la_marquise

The laurels are not mine: there shall be no triumph, no confetti, no preseerves... Despite my sterlingest efforts (4100 words! In three hours! In a sixteenth century castle!), I am defeated. Oi, moi, woe is me, alack comma alas...
desperance, sir, I bow beneath your chariot wheels. Name your cake!

In other news, at least the eternal emo book is finished. Yay. Now I can think about something else, though no doubt it will now need re-writing. The sun is shining, we are surrounded by early modern splendour and I am on holiday with only one skirt. (Long velevet and lace and so on burgundy.) The marquis scents castles ahead and is growing restive... I must away. Be good out there.

Back in October, the marquis and I spent a very enjoyable week in northern Alsace, hunting down as many as we could of its castles. Alsace is one of the most heavily encastellated places there is: it sits along the line of the Vosges mountain range and was for centuries a border territory, debated by many forces and possessed of its own militant and combative aristocracy. The latter built many many castles, to defend their lands from both outsiders and neighbours, and to stamp their own authority on the landscape. The result is a land with several hundred castles, mostly of 12th and 13th century date, most up mountains, many built onto and into rock pillars. We managed to see 30+ of them last time, all without going more than 50-60 km from where we were staying. But there are a lot more.
As regular readers know, the marquis loves his castles. The fact that there are a whole lot more that he didn't get near last time has been weighing on his mind. So early tomorrow we're off on our travels again, for another week's intensive castling. We're staying in the town of Eguisheim, http://www.ot-eguisheim.fr/ which is endowed with three fortified towers of its very own plus two more castles within walking distance, which should keep himself busy for at least some of Sunday. There are many more within driving range.
We're going by train. We planned to do so last time, but the Eurotunnel unsportingly caught fire (I told them tunnels were dangerous) so it'll be a longish journey -- Cambridge - London - Paris - Strasbourg and then collecting a hire car and heading on to Eguisheim. My bag is packed, a taxi to get us to the station is booked and a table is reserved for a week on Saturday at the amazing Strasbourg cheese restaurant http://www.cheese-gourmet.com/restous.html
All of which means I'll be off line for just over a week from late tonight. Have fun, be good (or careful, as you chose). (Grass King is going with me. IT needs to be kept moving. Oh, and so is the Sekrit Projekt. I have thoughts, I have plans...)

Words added to Grass King: 1076
Skirt of the day: denim