Rodney’s Blogs
8th May 2011
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This book is set on Exmoor and the house is at the seaward end of the Vale of Porlock above the village of Bossington. This means that Piers (or any of the other characters in The Birdcage) could see The Summer House from Michaelgarth which is situated in the same vale but a few miles inland. Usually Marcia likes to be where her fictional houses are set so that she can experience what her characters are experiencing. This was just not possible but there was a place we could park on the toll road that runs out of Porlock westwards to link up again with the A39 at the top of the notorious Porlock Hill. There we could park and she could stare across and, as it were, watch her characters going about her business. Here it was that we fed a robin and here we experienced a sudden and totally unexpected hail storm. Both events found their way into this novel.
This book is set on Exmoor and the house is at the seaward end of the Vale of Porlock above the village of Bossington. This means that Piers (or any of the other characters in The Birdcage) could see The Summer House from Michaelgarth which is situated in the same vale but a few miles inland. Usually Marcia likes to be where her fictional houses are set so that she can experience what her characters are experiencing. This was just not possible but there was a place we could park on the toll road that runs out of Porlock westwards to link up again with the A39 at the top of the notorious Porlock Hill. There we could park and she could stare across and, as it were, watch her characters going about her business. Here it was that we fed a robin and here we experienced a sudden and totally unexpected hail storm. Both events found their way into this novel.
The Eyes
We went up to Barnstaple Hospital for a check over and matters are, as I knew, getting worse. Anyway, now that the sight in the right eye is pretty well useless, it has been agreed that I shall have a corneal transplant in that eye. It will be about six months before the only surgeon who can carry out this operation this far down in the south west will be able to see me and after that a matter of waiting for a suitable donor. It is a grisly thought that I can only benefit as a result of someone else’s death.
Pheasants and Other Fauna.
On a more cheerful note, our very unusually coloured pheasant has secured three wives for himself and is using our garden as the centre of his territory. There are signs that one of the hens is sitting on eggs in the small wood adjacent to the Pond Garden and I disturbed one of them who had been sheltering in a shrubbery which would make a good place for her if she can cope with people walking no more than a two feet from her.
Meanwhile the swallows are back building furiously in the north porch up on the rafters in there. We had the house painted this spring and that part was still being painted when they arrived but that does not seem to have put them off.
For the sake of the house martins we put up two artificial nest boxes made of clay under the eaves. Only this morning Marcia spotted sparrows dashing in and out of the eaves but we are not yet sure whether or not they have commandeered one of the boxes or are building on the boards we had fixed to the soffit board above the nests. Interesting thought: do house martins mind living with sparrows in the attic?
The frog rescue scheme is working better this year. There are about two hundred tadpoles in two containers in the utility room and they seem to be thriving. Some of them are just beginning to grow their back legs. If we had left them in the pond they would have become lunch for the blackbirds, magpies and heron (to say nothing of the newts and dragon fly larvae), all of whom love a tasty tadpole. Assuming they all survive, there will be an awful lot of froglets scrambling around but no doubt they will disperse quite quickly and we shall not see them again until next spring.
The Summer House and High House are situated in the green field to the right of the picture on the slopes of Bossington Hill. Wales can be seen in the distance.
Little did this robin know that he was to be so important.
This old building is mentioned during the description of the hail storm. It has since collapsed.
Marcia in the churchyard at Selworthy.
The odd coloured pheasant who has taken over the garden with two of his three wives.
The weeds are a direct result of feeding these birds and have to be dug out every week.
Catching newts is illegal but the law doesn’t tell you what to do when you are clearing weed out of a pond and a couple of newts fall out onto the grass. After a chase these two were caught and returned to the water but not until I had taken this photograph.
The Summer House in paperback
On May 12th the paperback of The Summer House will be published. As always we both ask those of you who can to buy from a local book shop but we also realise that this is not always possible. Anyway, here are two links for you. The link to Amazon includes buying the ebook for a Kindle.
