Travel – Anne-Marie Ormsby

Behind the Book – Forest Dancer

Published on March 9, 2018March 6, 2018 by Anne-Marie Ormsby1 Comment

Forest Dancer - Susan Roebuck(1)

Sticking with my look at romance novels, and how woefully ill informed I am on them, I had the great pleasure to chat with author Sue Roebuck about her latest novel, Forest Dancer, a romance set in Portugal (somewhere I’ve always wanted to visit).

Tell us the basic premise of your novel?

It’s about overcoming self-doubt and having the courage to take life by the horns if necessary.

This is a short blurb: Forest Dancer is set in the magical forests just outside Lisbon, Portugal. Classical ballerina with a London company, Flora Gatehouse, has just recently lost her father, but she has also suffered a devastating blow in her career: her failed audition that sees her moving to a small cottage in Lisbon, Portugal, the only inheritance left to her by her father. She embraces the life of a small village with its dark secrets, and falls for the forest ranger, Marco. But the questions are can she totally become part of this little hamlet and can she ever reconnect with her dream to become a principal ballerina?

What was your main inspiration for the story?

I live close to Sintra (which is about twenty kilometres south west of Lisbon). ( Find out more about this gorgeous locations here ) Being British, I’ve always appreciated how cool and green Sintra is in the boiling hot summers of Lisbon and I’ve often been to ballets and concerts which are held on summer evenings at one of the many monuments in this magical place. Mind you, it was so misty one night that the ballerinas kept slipping about all over the damp stage.

I also love trees and forests (Sintra has its own national park) and I wanted to portray the beauty of them – and their mystery.

I have a thing about trees too…..(endless scary forest scenes in Purgatory Hotel)

When did you know you wanted to be a writer?

The answer’s going to be what all writers say: Always! When I was fourteen I entered a writing competition and won! Goodness knows what was going through my head but the little novelette was set in World War II (of which I knew nothing) in a small village in England. The inhabitants hated the fact that the army had built a training barracks on their land and were trying all sorts of ways to get rid of them. Sounds quite ambitious, doesn’t it? One day I’ll have to read it again. I think my brother gave me a bit of help – he gave me names for the characters, one of which was called Willy Wormtongue.

I’d love to read that!

If you could spend an evening in a Portuguese cottage drinking wine and eating good food, with any famous people – alive or dead- who would you choose?

Well, Byron visited Sintra and I think he would have to be one of the guests. We’d have a riotous time, I think, and drink all the wine that was on offer. Another guest would be Vasco de Gama who was the first explorer to navigate from Europe to Asia. I might have a go at him about his treatment of the natives he came across. Then I’d invite Saint Anthony of Lisbon because I like him and I think he and Byron would have a great discussion. And, also for Byron, I’d invite one of Portugal’s most famous poets and writers. I’d eavesdrop on their conversation for hints.

Ah Byron, I’d love to meet him, can I come too?

What are you working on next?

On another in the Portuguese series (the first one was called “Rising Tide” and set in the Alentejo region of Portugal – which is between Lisbon and the Algarve – in a small fishing village that time and most of Portugal has forgotten). “Forest Dancer” is the second. The next one is called “Joseph Barnaby” and takes place in Madeira. Joe is a farrier who prevents the favourite steeplechaser to run in the Grand National because he believes the horse isn’t fit enough to race. The aftermath of hate-mail, death threats and blackmail send him whirling into a deep depression and all he wants is to go to the end of the world. He finds just the place in Madeira.

Thank you so much for stopping by Sue!

You can get Forest Dancer from Amazon here

Keep up with Sue online and find out more about her here:

Links:

blog: http://www.susanroebuck.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SusanRoebuckauthor/?ref=bookmarks

Twitter: https://twitter.com/sueroebuck

Behind the Book – Topaz Eyes

Published on February 12, 2018February 9, 2018 by Anne-Marie Ormsby1 Comment

new TE(1)

It gives me great pleasure to welcome the the lovely Nancy Jardine to my blog today. Her book Topaz Eyes caught my eye and I wanted to get the background inspiration for such an amazing adventure!

Welcome Nancy, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me!

Hello, Anne-Marie. Thank you for the opportunity to visit your blog. I aim to ‘get out’ a lot more this year so your invitation is much appreciated!

