“What do you think! Teddy used to bring me here. He said it was a spot nobody knew about and it was all ours.”
Two women stood at the edge of a small grotto flanked by a diminutive waterfall. It was an idyllic setting. One woman was bubbling with excitement, the others seemed thoughtful, pensive.
As the first woman started to make her way down to the water, the second woman hesitated.
Continue reading at Butterfly Sand
Florence Nightingale 1820-1910
*
… Florence Nightingale’s spiritual life was graced by contact
with the last of the Esoteric Medical Orders.
The Sisters of Charity, was a religious order founded by St Vincent de Paul in 1634.
Such orders had truck with the Order of Hospitallers in Palestine
which were originally established
to serve the Templars and the pilgrims they protected.
*
Make no mistake, these were all Hermetic Orders.
Reincarnation was one of the great secrets of the Hermetic Schools
which taught that, all things being equal, humans incarnate
from lifetime to lifetime in alternate sexes.
*
Continue reading at France & Vincent
Hair
Tumbling
Down over
Nut-brown shoulders
Cascading like a
Chocolate waterfall
Gentle waves undulating
Continue reading at But I Smile Anyway
She doesn’t feed me. Not at all.
I’m getting so much thinner.
In fact (apart from several treats)
I’ve not been fed since dinner!
I speak your language pretty well,
There’s ‘breakfast’, ‘lunch’ and ‘tea’…
‘Elevenses’ and ‘supper’ too,
So why just two for me?
She says that I am getting fat,
A touch too widely waisted,
Because of all the stuff I eat
That she has barely tasted.
I say before she breaks my heart
And puts me on a diet,
She should look in the mirror first…
That ought to keep her quiet!
Continue reading at The Small Dog’s Blog
Where do you come from?
trickling unseen….
silvery brightness
darkness with a sheen
a slice of moon
cascading
down to earth
disappearing
Continue reading at Reena Saxena
A new world opens
For the ‘lilies of the field’
Opening to trust
Reblogged from Strange Goings On in the Shed:
His Nibs has made an appearance finally. The great Walker Between the Worlds, He who is named Anubis reveals himself at last. It feels like our relationship is starting anew, a strange and not unpleasant feeling. Ah yes, feelings. I’ve found it difficult to write, much less express what lay deep within. How much should a writer disclose? As I finished typing the last line my right ear began to feel hot, that’s the ear with the hearing problem. In my mind’s eye I see His Nibs raise a finger to his lips and then touch my right earlobe. He shakes his head. I bow my head and refrain from saying anything further. It appears this isn’t the place to vocalise that which should be the remit of another, the Heart. Again, another image flashes across the sight of the inner eye. This time it’s the Scales of Ma’at in the Hall of Judgment. Surely my time to account for this earthly life hasn’t come yet? He speaks.
Continue reading at Strange Goings On in the Shed
The rod bent as the fish fought against the taut line. Goat reeled it in, without hurry, allowing the fish to tire itself. Once landed, he wrapped it in leaves from nearby ferns, enjoying the sweet smell on his hands afterwards.
“A beer would’ve be nice,” he said aloud. But only the rushing water replied.
Continue reading at A Bunch of Dumb Words in a Row
It was the morning after the Riddles of the Night* workshop that I have shared again recently. We wandered out into the landscape. Although the workshop was over, apparently, the work begun on the weekend was only just beginning… Parts One, Two, Three, Four and Five of the day’s adventures can be found by clicking the highlighted link.
We left the house through a door between the Long Gallery and the anteroom of the State Bedchamber. The Gallery looks out over the gardens and across them to the Derbyshire hills, but it was not until we climbed the time-worn steps to the uppermost terrace that we would see the full splendour of the setting of Haddon Hall.
The house overlooks the valley of the River Wye as it meanders through the green hills, extending the vista far beyond the boundaries of the Hall and its grounds. The restoration of the gardens is a work in progress. Like that of the Hall itself, it was begun in the 1920s by John Manners, the 9th Duke of Rutland, who understood the importance of this unique survivor of centuries past.
