Chilling after my jab

Revering from my booster jab by chilling by the Christmas tree with a good old crimbo ghost story :)

Hectic Times...

December 09, 2021

It's been a bit hectic these last few weeks. Started my new job (finally got my promotion) and there's a lot for me to learn during the 12 week's of training. Still, I finally managed to put pen to paper last night ans crack on with some creative work. Unfortunately, I jumped ahead and worked on a future novel, Pyewacket, instead of completing my current work-in-progress, Solstice. Still, it felt good to be writing again.

Linocut Ideas #1

I am getting a linocut kit for Christmas. To prepare, I started designing some images for my first print...

Writing in the late autumn gloom

Before the Chop

The entrance to Whiteford Burrow, the Gower Peninsula

I took a weekend constitutional down Whiteford Burrows last weekend - my favourite place on  the whole of the magnificent Gower Peninsula. My mission - to photograph the pine woodland there, much of which is now facing the chop!

Chilling amongst the trees, whose death knell has been sounded

The 16,000 step (thanks Fitbit) walk was something of a salutary experience, given that a large number of the trees I wandered amongst were going to be killed, some of them as soon as the following day!

Woodland at Whiteford Point

Chilling, Whiteford

Whiteford offers one of the quietest and more remote walks on the whole of the Gower Peninsula. And its pine trees, which have been a feature of this landscape here for a century, have been a much-loved  aspect of this area. So much so, in fact, that I have already made plans to have my ashes scattered amongst the trees here when my number is finally called. And although there appears to be sound ecological reasons for their decimation, I could not help but feel rather downhearted as I wandered amongst their soon-to-be decimated number.

Owl pellet, Whiteford Woods

Anyway, I will post more photos of the Whiteford's atmospheric woodland for posterity before the felling begins over on my Explore Gower website. {I will update this post with a link to that Explore Gower page when it goes live}....

Snap, Whiteford

 

Cactus in the Autumn Sunshine

Halloween Funko 2021 #6

Sorry for the lack of updates lately - truth is there is a lot kicking off in my everyday life at the moment, both health wise :( and work wise :) and I really feel exhausted by it all. 

Still, it's Halloween and here is my final set of images of this year's Halloween Funko images, which features the Log Lady from Twin Peaks:

"My log does not judge."

Solstice continues...

 With the darkening days and a good ole Welsh storm brewing outside, my mews finally made a reappearance this morning :) And, within a couple of hours, I had completed the first draft of my introductory segue that cements my 3 Solstice stories into a complete portmanteau novel...

Given the timeline constructed in The Dryad, Amanita and Gobble, these tales will appear in the Solstice Novel in a different sequence to the various publication dates of the individual stories.

A Lovely Bit of Urban Exploration

I do love a bit of unexpected urban exploration, and when I happened upon this fire-damaged cottage at the bottom of yesterday's woodland walk, I just had to step inside to take a look: