As noted in "About," GP is a western New Yorker born and bred, who has returned after the death of his beloved Victoria. And like Wordsworth in another Lake District, GP brought new eyes back to old home ground, leaving "old, unhappy, far-off things, /And battles long ago." (from "The Solitary Reaper")
And it's with fresh eyes that GP wrote Book Three of THE CHESTERFIELD HOURS, setting its happy ending on a wine estate above Canandaigua Lake, a sort of Brigadoon with its own reality and its own ethereal magic (no wonder ghostly mum Daphne finds it so congenial). And so on this page GP will add images and links to places he's still discovering, places for you in turn to discover... In the words now of Whitman, "Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems, /You shall possess the good of the earth and sun... " (from "Song of Myself")
Whitman proclaimed himself a great tramp or idler, but his are no idle words. For the Finger Lakes are gorgeous and parallel glacial miracles, whose shoreline slopes hold in a beneficent moist warmth, by which grapes grow subtly sweet, and world-class wine follows. GP's home, Canandaigua, was named one of the "10 Most Romantic Small Towns in North America" in Feb. 2012 by SmarterTravel.com. Honestly, there's good reason the Seneca Indians named Canandaigua "The Chosen Spot."
The discerning reader of THE CHESTERFIELD HOURS will notice the loving pleasure taken in good food and drink, in the glories of God's earth, in all creatures great and small. So do come to Canandaigua, drive down the west shore by Chesterfield's and Carrie's estate, all the way to The Brown Hound Bistro in Bristol, home to the freshest, most imaginatively prepared Finger Lakes cuisine, and put your dog's photo on the rest room wall with the rest of the canine pack. Then shop for wine and gourmet foods next door at The Grapery, retail outlet for Arbor Hill Winery.