Tell us the basic premise of your novel?

Topaz Eyes has been called a ‘fabulously dangerous quest for a precious collection of emerald jewellery’ that once belonged to a Mughal Emperor. It’s also been called ‘ a deep plot of intrigue across Europe’ and beyond. The novel centres on a fictitious European family of third generation cousins. In their hunt for hugely expensive missing jewellery that the family once owned, some cousins are nice but others are downright nasty, even murderous.

Why did you choose the locations you chose and do they hold any real life significance to you?

All are personally significant in some form. The story begins in the beautiful university town of Heidelberg, Germany, chosen because my daughter spent a year at the university and I visited her there. Keira Drummond, my main female character, also spent time at Heidelberg University – isn’t that an amazing coincidence (*wink, wink*)? Some of the action takes place in Amsterdam, Holland, because I lived in Holland for three years and adore the country. I won’t give away any spoilers but one of the complex relationships in the story mirrors a situation I found myself in when I lived in Holland. Vienna features just because it’s a fabulous place to be a tourist. I decided that one cousin had to be American so I used locations in Minnesota, USA, which I’ve also been to. Keira Drummond is an Edinburgh lass because I wanted a ‘Scottish’ element in the story.

What inspired this exciting adventurous novel?

Topaz Eyes is my second contemporary mystery that revolves around an ancestral theme. The first ‘Family Tree’ I invented for my mystery Monogamy Twist was a fairly simple one but when I started Topaz Eyes I wanted to create a much deeper mystery with a bigger cast of related characters who had a common purpose linking them together. I then had to think up an exceptionally absorbing reason for a bunch of third generation cousins to be on a murderous quest, family members who are essentially all strangers at the outset of the novel. The 1880s matriarch of the family is from an Amsterdam family who own a prestigious jewellery business. This meant I could have lots of contemporary action happen in different worldwide locations since her descendants end up scattered around after the Second World War. I mainly used my memories of the locations which meant only some up-to-date fact checking was necessary. I remember having a lot of laughs when I was creating the family tree and the incidents that happen in the story!

Did it take a lot of research to come up with the story behind the jewellery once owned by a Mughal Emperor?

My main research for this novel was about emerald collections, especially those originally owned by Mughal emperors. I’m fascinated that a piece of jewellery designed for a Mughal Emperor in 1580, 1680 or even 1780, could be completely different by 1880! I hadn’t really appreciated that designs created for a particular woman (wife or one of the many concubines) were rarely appropriate for another woman and that it was commonplace for the gems to be reset into new jewellery. That cemented a really deep mystery because if you don’t have many clues about what an item might currently look like, then how difficult is it to bring that collection together? Topaz Eyes ended up being a mystery within a mystery but you’ll have to read the story to uncover that connection!

If you could go on a global adventure with anyone (alive or dead) who would you choose?

I’m cheating here because although I write contemporary mysteries, I also write historical fiction. In Book 4 of my Celtic Fervour Series (unpublished), my main characters are mainly Celtic but there’s also General Gnaeus Julius Agricola. Agricola was the commander of the Ancient Roman army which marched all the way to north east Scotland in c. A.D. 84 and then they left without properly absorbing the area into the Ancient Roman Empire! The only reason we know this happened is because Agricola’s son-in-law – Cornelius Tacitus – wrote about Agricola’s military campaigns. I’d love to journey back to c. A.D. 95 and spend time in Rome because that’s probably when Tacitus was writing about Agricola’s exploits in northern Britannia (The Agricola was published in A.D. 96). That way I might get the true version of what happened! And…I’d love to describe to Tacitus what Rome is like today having visited there in 2016.

What are you working on next?

The big plan is to have Book 4 of my Celtic Fervour Series published in the spring (2018). After that I’ve got two projects already started that need a lot of work. The first is Book 2 of my Rubidium Time Travel Series- a Victorian adventure. The second is a family saga that begins in Scotland c. 1850 – Book 1 (of 3?) being another Victorian setting. Then in the fullness of time I’ll get back to Book 5 of my Celtic Fervour series…or maybe I should write that next? Who knows (**smiley face here**)

Nancy Jardine is a member of the Romantic Novelists Association, the Scottish Association of Writers, the Federation of Writers Scotland and the Historical Novel Society. She’s published by Crooked Cat Books and has delved into self publishing.

