Pam Webb

a writer's journey as a reader

Archive for the category “romance”

04 Apr 2025
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See (the) Gulls


As retired empty nesters the hubs and I are on the low key retirement plan. No RV or exotic journeys are on the agenda. Doing jigsaw puzzles, reading books, talking walks, backyard birding, and watching a good mystery series are adventurous enough for us. Going Costco and lunch is a big outing for us.

I will confess we will get really crazy now and then and binge three episodes of Dr. Blake pushing our bedtime past 10:30 pm.

Now this might either sound like an extremely boring way to spend what is considered our twilight years or it might be an ideal of retirement life. To each their own, eh?

Three years into retirement and we are in a groove and spontaneity is perhaps not so much on our minds anymore. Staying at home is quite pleasant actually. Why spend money and have to deal with other people? I know—this mindset does limit date ideas when we do decide to go out.

So on the third rainy day when cabin fever was setting in my no-let’s-stay home husband got a glimmer in his eye and suggested going for a drive.

Yes, it was still raining out. But getting out was needed, plus maybe spontaneity has its place. I assented and off we drove.

Truthfully, driving around town in the rain is not that fun although parking the car overlooking the marina proved rather pleasant.

As we sat there gazing at the rain languidly connecting with the bay I laughed as the windows began steaming up, wondering if cars passing by were wondering what we were up to. It’s nice to know that after 40 years of marriage we still can generate heat in a parked car. Admittedly it was all talk and no action.

It is nice that we still have the capacity of great conversation after four plus decades of marriage. The topic at hand was why were there year round seagulls residing at an inland lake. In our thirty or so years living in a town that boasts having an impressively large freshwater lake that has always been on my mind.

So we asked Siri, which I have named Jarvis, after selecting a British voice for my iPhone AI.

Well, they aren’t seagulls. In fact there is no such thing as a seagull. There are only gulls. And some live by the sea.

Sea period. Gull period.

My goodness that stumped us. How do I possibly unlearn a lifetime of calling a bird by the wrong name?

The point of this post is that if we hadn’t veered from our comfortable lifestyle for a bit of spontaneous getaway time we would not have learned a most enlightening fact.

So—take a moment to do something a bit different than usual (a hearty recommendation is to stay safe and sane in your decision) because you just might have an opportunity to learn something worth knowing.

Yes, and the bonus of our outing is realizing that I am my husband’s best gull friend.

Posted in Family, humor, memories, Reflections, romance and tagged , , ,
20 Feb 2017
1 Comment

POM: February


Just a wee past Valentine’s Day, yet I thought I would let all the mush bucket poetry have its spotlight. I offer up Yeats for February:

 

Aedh Tells of the Perfect Beauty

W. B. Yeats, 1865 – 1939

O cloud-pale eyelids, dream-dimmed eyes,
The poets labouring all their days
To build a perfect beauty in rhyme
Are overthrown by a woman’s gaze
And by the unlabouring brood of the skies:
And therefore my heart will bow, when dew
Is dropping sleep, until God burn time,
Before the unlabouring stars and you.

Image result for Aedh Tells of the Perfect Beauty

Academy of American Poets image

 

This a love poem for poets. Yeats expresses well how poets work their words to exalt the beauty found in rhyme and rhythm. Not exactly Valentine’s Day–which is why I waited. This is a poem for lovers who love words. And that’s all year round for me.

Posted in poems, Reflections, romance, Words and tagged ,
02 Oct 2015
10 Comments

Author Snapshot: D.E.Stevenson


As we know authors wax and wane in popularity. Books that eager readers  once  grabbed off the shelves now forlornly gather dust, or go out of print or end up in the free bin. That’s why it’s exciting when an author can rekindle interest and prove she still holds staying power forty years after her death and last book was published. The author? D.E. Stevenson. Her devotees are known as “Dessies.”

  Some fine facts:

  • Dorothy Emily Stevenson was a related to THE Robert Louis Stevenson.
  • Educated by a governess and denied college because her father didn’t want an educated woman in the family.
  • She published nearly fifty books in her career.
  • At the height of her career, her books sold in the millions internationally.
  • A granddaughter discovered a couple of manuscripts in the attic in 2011 and they were immediately snapped up and published.
  • Being Scottish, most of her plots center around Scotland and England, with WWI and WWII’s affect on its people often being a main theme. 
  • Her books gave clear insights into the lives of those who called the countryside their home.
  • Adept at characterization, her books often overflowed and intermingled with one another.
  • Died in 1973, yet beginning in 2009, her books are slowing being reissued.

A snippet from a BBC article

Members of Stevenson’s family are amazed by her enduring popularity. Her daughter, Rosemary Swallow, remembers how her mother worked.

“She would sit down on the sofa, put her legs up and light a cigarette,” she said.

“She had a special writing board, a wooden board covered in green baize and she would just carry on writing whatever was going on around her.

“She was very, very good at character writing. There’s no rude sex or anything like that, just a good yarn with a beginning, a middle and an end.”

On a personal note: 

I discovered her books about twenty years ago when working at a public library. A friend and co-worker knew I preferred “gentle” reads and suggested Stevenson. I read everything the library owned, and even ventured into the scary overflow storage basement to retrieve forgotten copies. 

Currently I’m on a mission to read all her titles. The writing is solid, with its intriguing plots involving mysteries, light romance, and brilliant characterization. When I’m feeling a bit lost due to stress from a long week, I find myself again by reading a Stevenson novel.  

Posted in historicals, popular books, romance, writers and tagged , , ,

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