September

The summer of 2019 is fading fast and whilst I still live in dread of the cold, dark and bleak season of winter, I do have a bit of a soft spot for September.

Perhaps more so than New Year, I see September as a time of new ventures, of moving on, of ditching the things that have not worked out so well for me over the past year. I suppose that this feeling is a remnant of the main cycle of yearly change that occurs in the school year, and later the college ad Higher Education years, all of which start in September (or early October in some cases for university courses).

This feeling of renewal balances out the awful feeling that emanates from the yearly turning of the wheel and the slipping away of summer. I will miss sitting out in the sunshine, with either a book or a blank page and pen in my hands. I will miss the joy of gardening, of watching seeds I have sown spring to life and eventually flowering. I will miss the warmth of the sun on my skin. I now have to wait a whole six months for these joys to return. But in the meantime, I have new projects and fresh ideas to work on and lose myself in.

Work on my writing shed will start anew in September (the shed had been needed for more traditional handiwork and joinery over the last few months) and I will start working on my new novella in there in the next few weeks. Those visitors to Pixie-Led with keen eyes might have already noticed that I have already made a tentative start on this next writing project - just rough scribblings so far though, enabled in the quieter moments of my new day job (another fresh start). Now that I am able to put The Verry Volk behind me, I am looking forward to working on this new novella, which is a Christmas ghost story entitled Solstice. I won't go into any detail about this new venture yet, though you may be able to get the gist of the story plot from these initial doodles:

To hopefully help in the writing of Solstice, I have also signed up to a free Open University online creative writing course, which looks like it may be useful to me. I am only on Week Two of the course but I am intent on completing the thing. I will discuss this O.U. course sometime in the near future, but for now I think I will leave this post here.

It is time to embrace the coming month of September and the new season ahead...

Completed: The Verry Volk

I am happy to report that my guide to local faery folklore, The Verry Volk, has now been completed. It should be hopefully available to buy sometime over the next week. :)

In The Shed

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 :)

The Verry Volk #10 and #11

With The Verry Volk close to completion, I will conclude this short series of posts sharing some of the photographs contained in the book with these two images, both taken along the immense marshland that stretches from the foot of Llanmadoc.

A pony meandering across the marshlands of Llanmadoc

Cwm Ivy Tor, Llanmadoc

It has been an immense pleasure writing and producing this book, which I hope you will finally be able to get your hands on sometime over the next weekend. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed working on it.

The Verry Volk #9

The sunshine dripping through leafy boughs, Llanmadoc

The Verry Volk #8

In the depths of Betty Church Woods, Llanmadoc, a shaft of light strikes an ancient tree.

The Verry Volk #7

This is one of my favourite photographs featured in The Verry Volk - a nice moonlit shot of Three Cliffs Bay. According to local folklore, this was once the scene of Fae festivities. Interrupted by a chief and his army, who attempted to slaughter the magickal creatures, the faery folk, or Verry Volk as the locals used to term them, wreaked a dreadful vengeance on the warring men and their castle, which looked down upon the bay!

A moonlit Three Cliffs Bay

The Verry Volk #6

A lonely lane on the Gower Peninsula

The Verry Volk #5

Another image from my forthcoming book, The Verry Volk:

The Verry Volk #4

This image from my forthcoming book, The Verry Volk, features the village I called home for the first twenty years of my life - Penclawdd. I hope you agree that I was very lucky to have been brought up amongst such spectacular natural beauty:

The Verry Volk #3

The image below, photographed in Pitton, Gower, was originally intended to be the cover design for my book The Verry Volk. If you are interested in how that design would have looked, you can see it here. You can also see the alternative cover design, featuring another photograph from the book, here. Ultimately, I decided upon this later design, as I felt it held a richer connotation of the magical aspects of nature, which I wanted to denote in the book. I still have a soft spot for the below image though and have included it in the book for your delectation.

The Verry Volk #2

Even amongst the hustle and bustle of 21st Century life, the old haunts of the Fae are still beautiful and serene. Here a couple of images from my forthcoming book ~ The Verry Volk, featuring one of my favourite locations, Three Cliffs Bay:

Three Cliffs Bay, an old haut of the magickal Fae

Three Cliffs Bay