The UK edition of the book is very handsome - there's a giveaway for UK, Europe and Commonwealth readers only - on Michelle's Bleedingespresso blog. The UK print run is quite small so take your opportunity to grab a copy of this edition for free!

Michelle's blog is widely (and deservedly) popular. It deals with many aspects of her expat life in Calbria, with writing, food, animals, books, and local life and landscapes. Not only this but there is hard, useful information about these matters, too - she was a lawyer in her previous life. She is friendly and responsive, and so dropping by at her blog is a bit like calling on a sociable, smart and literate friend

I was looking through my pictures today to see if I could find one that suited this post, and got sidetracked (as usual). I realised that many of the pictures that interest me show some kind of ambiguity. That mysteriousness is one of the things that attracted me to Carroll, too. Here's one I took in Shobdon, Herefordshire. It has absolutely nothing to do with Michelle, Calabria, Carroll, the book, or anything, of course. It's a view through a window of the curious little gothic church at Shobdon.

Window at Shobdon church


The original church was very old, and the lord of the manor who pulled it down, re-erected some of the facade at the top of a nearby hill, as a sort of folly. Folly indeed - it was almost unique and now the weather has nearly worn it away. Yet it has acquired a new, and different atmosphere.

The old facade

Shobdon now is a very peculiar place. The estate has been broken up and the manor is apartments. I'll write about it more another time, but here's a picture of the road that leads up to the church. As the sun set and the mists gathered, it felt like walking into another time.

Keep walking...