me have its warmth. Surely, this is how pagan folk must have felt.

Brave tiny blooms - your beauty is stronger than my self important life

Oh - thank you thank you for your gorgeous push and pulse

I set out into Saint Savinien with my camera to take some pix of the first push of Spring. Oooh - it made me feel quite frisky - and at my age....no risky. God knows how many progeny I would have borne if I'd not lived in Republic Bar of  Urbania.  Springtime in South London was when they changed the revolving lamb kebab lump-a-stuff in the Istanbul Delite Tonite Takeaway window.  Here, the season pushes out its cry of new life. It's orgasmic and I love it! 

So, all in all it's romantic novelist and poet goes OTT with vernal lust. Here are a few images:

Reach and reach and reach and reach. I offer only my open shouting beauty. I AM ALIVE.

LOOK AT ME - I AM A MIRACLE

You just cannot beat these simple little blooms. I think of them as cherub kisses planted with a wink. Oh - joy joy joy!

Emma Thinx: Life sometimes shit. You always seed. GROW!

My Valentine Love Poem

A a writer of Romance, Valentine's day is kinda like Christmas eve in Walmart and Santa's place at the North Pole. I am a real sucker for Saint Valentine's day. Well, yes I know all the teddy bears, hearts, flowers and chocolates are a commerce-fest crossed with an orgy of kitsch. 

Yet, among it all the festival has that wonderful power to give permission for anyone to go completely over the top in the knowledge that.....you just cannot go over the top. No rose is too red, no teddy bear is too big, no card has too much sentiment. 

It was in this frame of mind that I have written my Valentine's love poem. I write of love because I have had much of it and of course, it not all hearts and flowers. But when it is - then it is the most wonderful and dizzying thing in this universe. I have said in a previous Emma Thinx - anyone who can talk sensibly of love is not in it. On Valentine's day, the gloves are off and the wits are out. Why be sensible or bother with taste when you can let go and love?

Emma Thinx: If you can't exaggerate your fantasy - it's love.

Don't Look A Gift Lasagna In The Mouth

100% meat.Where can I get some?

Right, this has nothing to do with anything OK. I'm sick and tired of news news news about utter rubbish. The latest scandal here in the UK is that Findus frozen lasagna contains 100% horse meat. Experts are on the box wringing their blue plastic gloved hands in their Ministry Of Spin hygienic hairnets. Ooooh - it's all so terrible. 

Well comrades, I givest not a stuff. The fact that any burgers or lasagnas contain 100% meat is wonderful and astonishing. The very fact that there is any meat content is staggering.

And you know who is to blame don't you? Yes - it's the bloody French. The vile Gauls have impregnated our pure Anglo Saxon palates with viande de cheval. And bloody lovely it is too! And it is 100% pure meat contamination! Why can't I get my normal saw-dust, ground bone and bowel offal burgers?  That's what I demand to know.

Very probably some crooks have fed some horse meat into the system and that is all very tut tut. Many folk in the world would fight to the death for some 100% horse mince. Let's get real eh?

Not the normal Romantic writer stuff - but remember I've worked in meat processing and slaughtering. 

Emma thinx:  There's nothing as pure as an empty belly.

Escape To Love Goes Live

Escape on a CD

Well, there it goes - out into the cyber-dome to suffer the slings and arrows of Amazoneous fortune or to take arms against a sea of bubbles. Once they're gone - there is only one thing to do. Yes - write another one, or rather crack on with the one on the slipway.

Here is the Worldwide Amazon link to ESCAPE TO LOVE.  The Kindle Edition includes a FREE 80 minute audiobook download.

As promised I have attached the sound file for Chapter One of the audio book. The voice of course, is mine. 

Escape with an iPod - let me read it for you!

Escape To Love - Audio Excerpt

I am out on the first stop of my mini book launch blog tour at 
Anneli's Place in CANADA today.  Drop over and leave a message about where you would chose for your great escape get your chance to win a copy of Escape To Love!

Emma Thinx: Words - what would they say if they could speak for themselves?

Escape To Love Book Trailer

I've no idea at all what has been happening in the world beyond the screen of my computer. Regulars will know that yesterday I promised a SoundCloud chapter from Escape To Love on today's blog. As things have worked out, I have actually been able to complete the video book trailer and I'm gonna put that up instead. 

I've had Oscar in the bedroom all day doing his male thing. Poor lad is exhausted. You see maidens may exercise power by appearing gentle. Knights have to raise up their swords. Oooh - It's nice to lie back and be overwhelmed.

 Now - I know what you're thinking - but I'm talking about the voice-over track. He did the first one in a kinda soft English poet mode. Then he tried all levels of Hollywood dramatosis. In the end we went for poet heavy/Hollywood-lite. If I'm honest I would have liked that 90% dark chocolate guy who always tells you at the cinema that you're a mug and the best film is next week. They have those scripts that go:  "A man with no nose never knows the purr - fume of a rose ......OR FEAR.  A man where apartment block meets mountain...They call him.... Flat-face". 

So - it's up and it's hanging out. What do you think of my vid?

Emma thinx: No voice is deeper than a mind that truly listens.

Escape To Love On Tour.

You would have thought that by now a media pro like me would have gone on display somewhere. Perhaps a tour with beasts in an old fashioned circus or starring as a fortune teller on the end of a pier somewhere would have been glamorous. As a kid I always longed for such a life - but it was not to be. 

I can now set aside all my previous disappointments. I am going on my first ever blog tour. It was only recently that I really found out what a blog tour is. I guess all of you out there knew already. Since I'm something of a virgin, I'm only doing five stops with the following kind hosts: 

Anneli Purchase on 4th Feb.
Gallo-Romano Media on 6th Feb.
Laurie Jenkins On 10th Feb.
Sheryl Browne on 11th Feb.
Mandy Baggot on 12th Feb.

There will be a chance to win a prize at each stop.

I am hoping not to destroy their readership. Of course, the purpose of the tour is to announce the publication of my latest story "Escape To Love", which will be out on Monday 4th February. This novelette is a further addition to my urban love series. There will be two more after this which will then form a collection under the banner "Love In A Hopeless Place" - all with full free audio book narrated by me (female roles) or Oscar Sparrow (male roles). 

If you tune in tomorrow there will be a SoundCloud link to the audio of chapter one. Hope to see you there. 


Emma thinx: The rose of love blooms and dies in water - but it thrives in a nice bit of dirt.