You can find her at these places:

Blog: http://nancyjardine.blogspot.co.uk Website: www.nancyjardineauthor.com/

Facebook: http://on.fb.me/XeQdkG & http://on.fb.me/1Kaeh5G

email: nan_jar@btinternet.com Twitter https://twitter.com/nansjar

Amazon Author page http://viewauthor.at/mybooksandnewspagehere

Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5139590.Nancy_Jardine

Behind the Book – The Silence

Published on December 6, 2017December 6, 2017 by Anne-Marie Ormsby3 Comments

The Silence

This week I was very fortunate to get to speak to Katharine Johnson, author of thriller The Silence. Ever since my early obsession with the Agatha Christie novel Sleeping Murder I have had an interest in stories about secrets and repressed memories, and this book fits that bill perfectly.

Naturally I wanted to get behind the book and find out where Katharine got her inspiration from for this dark tale.

Tell us the basic premise of your book?

Doctor Abby Fenton has a rewarding career, a loving family, an enviable lifestyle – and a secret that could destroy everything. When human remains are discovered in the grounds of an idyllic Tuscan holiday home she is forced to confront the memories she has suppressed until now and relive the summer she spent at the villa in 1992. A summer that ended in tragedy. The nearer she gets to the truth the closer she comes to losing her sanity. In order to hold onto the people she loves most, she must make sure they never discover what she did. But the reappearance of someone else from that summer threatens to blow her secret wide open

What made you choose the location of Tuscany and do the locations hold any significance for you personally.

I chose Tuscany because I love its multi-layered character. Beautiful locations often harbour a gruesome history. I wanted the backstory of The Silence to take place somewhere beautiful so that in Abby’s memory it would have a dreamlike quality, making it hard for her to decide if the events were real, and also somewhere hot so that as the temperature rises so do the tensions among the dysfunctional family she’s staying with.

I also felt that because many of these tiny mountain villages are so remote and the vegetation so fast-growing that it would be easy for a crime to remain hidden for many years. But with the trend for foreigners to restore old houses and turn them into holiday homes it was inevitable that the secret would be uncovered at some time.

Tuscany does have a personal significance for me. I’ve lived in Florence and have had a house near Lucca since 2003 where I wrote much of The Silence.

The book deals with secrets and the effects they can have on a person – did you find it difficult at all getting into the mind of your lead character?

The main character in my previous book was a 21 year old man with a violent temper living in the 1930s so by comparison writing Abby was a breeze! The thing about Abby is that because she’s very good at compartmentalising, her adult life is very normal – she could be any mum you see at the school gates and she has two little girls so I can relate to that. The dark secret obviously required imagination as my life is far less interesting but that’s what I love about writing – putting myself inside someone’s head and thinking, how would I deal with that situation?

What made you want to become a writer?

I’ve loved writing since childhood and wrote my first book aged nine about the adventures of a naughty chimp, probably influenced by Paddington stories which I loved. I’ve written for a living all my adult life but mostly as a magazine journalist. I’ve written about yachts, planes and automobiles but my favourite subject is houses. I’ve visited so many intriguing places with stories to tell although often these stories couldn’t be included in the feature, including a house that was haunted by Katherine, wife of John of Gaunt, one where a horrific suicide took place and one which the police interviewed me about because they were investigating the owner.

Do you have a favourite author?

So many! Overall it would have to be Barbara Vine. I love the way most of her characters are people on the outside of things and much more interesting than they appear

Who would you most like to sit down to dinner with to talk about books and solving crimes?

Patricia Highsmith – she could really get into the mind of a criminal

What are you working on next?

I’m really excited that my next novel The Secret will be published by Crooked Cat Books in 2018. Like The Silence it is about a secret harboured by Villa Leonida in the fictional mountain village of Santa Zita but this secret goes back to wartime. It’s about two girls growing up in Mussolini’s Italy. Their paths diverge after one of them marries into the family living in Villa Leonida where she discovers nothing is as she imagined, leading to a secret which has devastating consequences…

Well I am loving reading The Silence so I cant wait for the next book Katy! Thanks for chatting with me, look forward to another chat about your journey back to the sinister Villa Leonida……

Katharine Johnson

Grab a copy of The Silence here;

http://mybook.to/TheSilence

You can keep up with Katy by following the links below!

