One More Thing

Elizabeth is an addicted knitter. She knits for the whole family, sometimes to their great despair. She’s made hats, scarves, blankets, sweaters and lots of baby things. She even knit a necklace.

If you’re on Ravelry, you can find her projects at Knitfiction.

She doesn’t really call herself a serious gardener, but she particularly likes to experiment with perennials. She always takes pictures of her flowers because she’s never sure where they will be next year or if they will come back at all. So here are some of her favorite successes.

In fact, Elizabeth is a creative addict. Besides knitting and gardening, she loves to cook and take photographs.

One of her photographs won honorable mention in a contest.

Marking Time

Another of her photographs she used as the cover of the ebook edition of her novel, ISLAND JUSTICE. It was actually taken on Herm, one of the Channel Islands.

Distant Island, The cover for Island Justice

She also paints and sketches, but not well enough to show you anything she’s done.

Well, here’s just one sketch she did, a copy of a Manet painting.

Parisian Woman

But, better than that, here’s a watercolor her grandmother did of the rocks off the coast of New England. If Elizabeth could paint as well as her grandmother, she’d be very happy.

Grandmother’s Painting

Elizabeth is working on a book about her parents’ love affair in England during World War II so she’s been interviewing her mother about her childhood. Elizabeth’s mother grew up in Gibraltar where the Barbary Apes live in a special preserve at the top of the Rock.
Here’s a bit of one interview.

We had a cook ,a housemaid and a parlor maid and a laundress who came in by the day. She heated the water in a charcoal stove. All the laundry had to be done by hand and hung up in these endless lines on the roof. The Gibraltar apes would come down and raid the laundry. They’d try to put the clothes on. You didn’t argue with the apes because they bit you.

Elizabeth traveled to Gibraltar to do research for this family history and saw exactly what her mother was talking about.

Ape in Gibraltar

She found the house where her mother grew up.

Mother’s Childhood Home

… and the graveyard where her great-grandparents are buried.

Graveyard

Elizabeth was once asked to speak at the rededication of the Public Library in Jordanville, New York because it was given to the citizens of Jordanville by her great-grandfather, Douglas Robinson and his wife, Corinne Roosevelt Robinson,

Corinne Roosevelt Robinson

who was President Theodore Roosevelt’s sister. On August 26, 1908, President Roosevelt dedicated the library.

On August 23rd, 100 years later, Elizabeth, his great grand-niece, rededicated it.

Elizabeth Speaking at re-dedication

The President himself , couldn’t be there, but somebody who looked a lot like him made a speech also.