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.

Halloween Funko 2021 #6

October 31, 2021

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."

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:

An Early Christmas Grotto

Saturday, October 23, 2021

Despite the gloomy weather, Stella and I forced ourselves out of the house today for our weekend exercise. After half hour's drive into the countryside, we parked up at the top of a pine woodland, where, within minutes of leaving the car, we were both overjoyed that we had mustered the needed willpower to leave the house.  

Walking down the woodland path, something bright caught our eyes from a small hollow in a bank below a pine tree. We had to step into a small ditch to get in closer to our find, but we were well and truly rewarded for the slight inconvenience. For, parting its curtain of pine branches, we found ourselves peering into a little magical Christmas grotto, festooned with the most glorious Amanita muscaria mushrooms I have ever seen!

"What have we here then?"

Seeing these bejewelled beauties through the canopy of pine needles reminded me of an old article I wrote on the tradition of decorating Christmas trees with imitation Amanita muscaria mushrooms. Upon our return home, I dug out the old manuscript of this article. Written many moons ago, the thing needs a good, solid polish, but I can announce that my next project will be to publish my short illustrated essay - Santa was a Shaman! 

I do love they way nature walks inspire and get the creative juice flowing :)

Late Morning with the Furry Girls

Friday, October 22, 2021

Having a late morning in bed, working on my new Some Place Different zine.

Someplace Different

I am having fun working on this new impromptu project, brought on from my recent walk around Twmbarlwm. I have a title for the project now- Some Place Different and will be psycho geographical guides to interest places I have visited. I am still working on specifics on the project so, if you are interested in the progress of this work, watch this space and follow this tag [Some Place Different].

A Thankyou to Amber

The paperback of Gobble arrived today. I am well happy with the way it looks. Whilst I usually provide the artwork and photography for my publications, the honours for the art in this book goes to my daughter. Thank you, Amber xxxx