Two-week Coronavirus lockdown again. The entire city
of Santiago. If I’m not allowed out, I determine to make good use of my free
time (when not cooking, sweeping, ordering groceries on line). So this is the
perfect time to pour myself into my writing. Right? My historical novel based
on the life of a Scottish great-aunt. It’s actually more research than writing.
The research takes me there. As I study the family tree on my computer screen,
long dead family members come alive. The past few days I’ve been reading about
early 19th century Gibraltar, where my grandmother spent time as a
governess for a naval captain’s children. I have a few photographs she took
while there which give me inspiration and give flight to my imagination – two
small boys in sailor suits, the family with my grandmother, officers in dress uniform, aa Royal Navy steamship.
What better way to get
into a Scottish frame of mind than to immerse myself in the world of the Outlander
series? Jamie Fraser is my kind of Scotsman: blue-eyes, red hair, powerful
physique and winning accent. Exposed to my Outlander marathon, I just may slip
into speaking like a true Scotswoman! After all, it’s in my DNA.
So I deal with quarantine
retreating into an imaginary world. Aye, I’ve sighed over Jamie Fraser’s brawny
good looks, but it’s difficult to imagine myself with someone that young. By
the last episode, I’d changed my loyalties for that tough, gray-bearded rakish
Murtagh Fitzgibbons Fraser. Enamored, I check him out on Google. Damn. He’s
twenty years younger than I.
Well, I did marry a
Gordon, a Spanish-speaking Chilean, twice removed from Scotland. The only thing
Scottish about him is his last name. When I met him, he looked more like Pancho
Villa, moustache and all, than Jamie or Murtagh.
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