It was the 9th Duke who created the topiary garden, where meticulously clipped heraldic beasts greet the visitor. The Boar and the Peacock of the Vernon and Manners families still reign at Haddon Hall.
Almost a hundred years after the restoration was begun, his vision is a green and growing delight. Even on a chilly December day, there are flowers, aromatic herbs and berries to give colour. Penstemons and roses brave the winter chill. Yarrow lifts pastel clusters to the sun and fragile fairy thimbles stubbornly defy the seasons.
The gardens are arranged as a series of terraces, following the slope of the hills. From the topmost terrace, the views are spectacular, and it is from here that you get the best view of the Bowling Green Terrace where an intricate Elizabethan knot garden has been recreated from plants that would have been familiar four centuries ago. Lavender, germander and rosemary, their leaves aromatic even in December, will flower in soft colours through the summer months.
The Hall engaged the award-winning Arne Maynard as their garden designer and their choice of plants reflects the history of the building. I would have happily lingered all day identifying them by their habits and fragrant leaves.
In spite of the bare patch of liquid mud that currently calls itself my garden, I have always been a gardener. I started to learn about flowers as a child and by my teens, I was growing and using herbs for all manner of things, from remedies to making liqueurs. Many of the plants whose sparse crowns find shelter beneath the mellow stone at Haddon Hall are old friends, used for healing and beauty, dyeing and housewifery.
The soft, furry silver of lamb’s ears are one of nature’s antiseptic, antibacterial bandages, absorbing blood from wounds and reducing inflammation. Yarrow, too, is a wound healer and, with peppermint and elderflower, makes an excellent tea for colds and flu. Yarrow was the first herb I ever used medicinally… treating colds in my father’s champion racing pigeons.
The old walls are covered in plants that tumble down the terraces, promising a riot of colour come spring. The walls of the house bear flowering climbers… some of the roses still in bloom in the pale sunshine, but most mere traceries of glories to come.
A fountain sits at the heart of the garden, reflecting the sky and surrounded by shrubs destined for topiary. The green of the lawn, bordered in spring and summer by wildflowers and native orchids, seems to blend into the distant landscape, yet below it, the terraces continue right down to the river bank.
Even in winter, it is beautiful. Like the house itself, there are signs of grandeur. Few of us have that kind of space or setting for our homes and gardens, few of us indulge in knot gardens, grand stone staircases or topiary… and yet, somehow, even here, there is still a sense of the Hall being a home. Perhaps it is the use of so many unpretentious herbs… plants that know how to ‘roll up their sleeves’ and go to work, rather than the showy, overblown beauties used in so many of the famous gardens. Perhaps it is the golden glow of northern stone. I don’t usually go for these great houses… but I admit, I fell in love with Haddon Hall.
*Riddles of the Night was a Silent Eye workshop in Derbyshire, in December 2017. Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen can be found by clicking the highlighted links.
Barker, Thomas; The Miser (Sir Thomas Lowie Pont); Hereford Museum and Art Gallery
I’ve mentioned before that the ‘Society of Minor Poets’ try to provide free meals for the young, the old and the indigent. It’s not just the feeding people that is important, it’s a chance for them to sit somewhere warm. It gives them a place where they can just talk and even, occasionally, be entertained. To be honest the feeding can be a little basic. We often offer what is known as our ‘all day breakfast.’ By that we mean there is a cauldron of porridge constantly cooking. On the days the racing stables send us the grain they have no intention of feeding to expensive horses, they will often send us some molasses as well, which adds savour.
Given that we are the Society of Minor Poets, it would be a sad affair if we couldn’t provide some entertainment. Yes, I confess, we will often try our verses out on a captive audience. It’s not that they’re too polite to criticise us, it’s more that their mouths are too gummed up with thick porridge and molasses, so that they would struggle to say anything anyway.
But we do try to offer a wider variety of entertainment. Many of us can sing, after a fashion, and some can do conjuring tricks, whilst it’s a poor do if you cannot keep people entertained with a few humorous anecdotes. We have a rota, so that all of us will take the stage from time to time.