https://katyjohnsonblog.wordpress.com/

https://www.facebook.com/Katharinejohnsonauthor/?ref=bookmarks

http://www.twitter.com/kjohnsonwrites

Newsletter http://eepurl.com/cy3CEn

Behind the Book : The Girl in the Gallery

Published on November 27, 2017November 27, 2017 by Anne-Marie Ormsby1 Comment

Girl in the Gallery

I was drawn to this book by Alice Castle as I was aware that it was set in Dulwich, as was her last book ‘Death in Dulwich’. Being as I used to frequent the area when I lived in Peckham I was instantly snared, I love reading books set in London as I find it so much easier to get into stories when I know the setting well. London and a murder mystery – my ideal book – lucky for me Alice agreed to discuss her book ahead of its release on 19th December.

Tell us what your latest book is about

Hi Anne-Marie, thanks so much for hosting me! My latest book, The Girl in the Gallery, is a cozy crime murder mystery with a dash of romance. It’s set in the very beautiful Dulwich Picture Gallery, open to the public for 200 years this year. The book opens when my single mum amateur sleuth, Beth Haldane, stumbles on a terrifying new exhibit when she pops into the gallery before work. It’s the second in my London Murder Mysteries series, the first, Death in Dulwich, was published earlier this year, but you can read either as stand alone stories.

Did anything specific inspire the storyline?

My storyline is inspired by Dulwich Picture Gallery itself – it’s stuffed with amazing art, and the building itself is very unusual. At its heart is a mausoleum, containing the dead bodies of the original collectors in marble coffins, on display to the public. Weird and quite creepy! I have always thought it would be a brilliant location for a murder mystery.

Tell us more about Dulwich and any other London locations you use, do they hold meaning?

I love Dulwich. I lived there for four years, after returning from nearly a decade in Belgium. I found the area, and the people, really welcoming. I am repaying them by setting a series of grisly murders in their midst, which I really hope they won’t take the wrong way. It is a perfect, village-like setting, where people know everything about each other – or think they do. It’s a modern St Mary Mead, the place where Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple solved unspeakable crimes. I was really thrilled when a reviewer of my first book in the series, Death in Dulwich, said my heroine Beth Haldane was a modern Miss Marple. I’m planning to venture away from Dulwich with other books in the series but, like Beth, I will always have a soft spot for SE21.

Do you have a favourite author?

I have loads – Agatha Christie, of course, then Dorothy L Sayers, Margery Allingham, Ngaio Marsh, PD James, Ruth Rendell, Val McDermid, MC Beaton, Simon Brett… the list goes on. I love whodunits! I do read other books, I’m in a book group and I plod through whatever’s chosen, but I always come back to a nice murder mystery in the end.

What made you want to be a writer?

A teacher at my infants’ school. I can’t even remember her name, but she very kindly praised a sentence I’d written and I thought to myself, ‘this is something I can do.’ Good teachers are so wonderful and not nearly treasured enough.

If you could have a night of drinks and literary discussion with any writers (alive or dead) who would you choose?

Oh, I think Dorothy Parker would be a must, and then Shakespeare might be fun, Jane Austen of course… I think that lot might be daunting enough! I’m sure I wouldn’t open my mouth in that august company, but I’d be taking notes for my next novel, that’s for sure.

Will there be a 3rd instalment for Beth Haldane to solve?

There definitely will be a next installment, I am writing it now. It’s called Calamity in Camberwell and this time, Beth is on the trail of a missing friend, with plenty of obstacles thrown in her way. And she’s giving online dating a try! I’m hoping it will be out by mid-2018. After that, there’ll be plenty more mysteries to solve, if I have my way.

Get yourself over to Amazon now and pre-order The Girl in the Gallery here!

While you are there, grab the first Beth Haldene mystery Death in Dulwich

Alice

Alice Castle

MyBook.to/GirlintheGallery

MyBook.to/1DeathinDulwich

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Blog: DD’s Diary

Twitter: @DDsDiary

Behind the Book – ‘Oh! What A Pavlova’ by Isabella May

Published on October 13, 2017 by Anne-Marie OrmsbyLeave a comment

I recently had the good fortune to have a chat with author Isabella May about my book Purgatory Hotel. While we were talking I managed to ask a few questions of the lady herself as her new book held an interest for me.

