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Showing posts with label Chilling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chilling. Show all posts

Thursday 12 September 2024

Heading Home

I do enjoy my down time to catch up on things before heading home.


Sunday 8 September 2024

Friday 6 September 2024

Back on the Island

I am determined not to finish this game until I am 100% happy with my island.

Saturday 3 June 2023

CHILLED

June 11. 23

Wednesday 19 April 2023

First Fire of the Year

May 06, 2023

First garden fire of the year 👌☺️





 

Wednesday 1 September 2021

Decadence

September is fully booked. Right to the end of the month. On the writing side, I have a month to sort out a completed second draft of Gobble. Towards the end of the month I am heading up to the Norfolk Broads where I hope to spend time with my daughter, who I haven't seen in nearly 2 years because of the current health climate. Whilst there, I hope to find some decent atmosphere to help inspire an actual ghost story from scratch, something I have long sort to do but is yet to materialise. Finally, I am going to create a wildlife pond for my magickal garden. You can find details of this latter project over on magickalgardening.co.ukIn the meantime, let's get the month off to a good start with a bit of sheer decadence - having a nice a mug of tea in the bath:



Friday 27 August 2021

Monday 28 December 2020

Thursday 24 December 2020

Tuesday 17 December 2019

Christmas Ghost Stories

Whiling away the days to Christmas with some festive reading:

The Green Room by Walter de la Mare

The Green Room ~ Walter de la Mare




Sunday 15 December 2019

The Treasure of Abbot Thomas

Our Christmas tree went up today :) And feeling in the Christmas spirit,  I spent the wee small of this night watching old BBC Ghost Stories for Christmas, whilst outside a gale and icy showers did their best to add to the atmosphere :)


Monday 9 December 2019

Christmas Eve on a Haunted Hulk

I spent this afternoon reading Frank Cowper's 'Christmas Even on a Haunted Hulk'. This was definitely the best story out of my first batch of Christmas ghost stories to read, followed closely by M.R. James'classic 'The Signalman'. Out of the three books, only one disappointed, that being Algernon Blackwood's 'The Empty House'.

A Perfect Winter's Afternoon Read

Feet Up, Reading 'Christmas Eve on a Haunted Hulk'
I now just have four more books in the Seth's Christmas Ghost Stories range to read. I wonder which one will temp me into opening its pages first...


These are great little books,which can be read in about half an hour each. The are feature some pretty cool graphic art by the cartoonist Seth. I will definitely be purchasing more of the titles in that range to read for Christmas 2020!

Monday 11 November 2019

Here We Go...

Heading up to North Wales for the weekend...


Sunday 13 October 2019

Beachcombing at Hakin

I have been truly spoiled on our weekend retreat :) Taking stroll along the cove below our weekend holiday cottage (pictured below), I was delighted to discover the place was a beachcomber's dream!

Yours truly beach-combing in Hakin

Hakin Cove - a beach-comber's dream
The first thing I discovered amongst the pebbles there was this odd thing - a Portuguese Man o'war!

A Portuguese Man o' war

Close-up of the Portuguese Man o' war
My next find was just as rare - a huge chunk of black Sea-glass!

A large chunk of black sea-glass

And the rarities did not stop there! Check out this beautiful piece of yellow sea-glass I happened upon there too!

Rare yellow sea-glass found at Hakin Cove

Close-up of my yellow sea-glass discovery
As you can see from the above two pictures, I found enough sea-glass on Hakin Cove to more than fill every pocket of my coat and trousers and had to make several trips to the beach in order to collect more of the treasure.

Amber sea-glass
Amber sea-glass
Over my ten years of so of collecting sea-glass, there were two scarce items that I really wanted to find whilst beach-combing. I discovered the first of those last year whilst scouring Ogmore beach - a glass bottle stopper. And on Hakin cove I finally found the second of my coveted grail items. In fact, I kind of found two of them:

I found this one first - a glass marble, which would have originally been found within a vintage cod-neck drink's bottle.


And just a few metres away from this lovely find, I stumbled across this beautifully frosted gaming sea-marble. Just look at the weathering on this gorgeous item - the marble would have needed to have been tumbled in the sea for a good few decades to get that degree of frosting:

A gorgeously frosted sea marble 

My two sea marble finds from Hakin Cove
I found two other unusual items whilst searching the cove, which are worth mentioning here. First, there is this bottle top, which is made from Vulcanite - a material (or process) I had never even heard of before researching my find. This top is around 90 years old and was the stopper for a vinegar bottle produced by the company T. E. Hughes:


And lastly, there was this odd little find:

An odd little find along the shore-line of Hakin Cove
After much research, I discovered this to be a Canister Ball, a.k.a. a Case Shot Ball. A number of these items would have been packed into a metal cylinder and fired from a canon during 18th and 19th Century warfare. When fired, the soft metal container would disintegrate, leaving the shrapnel balls inside to spread out at high velocity in a conical formation towards their target. These weapons caused a great deal of widespread damage to the enemy and were particularly effective during the Napoleonic War and the American Civil  War. A somewhat grisly yet somewhat fascinating find, eh?

Hakin Cove turned out to be the best beach-combing beach I have ever explored. Despite being a rather diminutive cove, I gathered more sea-glass and other interesting artefacts during my short time there than every other beach I have visited combined over the last ten or so years. If you a beachcomber and happen to be visiting West Wales, then do yourself a favour and pay this place a visit. One word of warning though, check the tide times as the cove disappears completely at high tide!

Sunday 22 September 2019

Friday 20 September 2019

Wednesday 18 September 2019

1984

Given our current political climate, I think it is time for me to finally read this classic!




Saturday 24 August 2019

Misery in the Garden

What a welcome relief to feel the warmth of the sun again :)

Reading Stephen King's Misery out in the garden

A Beach Campfire Beneath the Stars

Making the most of the last nights of Summer 2019:

Our campfire beneath The Plough constellation

Yours truly beneath the stars
I made a couple of audio recording whilst there too, to help capture better the atmosphere of the evening (headphones needed to appreciate the field recording):