The Vicuña is related to the llama and lives in South America. These animals have soft wool but they can only be sheared once every three years… not to mention have to be caught first as they are completely wild.
#AtoZChallenge – Vicuña
Category Archives: General
2014 in review
At first I wasn’t going to do this because I had gone most of the year without my connection to Jetpack being fully functional – sometimes not functioning at all because I wasn’t able to connect to it. But in the end, I thought ‘what the heck’ and here are my results.
Thank you WordPress.com stats helper monkeys for keeping tabs on my site.
Paparazzi Pair – Roxie Rebel’s Photographs
Able Cane coming to you from the City of Lights. My capable cohort, Roxie Rebel, has been able to catch up with the world-famous author, Melanie Robertson-King.
So, Roxie, what can you tell us – or better yet, show us?
Well, Able, it’s been hard to get her photo without being spotted and even harder to get good shots with my best zoom lens broken. But this is what I’ve managed so far with what equipment I’ve got.
Thanks for… ahem… sharing those photos with us, Roxie. Hopefully, you’ll get your camera fixed soon so that you’ll be able to get some better pictures.
This is Able Cane signing off from Paris.
Paparazzi Pair
The Paparazzi Pair are on the trail of a late-breaking story. Able Cane coming to you live from Pearson International Airport where world-famous author, Melanie Robertson-King and her husband, have just passed through security and are now working their way to their departure gate. I’ll see if I can catch up with them and get a word, or a hint as to their destination. Melanie isn’t moving too quickly – as you’ve heard she was injured in a mishap in her home about two weeks ago. I nudge my companion, Roxie Rebel, the photographic genius behind a number of the pictures you see in all the big tabloids.
We move swiftly to the check-point only to be thwarted by a burly security guard. Damn! I so wanted to get a word. Thankfully Roxie has her biggest telephoto lens on her camera and she starts shooting, holding the camera high in the air.
Oh dear, we have to run…
Let me catch my breath. *huff and puffing* That was too close. We’ll have to try a different approach to find out where Melanie is jetting off to. Never fear, the Paparazzi Pair will track her down wherever she is.
Tune in again…
Where do you think Melanie and her husband are going? Leave your guesses in the comments below.
Winter, winter go away…
Winter 2013/2014
Ugh! I’ve had it with this winter. It’s lasted waaaay tooooo looooong. Enough already, I say!
Family and friends in the UK are posting pictures of daffodils, crocuses and snowdrops in bloom. Even the magnolia trees are in flower. What do we have here?
Just another blizzard. What else is new this winter? The wind is high enough (and the gusts even worse) that the snow is falling horizontally. Couple that with the blowing snow on the ground and you don’t see very much.
The drive home from work was far from fun. The snowplows haven’t been out so about all you could do was keep it between the snowbanks (ice banks is more appropriate since we had a thaw before this latest freeze) and hope you were on the pavement.
There are two places along the highway where it’s easy enough to drop your wheels off the asphalt in perfect conditions and lucky me, I found them both. Oh, and I had some yahoo driving a Ford Super Duty 4×4 that rode my ass most of the way. I was so tempted to jam on the brakes a couple of times to shift him, but that would have only succeeded in having him and his truck in the car with me.
I’ll leave you with this comment…
L’hiver et la neige… PHOOEY!
Blowing My Own Trombone Book Launch Blog Tour by Emma Calin
Hello Melanie – thanks so much for letting me visit your blog to tell everyone about my new book
“THE LOVE IN A HOPELESS PLACE COLLECTION”
Now, this tour of mine is called the “Blowing my own Trombone Book Launch Blog Tour”. We have had The Muppets and Cabaret and today – it’s Edelweiss from The Sound of Music – I’ll leave you to be the judges of that…
Sub-Prime – a gritty short story
The Chosen – a short story with a twist
Escape To Love – a novelette, a suspense romance with a twist
Angela – a short story
Love in a Hopeless Place – a novelette, a romance.
The title of one of the books and also the complete collection, “Love in a Hopeless Place”, comes from the song by Rihanna “We Found Love (in a Hopeless Place)”, which played on the radio at a pivotal point in this individual tale, but also really expresses the flavour of the collection as a whole.
Here is a small excerpt:
‘To want is easy. To be wanted is a delicious warm bath but with someone else’s hand on the hot tap. Once you’ve jumped the fall takes no courage or talent. I did a parachute jump once for a hospice charity. If you look up where you’ve come from it’s speeding away from you and you can never go back. It’s better to look at the ground because that’s where you’re headed and it’s an obtainable certainty. I knew by inviting her I’d crossed a frontier and as yet the guards hadn’t opened fire.’
I am pleased to be able to tell you that during July and August ‘ANGELA‘ the short story from the collection is FREE – so you can even try one before you buy the set!
I would like to thank Melanie for having me on her blog as part of my ‘Blowing My Own Trombone Book Launch Blog Tour’. If you want to read more excerpts from all the other titles in the collection – or would just like to hear me blow another tune, come along to the other blogs on my tour over the next 10 days:
17th July Anneli Purchase
18th July Love a Happy Ending Lifestyle Magazine
and Real Life According to Emma
20th July Sheryl Browne
21st July Nicky Wells
22nd July Melanie Robertson-King
25th July Bonnie Trachtenberg
26th July Patricia Sands
27th Stephanie Keys
28th Linn Halton
31st July Venture Galleries Authors Collection
About Emma Calin:
Emma Calin was born in London in 1962. She currently lives part of the year in the UK and spends the rest in France. She has been writing since childhood and has won numerous local, national and international prizes for poetry and short stories.
Emma enjoys writing love stories firmly rooted in social realism. She blogs about the contrasts in life on both sides of the English Channel, which she likes to explore on her tandem whenever weather and fitness coincide. She is a Lifestyle Contributor on Loveahappyending Lifestyle.
She defines herself as woman eternally pedaling between Peckham and Pigalle, in search of passion and enduring romance.
Emma Calin Links
The Love in a Hopeless Place Collection on Amazon Worldwide
For more books by Emma Calin: http://www.viewAuthor.at/EmmaCalin
Emma Calin Blog: http://www.emmacalin.blogspot.com
Emma Calin Website: http://www.emmacalin.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/emma.calin
Facebook Page for book: https://www.facebook.com/EmmaCalinBoxedSet
Twitter:@Emma Calin
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/emmacalin/
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4915751.Emma_Calin
What a beautiful way to start out the month of May
After the long, cold and snowy winter we had, it was wonderful to be able to tear another leaf off the calendar – May 1st. The temperatures were in the mid 20s Celsius which meant a body didn’t need to wear a coat although the morning did start out on the cool side.
When I go to work, I always take the motorway but when I come back home, I drive the road that runs along the river. It makes for a gorgeous drive in good weather. Last night was no exception. The river was like glass, it was so calm. It begged to be photographed. And so I did.
About halfway between home and work, is a village where there is a place to pull off the road and enjoy the scenery. It’s also where they fill up the volunteer fire department tankers. Still, you can work around the pipes that go into the water for that.
There is only one thing that would have made these photographs even more perfect than they already are – having one of the huge lake freighters passing by… although I have a better location in mind to capture that. One where it looks like the ships are close enough you can reach out and touch them. Here’s hoping I can capture that image soon.
Happy Christmas everyone!
Happy Christmas! It’s snowing here this morning making it look quite magical – that is until a gust of wind blows up, then it doesn’t look so nice, after all.
Yesterday’s wrapping marathon ended well after supper and the 4th gift bag I thought I had, well let’s just say, I didn’t have it anymore. At least I had a huge shopping bag from one of my favourite stores, so it was pressed into service. I just hope the recipient doesn’t think his gift came from there…
He’ll be disappointed if he does. Have a few other tricks up our sleeves, too. Enjoy your day with family and friends!
Today is the 200th anniversary of Grimm’s Fairy Tales
Remember those fantastic stories we grew up with? Listening to our parents read them to us and then when we were old enough to read, reading them ourselves?
Snow White
Hansel and Gretel
Rapunzel
Cinderella
Rumplestiltskin
Snow White and Rose Red
There were many others but these were among my favourites as a child. What were yours?
Another recording for TV…
It’s been a busy day for me here today at Celtic Connexions. First of all, I’m taking part in Janice Horton’s Spellbindingly Fun Blog Party, celebrating the launch of her new novella How Do You Voodoo? And secondly, because it had been arranged some time ago that I would do a spot for our cable company’s program Reader’s Corner.
The show’s host, Doreen Barnes, and I chatted about my novel, A Shadow in the Past. What made me decide I would write a book? Why I set it where I did? We talked about my characters, Sarah & Robert, the research involved, and what my favourite scene is.
I could give you all the answers now in my blog post, but then you wouldn’t want to watch the program when it comes on next month.
At the end of our interview, I was asked to read a very short (about 30 seconds) passage from my book. So I picked one that I hope will entice you into purchasing your very own copy.
For those of you who are local to Brockville and have cable you’ll be able to watch it on local channel 10. I’ll post the date and air time when I get it, but with so many of my followers being scattered to the four corners of the world, the episode should be shown on their website. TV Cogeco Readers Corner. Once the show goes online, I’ll post the complete link.
Not quite the ear-to-ear grin that I had in Kansas but still looking pretty pleased with myself.
You can buy A Shadow in the Past from the following:
In Canada:
ChaptersIndigo: http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/A-Shadow-In-The-Past-Melanie-Robertson-king/9780983801887-item.html?ikwid=a+shadow+in+the+past&ikwsec=Home
and if you’re local to Brockville, you can buy it from Leeds County Books, 73 King Street West or directly from me melanie@melanierobertson-king.com
In the US:
4RV Publishing: http://4rvpublishingcatalog.yolasite.com/robertson-king.php
Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-shadow-in-the-past-melanie-robertson-king/1112348992?ean=9780983801887
And in the UK: