Westward Ho!

The house clearance and tidy-up continues, and I must confess that I am feeling a little like Harry, Ron and Hermione in The Order of the Phoenix as they struggled to clean up Sirius’ house; there’s so much to be done that it doesn’t seem as if I’m making any progress, though I know I am.

Today I was working on what has become the storage room, where many treasures, including a load more of my great-uncle’s art and some antique, and some interesting, books have been unearthed, and from which a lot of rubbish has been taken. The room looks significantly tidier but there remains a lot to do since it has now been organised into sections that include: take to the charity shop, sort through and decide on later, and, the biggest pile, to be disposed of (unfortunately this pile includes several pieces of furniture that aren’t all that easy to dispose of; I see a saw and a lot of effort in my future.

Since I am currently taking a break from being a house-elf I thought I would take the time to post a little something here and to get some work done on my novel.

As I mentioned in my last post about the family treasures, I found a book presented to my great-aunt when she was at school, it is in immaculate condition and here it is for you all to see.

Charles Kingsley

Set initially in Bideford in North Devon during the reign of Elizabeth I, Westward Ho! follows the adventures of Amyas Leigh (Amyas Preston), an unruly child who as a young man follows Francis Drake to sea. Amyas loves local beauty Rose Salterne, as does nearly everyone else; much of the novel involves the kidnap of Rose by a Spaniard.

Amyas spends time in the Caribbean sea and Venezuela seeking gold, and eventually returns to England at the time of the Spanish Armada, finding his true love, the beautiful Indian maiden Ayacanora, in the process; yet fate had blundered and brought misfortune into Amyas’s life, for not only had he been blinded by a freak bolt of lightning at sea, but he also loses his brother Frank Leigh and Rose Salterne, who were caught by the Spaniards and burnt at the stake by the Inquisition.

I found several other books during my clearing up, 2 on information and advice of one sort or another from the first half of the 19th century and another on ghost and horror stories from the Victorian era; I was thinking I might treat you all to some excerpts in future posts.