Granny Wildgoose and Her Ilk

On Saturday I snagged a bargain at Ashbourne Oxfam Book - Once Upon a Time by Marina Warner.  It looked new and never even read. 

I read it on Sunday and felt inspired to write, which I haven't for a while.

But then I'm trying to write in work hours and not at the weekend.  So I decided to leave it until today to see if I was still inspired.  A gamble, you might think.

Well, I piddled about, doing this and doing that for most of the sunny morning.  Then I made some notes from Once Upon a Time, starting getting inspired again.  Ending my reading at this point:

Possibly the genesis of folk horror, I thought.  Stopped to tell facebook (nobody cared).  Then I looked outside at the sunny garden and went out ...

Then I did some nature journaling:

Then had lunch, then sat down at the computer, and .. wrote!  I was still inspired.  The words kept rolling under my fingers until I saw, with surprise, it was time for yoga.  Just time to run down town for my class.

Tomorrow, I am hoping that I will go back and carry on where I was, with Mrs Aimson investigating the Button Gypsies.

The Books Have Arrived!

OMGA! The books have finally arrived.  Yesterday, in the midst of an unwelcome return of snow, I finally put the first five The Lost Book of Fleams pocket books on Etsy.

The pocket books are an A6 book with around 22 - 25 pages of storytelling.  The first one

is a stand-alone short story.  It is not set in Fleams, but in the modern day area of the Peak District near to the original site of Fleams.  Like all the pocket books, it comes with its own greetings card by way of illustration.  The books are illustrated on the cover and the card with the woodcut-style lino-prints I have been working on for the last couple of years.

Here is an example of a pocket book and the contents of the pack.

The next pocket books available are an adventure that Kate W Aimson has before she reaches Fleams: The Haunted Castle.  It is also set in the Peak District, but in Kate's time of 1912.

The card with this book is in the woodcut style, and an illustration of Lady Amelia, one of the characters in the story:

We continue the adventure in

Part 2, with its skull card.

There are plenty of skulls in the story.  Skulls and sewing - that's what we like!

The story ends with Part 3:

Which is illustrated with historical shirt.  Why - because I like gussets.  The left-hand sleeve is raised so you too can admire the gusset.

But Kate, you are saying, is there an easy way to read the whole adventure in one go?  Yes, there is, you can buy the three parts together in one pack, thus solving the problem of having to wait to find out what happens next.

The trilogy pack comes with one greeting card, the lady Amelia.

The first background you can see are The Lost Book of Fleams stall which will be appearing somewhere near you sometime soon.  The second lot of backgrounds are pages from Fenny Bentley's Pattern Book, brought here from Fleams by Kate W Aimson in one of her adventures to be released later this year.

I have many fleamsy adventures to bring to you, and I will be releasing new Fleams pocket books each month.  TTFN

Hedgehog Diarrhoea on My Doorstep

This morning when I left the house there was a long trail of hedgehog diarrhoea on the doormat (the doormat is outside).  I thought to myself that if I wrote a book about life in the country, I would call it "Hedgehog Diarrhoea on the Doorstep".  How do you think it would sell?

Here is a pretty picture for people who like their countryside pretty and not poo-ey.

p.s. if you look closely you can see a glimpse of Aimo on the far right.  Oops, gave that away, Aimo isn't really on the far right.

 

 

Art and Mushrooms (or Toadstools, who knows?)

Here are a few snaps from the weekend:

It was Wirksworth Festival again, so a visit there.  Everything was pretty bad, except for Cheryl's stuff, which was going to be in the Chemist shop window, but ended up in the vicar's garage, which was really creepy (in a good way):

Then the art showcased in the church was so poor I took a picture in the porch instead.  Quite arty, eh?

Then Sunday was really sunny, and we had a visit to Nine Ladies.

We saw some great fungi:

Possible ID: The sulphur Tuft?  According to the book it is extremely common, and grows on rotting tree-trunks, so that sounds like it to me, but you may know better.

All in all, a good weekend.

Misty Mountains and some other stuff

Here are two sides to our trip to Iceland:

the beautiful open views;

the Phallological Museum.

I will borrow some of Aimo's photos to show you some more things in Iceland in a later post.

Bridges, Brontes, and Unecessarily Tall Chickens

At the beginning of the month myself and Miss Aimson took our annual pilgrimage to Haworth.  This year we meant Miss Aimson's cousins there and had the night in the YHA.  The weather was amazing and we had some walks across the moors in the footsteps of Emily Bronte and Sylvia Plath.

I didn't take many photos:

But take my word for it, it was amazing.

Haworth seems to be set up for day-trippers: most places didn't open much before one o'clock, and most closed on the dot at five.  So if you stay there, and get up early, you can walk to Top Withens and back before anyone else is around, and have the moors to yourself.  We only met people on the way back, when we were nearly in Haworth.

Then we walked past the allotments and saw the unnecessarily tall chickens, before checking out the church (a bit boring really) and having lunch.  In Haworth there is the Bronte Parsonage, bookshops, an apothecary's shop, a couple of great galleries and some nice shops and cafes.  Quite a mini-trip really, unless you are going to do the walk to Top Withens.

p.s. another must is the grave of Pickles Parker, a particular favourite of ours.

Where the Willow Grows

On the recommendation of Old Allendonian, I bought this book:

It is the diary of a six/seven year old girl, and the story of what happened to her when it was published when she was an adult, trying to become a published author.  Both these parts are very moving.

I was struck by two things: was this the origin of the American study of Nature Journalling, which my friend had come across in home-ed circles; and the possible similarities with Emily Bronte.  Little is known about Emily Bronte, and people speculate about her loner-ish-ness.  Although I doubt Emily Bronte's mental condition was as unusual as Opal Whiteley's, I do notice connections.  As Emily died aged thirty, we do not know how her life would have developed.

Or perhaps I am just playing Opal's game of comparer.  This was one of the naturalist's study methods she used to observe things closely.  For example, she would take a selection of seeds, and compare them, in order to note all their qualities.  This is the sort of thing Nature Journalling is used for now, to teach observation.

All in all, an interesting read.