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

CHILLED

June 11. 23

First Fire of the Year

May 06, 2023

First garden fire of the year 👌☺️





 

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:



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




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 :)


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!

Here We Go...

Heading up to North Wales for the weekend...


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!

1984

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




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):


Three Cliffs Bay, Pennard

I took a walk down to this fine beach today:

Three Cliffs Bay
It was a lovely walk down from the car park...


...and I saw this curious scene en route:

Skittles decorating the path down to Three Cliffs Bay

The magnificent Three Cliffs Bay
Three Cliff Bay, looking towards Oxwich

Heading back along Pennard Cliffs...

Pennard Cliffs


...I stopped off for some refreshments at the Pennard Stores outdoors cafe, where I made this short field recording of the background chatter there:


I couldn't think of a better way to round off this year's summer :)