The body farm

Last weekend was a total washout weather wise. Half of York was underwater, roads were flooded and the garden was a soggy mess. It was a good weekend to be a duck. It was also good weekend to stay indoors and read if you ask me. There is nothing better than a Sunday afternoon when it’s raining cats and dogs, to curl up on the sofa with a good book and a hot chocolate (Ok a glass of red but hot chocolate sounded better in that particular scenario!)

However this weekend the parents were visiting, so rather than stay indoors we braved the elements and took a trip over to Knaresborough and Harrogate. Both of these are lovely places. Knaresborough has a great walk down by the river, where you can stare at all the houses you can’t afford and look at all the amazing gardens. This is not so much fun however, in gale force winds, temperatures that penguins would moan about and sheeting rain.

This was also the weekend for the Harrogate Flower Show. Whilst a bit of mud never hurt anyone, I went on the Thursday and you needed your wellies. By Sunday I imagine even pigs would have been calling for their sties to be on stilts. Luckily I managed to dodge the worst of the showers and pretty much see everything the flower show had to offer.

One of my favourite bits was the outdoor gardens, this year the theme was ‘small spaces’ (I have to say their idea of small was a bit different to mine, they were definitely free range size, my garden is more a battery hen size) One of these ‘small’ gardens was called The Writers Pad, which was a decking area, some shelves with books on them, a seat with a bench for a laptop and a water feature. The idea being it was meant to provide inspiration for writers.

Putting aside the obvious practical issue of storing books outside in this country, whilst it was lovely and calming, it wasn’t really what I would call inspirational. I suppose it depends what type of books you want to write as to what you would want as inspiration. Beatrix Potter would have probably been quite at home in the Writers Pad, dreaming up stories for Froggy the frog.

As a crime reader personally I thought that the Farming Museum I went to on Saturday with my Dad would provide more inspiration. If they got rid of the lambs and baby rabbits, it could have been renamed Museum of killing instruments. Massive machines with big spikes and conveyer belts were everywhere. Allegedly most of them were for turnip related things, but it looked like a great place to dismember and dispose of bodies if you ask me. They even had a man trap hanging on the wall (to be used on poachers not just passing single men!)

It would be interesting to know what does inspire crime readers, do they all sit around with pictures of torture and weapons on their walls, or do they look out over calming waterfalls and flying geese (real flocks, not the Hilda Ogden version) Personally were I to write a book a nice wet day would be my best inspiration, at least I live in the right country for it.