pixie-led | Chris Elphick

Berserk! Chapter Four. Draft 3.

Woke early to make the most of my last few hours in our weekend holiday retreat and used the time to start the third draft of Chapter 4 of Berserk!

Berserk! Chapter 3. Draft 3 Completed.

Writing as my son plays his Nintendo Switch

Completed the third draft of Chapter 3 of Berserk!

During my stay at our weekend retreat at Hakin (you can book the cottage for yourself here if you fancy it yourself), I was particularly fond of sitting on the large windowsill looking out over the northern aspect of the sea. Writing in this spot was a difficult endeavour however, given the dramatic view that demanded my attention of the opposite side of the window pane:

Having a Quiet and Creative Afternoon

Returning to our our coastal cottage after exploring Hakin Cove, my wife and I settled down to a quiet and creative afternoon attending our various individual projects.

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

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!

Early Morning Writing

An early morning writing session on the balcony of my weekend holiday retreat, overlooking River Cleddau, Hakin:

Hakin Cove, Looking Towards Milford Haven Port

The Incoming tide at Hakin Cove, Looking Towards Milford Haven Port

A Weekend Retreat

Halloween 2019 Theme ~ Pop Funko #8

Gage and Church, from Pet Sematary, plus my nosey cat, form the eighth post of my Halloween 2019 Pop Funko theme. I used the garlands of hop I harvested from our garden for Halloween decorations as a background for the pic.

"Sometimes dead is better"

Halloween 2019 Theme ~ Pop Funko #7

Billy, from the Saw movie franchise. I had to warn my cat never to play with him lol!

Sooshing the pwscat away from danger, I managed to rig up the following shot of the evil puppet for my continuing Halloween Pop Funko theme:

"I want to play a game."

Halloween 2019 Theme ~ Pop Funko #6

The Seer, the mytical and scary soothsayer from Vikings, part of my Halloween 2019 Pop Funko project:

"And so it has come to pass. The future foretold. The dark raven,
the eagle, and the wolf have laid bare the bones of corpses.
Here is the story of the world. Make what use of it you can."

Sunday CatchUp

With an afternoon to spare, I managed to catch up with with writing schedule today. I am happy to report that the final draft of Chapters One and Two of Berserk! have now been completed. :)

My youngest cat concluding the days's writing
schedule by sitting on my work book

Raindrops and Sunshine on My Writing Shed Door

Halloween 2019 Theme ~ Pop Funko #5b

Managed to rustle this image up whilst the cats were distracted with some Dreamies lol:

"The power of Christ compels you!"

Halloween 2019 Theme ~ Pop Funko #5a

As I hinted in this post the other day, my cats seldom let me take any photographs in the house without wanting to get in on the act. This afternoon, the pair of furry rascals made me fail miserably in getting a scary shot of my Regan (The Exorcist) Pop Funko this afternoon:

Strangely, I also found out that they love the taste of mushy peas lol:

I will try again tomorrow...

Halloween 2019 Theme ~ Pop Funko #4

I used my autumn-themed woodland nitelite holder as the background for this photograph of the demonic goat, Black Phillip, from the fantastic movie The Witch:

"Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?"

Berserk! Draft 3. Deadline in Jeopardy :(

Working on the third and final draft of Berserk! Looking at the number of changes I have made to just the second page of text (all the handwriting on the left page are amendments additional to the scrawling changes I have made on the right hand typed page!), I am starting to wonder if I will miss my December 31 publication date deadline :(

Halloween 2019 Theme ~ Pop Funko #3

Continuing this month's Pop Funko Halloween theme, today it's the turn of this creepy duo to make an appearance:

Psycho Norman Bates with his creator, Alrefed Hitchcock
"We all go a little mad sometimes."

Halloween 2019 Theme ~ Pop Funko #2

Second up for my Halloween 2019 Pop Funko themed project is The Invisible Man!

"I shall kill you even if you hide in the deepest cave of the Earth.
At ten o'clock tomorrow night, I will kill you!"

And, as usual, my youngest and nosiest cat just had to check out what I was doing lol:

"What the hell are you doing photographing toys!"

Halloween 2019 Theme ~ Pop Funko #1

Well, October is now well and truly upon us. And to celebrate the month of Halloween I thought I would post some photographs of my horror Pop Funkos :) To kick things off, here a few images of my Pin Head Hellraiser Pop Funko: