Spring, book events, and pancakes
Hello everyone!
The sun has been shining and it’s been warm enough to have coffee in the garden for the first time this year – spring has sprung, so of course this is the time to be getting into some ghost stories! A second volume of collected short stories from my podcast, Creepy Classics: Ghost Stories from Ancient Greece will be coming out later in the season, in April. It will be a beach read with a difference – or, if you live in the Southern Hemisphere, it’s just coming into the right time of year for it!
Meanwhile, February has been a good month. I did a reading at Stourbridge Library where I met some really lovely people, and was able to give a bit of tourist advice for the city of Rome, putting all my experience leading field trips to good use. I’m busy at the day job for a few weeks, but I’ll be going to the Birmingham Book Extravaganza on the May Day Bank Holiday on 5th May at Lightwoods Park and House in Bearwood, where I’ll be selling and signing and chatting, so do stop by and say hi if you’re in the area.
It's Pancake Day (aka Shrove Tuesday) on 4th March, so this month’s historical fun fact comes from my research for a YouTube video I’ve been recording, talking about pancake day traditions while making some classic British pancakes (very badly, as I’m out of practice, I usually make French or American style pancakes!). It turns out my inability to toss pancakes could have got me into a lot of trouble in the past. According to Ben Gazur’s fascinating book A Feast of Folklore, back in the early 20th century in some parts of Britain, women who dropped the pancake were hauled outside and had their faces blackened with ash from the fire. On a happier note, in The English Year, Steve Roud traces the modern British tradition of the pancake race to the town of Olney in Buckinghamshire, where women have been competing for a world title with the town of Liberal in Kansas since 1950. I checked the official website (http://olneypancakerace.org/) and it’s still going strong. As of 2024, Liberal are in the lead with 40 wins to Olney’s 32.
Thanks for reading, and don’t let that big ball in the sky distract you from enjoying some spooky tales!
Juliette