Despite the light-hearted name and appearance of the book, its subject matter of domestic violence is a darker element that has been misrepresented so many times in the past. I was eager to see how she handles it. Plus there’s cake so, you know……

Tell us the basic premise of your novel

It’s a tricky one to condense down into an Elevator Pitch… but here goes:

One woman’s bid to flee her abusive relationship amidst the lure of cake, travel, many an unsuitable man, and the whispering of Glastonbury’s ley lines.

Did you take any inspiration for your story from real life?

I think it’s impossible for reality and fiction NOT to cross at some point. Whilst Kate’s story is fabricated, I have been through Domestic Violence myself, and I had a burning desire to dispel some of the myths that surround it. In particular, the misconception that only the uneducated and working class fall prey to abuse. DV does not discriminate! I also wanted to shine a light on the increasing phenomenon of the victim living two very different lives: one ‘for the cameras’ – ie. friends/family/the office… and the other, the very much darker existence that plays out when the curtains are drawn, the front door locked.

What do you think is the most accurate depiction of domestic violence on film or in a book?

I have yet to come across anything that accurately sums it up in its entirety, and I honestly think that’s because it is virtually impossible to do so. The one thing I have learned is that domestic violence doesn’t discriminate or pigeonhole. No two experiences are ever the same and the contrast from victim to victim is vast, all of which only highlights the need for open-mindedness. My own novel is in no way representative of the average domestic violence experience either. It’s just Kate’s story, but it does serve to life the lid on that all too common assumption: only the uneducated are abused.

What do you think the biggest, most represented myths around domestic violence are?

1: It can only happen to women. Many men are also affected.

2: That it is reserved for those who are poor, uneducated and working class. Anybody from any walk of life can find themselves in this situation.

3: That physical abuse happens on a daily basis. In Kate’s situation (in many situations) it doesn’t. The emotional abuse tends to play out as a daily ritual to grind the victim down. But the physical side of things can be sporadic, often with no ETA, taking the abused by complete surprise when they have let their guard down.
Onto a lighter subject…..Cake is a big theme in the book, what’s your favourite cake?

If I was really pushed to choose, then the classic Victoria Sponge. It’s so hard to beat, especially with fresh whipped cream and a cuppa to cut through it all. But I adore most cake (with the exception of anything from a Clean Eating recipe… or containing chunks of stem ginger!)

Why did you choose the setting you chose, and do the locations hold any real life significance to you?

I had long felt (and still do!) that Glastonbury is under-represented in mainstream fiction. It was high time it took centre stage. As for the other locations, many of them I have visited, and as I adore travel, it was a great way for me to pay homage to some fabulous international cities… and their cake!

Did it take a lot of research for your locations and story line?
I had to jog my memory as to some of the sights, sounds and smells. Pinterest made the perfect place to do that… as well as get sidetracked by its millions of hygge-esque pictures.

I’m intrigued by the mention of Glastonbury ley lines in the synopsis… can you tell me anything about the role they play?

The ley lines are a metaphor really for all of the spiritual signs that Kate collates throughout the story. They get louder and louder as the plot develops. But will she act on their advice? Or will fear and procrastination have its way?

What are you working on next?

My second novel is called The Cocktail Bar. Once again, it is set in Glastonbury and it will be published on 13th February 2018. Here’s a bit of blurb:

Rock star, River Jackson is back in his hometown of Glastonbury to open a cocktail bar… and the locals aren’t impressed.Seductress Georgina is proving too hot to handle, band mate Angelic Alice is messing with his heart and his head, his mum is a hippie-dippy liability, his school friends have resorted to violence – oh, and his band manager, Lennie AND the media are on his trail.But River is armed with a magical Mexican elixir which will change the lives of the Three Chosen Ones. Once the Mexican wave of joy takes a hold of the town, he’s glad he didn’t lose his proverbial bottle.

Pity he hasn’t taken better care of the real one…

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You can get a copy of the book here; Oh! What A Pavlova – in paperback and on Kindle

You can follow Isabella May on her website and social media here:

www.isabellamayauthor.com

Twitter – Isabella May

Facebook

Instagram – @isabella_may_author

About London

Published on August 29, 2012August 29, 2012 by Anne-Marie Ormsby2 Comments

There’s this idea that people should know the very moment when they fall in love, that for some reason there would be a moment, ‘stars would explode in the sky’ as Nick Cave put it. But they don’t, there is no epic firework display, the earth continues to turn and nobody else on earth knows it has happened. That’s why you forget the precise moment.

I don’t recall the moment I knew I was in love with London; I think it had built slowly over the years. But I feel it more clearly now, every morning when my bus turns out onto London bridge and suddenly the sides fall away, I am over the river and I can see the city laid out before me, Tower Bridge to my right, St Pauls to my left, and everything in-between and I catch a breath, my heart swells and I feel it. Love.

I grew up out on the coast in south east Essex, an idyllic childhood of parks and playgrounds and trips to the beach after school. I used to walk home from school sometimes along the seafront, even in winter just to feel the biting air and feel alive again after a day of dusty brained learning and stuffy classrooms. I knew I was lucky to grow up there, 45 minutes train ride from London and blessed with fresh air and man-made beaches.

When I was younger, my parents used to take me to London once a year during the October half term holidays. It was so busy and lively and the shops sold things I didn’t see back home, bookshops there were palaces of literature laid out on several floors where I would lose whole afternoons in the poetry section.

I always longed to visit Whitechapel due to my interest in creepy tales of Jack the Ripper but it remained a mysterious tube station that we never got off at. As far as I was concerned it was all still dark alleys and Victorian street urchins up there. As an older teenager I visited Camden with friends and felt at home in all the alternative shops and market stalls, although always slightly nervous of the enormity of it, days out would end with a tired scuttle back to Fenchurch Street and what felt like the longest train journey ever.

In my 20’s I visited a few more times, going to gigs mainly, staying over in hotels occasionally, but I still felt so removed from it all, like it was all behind glass and I was just there as visitor in a giant museum.

When I was 29 I went to Brick Lane for the first time and I loved it, shortly after some of my friends moved to Whitechapel so I started going up more regularly, finally getting off the tube at that mysterious station. The first time I went up on my own felt weird, I was going to places I had never been before and instead of that feeling of distance, I was starting to feel at home.

The day after my 30^th birthday I went on a date with the man I eventually married. We met up at Fenchurch Street and spent the whole day walking around, along the Southbank and back into the city where we wandered down alleyways and found hidden churches, gargoyles and streets empty of life. He showed me a part of London I had never seen before. The City of London is a different place on a Sunday compared to the weekdays when people pour in and out of the skyscrapers and fill in all the gaps between the buildings. At the weekend all that remains is quiet corners, old buildings and new building living side by side quite peacefully, endless amounts of closed branches of Starbucks and Eat that have no purpose without the city workers that fill them during the week days.

I think maybe I fell in love twice that day. With the man I had just met and with the city I had just been shown.

I left my life by the coast and got a job in North London, soon after I moved to South London. I had never lived anywhere other than where I grew up but it felt right, like it was time for me to move on.

I have lived in London for 4 years now, and I never ever get tired of it; my journey to work takes me from the foot of the Shard, past Southwark Cathedral, past Monument, up Bishopsgate, past the Gherkin and the Heron, through Shoreditch and to Hackney. Every morning I look out from the bus as though it’s all still new to me, it’s all still so beautiful to me.

At weekends we take long walks, to Brick Lane and Spitalfields, along the Southbank to Westminster or over to the back streets of Covent Garden and Soho. The difference for me now is that I don’t feel distant anymore, that I belong and I am part of it. Even though my awe still allows that feeling of visiting a giant museum, I feel now that instead of being behind glass I can touch the exhibits and even wander around back rooms not open to the public.

I take photographs incessantly like a day-tripper, I go to an endless supply of art and photography exhibitions, I wander back streets looking for street art and I say a prayer every time I have to brave Oxford Street. I know I won’t live here forever, for one reason or another I will end up by the coast again one day, so while I am here and its all on my doorstep I want to see as much as I can.

This summer in London has been wonderful, the energy and excitement around the Olympics was inspiring; for all our pre-Olympic moaning about stupid mascots, transport and other problems we all got swept away by the ridiculously happy vibe that was created once we started winning gold medals. The transport system ran fine, people talked to each other, we hugged ugly Wenlock and Mandeville statues around town.

London fell in love with itself.

I have so much to say about London, but the rest can wait.