ROW80 End of Round Wrap Up, and Visits to Yvoire (France) and Gruyeres, plus Photos from Vaud (Switzerland)

nd of another ROW80 round! I'm not ready!


My goals and progress seems to have gotten a bit scattered since the last round. The full set of goals and their various stages of completion look like this:



enter handwritten edits to The Handful of Time (working title) and reread: still trying to finish this

query Druid's Moon: haven't done this yet

query The Charm of Time: I did! No bites...

keep editing Mystery at Bertram's Hotel (working title) on paper: I finished this!

enter handwritten edits to Mystery at Bertram's Hotel: not started yet because --

enter handwritten edits to Captive of the Sea: a new goal, because Harlequin have put out a call for medieval romances

do required research for stories and come up with proper titles

back to school!: this is what took up most of my time. But I'm all done my first year!

think about short story anthology: I did a cover mock up. It needs work

I'm also really far behind in updating my list of books read (see below)...

knitting: I started and finished two craft projects, a quilt square and a blanket. Then I started another blanket:

new baby blanket

finished blanket

a handful of books spirited from my grandmother's house, which I used to read and reread often
(among all the other books I'd still like to bring home with me from her house!)

apologies if you can't read the story -- I see it's available online! The Gift of Understanding by Paul Villiard

 have a tissue or handkerchief handy!

There are many, many good articles in this March 1965 issue of Reader's Digest

As for not meeting all my goals, part of it has been due to school, part due to general tiredness from my announcement, and part thanks to visits from family and friends!

Some quick snaps (apologies for the photo quality and the fact that not all of them are right side up. The latest Windows has no photo editing programme, and I don't have any dedicated software. I didn't put any of these through any filters on my phone, either):


We went back to Yvoire, France (on the ferry!), and I got to visit the Garden of the Five Senses for the first time:

kitty

the garden of the five senses, with separate areas filled with flowers for smelling, tasting, touching, etc.

the loveliest smelling roses I've smelled in a long time

there was also jasmine, lavender, sage, and many other lovely scents that were new to me

soft flowers

road down to the lake

view of the castle from a rooftop restaurant (the 13th Century church, off to the right, didn't fit in the frame, unfortunately)

back on terra firma

And we visited Gruyères for the first time in all our years here!

alp horns!

how it used to look, back in the 1930s

the church, from the castle

H R Giger museum (but we didn't go in!)

castle, from the church

more interesting arches

tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurant, in a building that's hundreds of years old and used to be where the village goats were kept (attended by the Bonnets Rouges, or Lutins, little elf/goblin-like creatures)

seasonal views of the mountains, which we couldn't see at all, given the overcast day

Added shots from our canton:

purple!

La Coudre Bed and Breakfast. This place would be perfect for a writers' retreat!

Lavaux vineyards from the train

Have you visited anywhere new recently?

Which flower scent is your favourite?