We also have other entertainments. Raffles are popular, on the grounds that you can play for very small stakes. People will donate prizes, a bottle of wine, a loaf of fresh bread, a cake, or even a small joint of meat. We’ll just charge a couple of dregs a ticket, and our guests seem to enjoy the excitement of their wager. We also do a free raffle, everybody gets a
ticket. It means that nobody misses out.
As for our guests, we get all sorts. We’ve had workmen come in, they were on a building job nearby and they got their lunch with us. To be fair to them, they made a reasonable donation, and they were new faces with new stories to
tell which made them popular. Then we get the children. We get all ages, some so young they come in clutching the hand of a sibling. Others are older and insist on paying. Not with money, but they’ll appear carrying some vegetables, some fruit; or in one never to be forgotten instance, a horse carcass which took a score of them to drag. We never did find out how they acquired it, we were too busy cutting it up and cooking it to ask.
The elderly are perhaps more vulnerable. Some are widows, they’ll often take a turn cooking, and frankly I suspect they come more for the company than the food. Then we get the widowers who never learned to cook and come because there is only so much bread and cheese a man can eat. After that point he’s willing to talk to anybody or listen to any amount of inane chatter to get a decent meal. One old gentleman commented to me that it was either come to us or find a widow to marry, and frankly at his time of life, he preferred coming to us.
Then there are those who struggle to cope. Faldo arrives, scooting along on a trolley he maintains himself. His legs have never worked, and he sits with us, talks, eats, and all the while he will be carving toys from off-cuts of timber people fetch him. People buy them from him, I know many a child who plays out their daydreams with a couple of his men-at-arms, and a doll who has become a princess for the day. We once sent him to Lord Cartin’s. We hired a sedan chair, and he showed them his figures and explained he wanted to understand the armour better. He spent hours with them, looking at how plates slid over each other as the man moved and came back inspired; and with an order for a score of his figures.
And there are some who will never cope with our world. There is Jili. She sits, beaming her welcoming smile at all who come in. Older women keep an eye on her, making sure that her innocent acceptance of everybody who is nice to her doesn’t lead her into waters too deep for her loving heart.
And then there is old Hosaf. It has to be said that, if he had ever had any money, Hosaf would have been a miser. I cannot think of anybody who could do it better, indeed I don’t think any of us have ever seen him part with as much as a dreg. I have heard ladies talking about him, there was apparently once a wife, and gossip assumes he ate her to save in vittles, or at least sold her at auction. Given his attitude to the world in general it’s a story you can believe. There again one very old lady once told me about him, his young bride, and the summer sickness that carried of both bride and babe in arms.
So Hosaf sits and eats and gurns. Indeed he has been known to complain about the food with his mouth full; still masticating the last spoonful of porridge as he queues up for a second bowl. He also lends money. His isn’t the world of the complicated financial instrument. He merely lends fifty dregs here, a hundred there. The sort of money that will allow somebody to buy some bread for the family. The loan goes down in his little book and he adds the interest daily until it is repaid.
I was once sitting opposite him, he sat on the next table. When the Fedalia went round with raffle tickets she offered him one.
He glared at her suspiciously, “Is this the free one?”
“No a ticket costs two dregs.”
“Be off with you then.”
Later, I was doing my stint at entertaining and I saw Fedalia go round again with a different lot of tickets. This time Hosaf took one so I assumed it was the free raffle. I finished my story to some laughs and a smattering of applause and made my way to the kitchen to help with washing the dishes.
When I arrived, Fedalia was putting a candle into the candle stick. “Can you light this candle for me please Tallis?”
I took a spill from the jar on the counter and carefully lit it from the stove. Then as I was lighting the candle I asked, “What do you need this for?” After all, I felt it was a fair question, it had barely turned noon and even in the kitchen everything was as well illuminated as you could hope for.
“A theological question for you first Tallis, are all hells hot?”
This threw me. Admittedly I have a cousin who is a very senior temple dancer, but I’ve never pretended to be a theologian. I frantically racked my brain for any hints my cousin Thela might have dropped into casual conversation.
“Well as far as I know they are.”
“I thought so.” She pulled a raffle ticket out of the pocket of her apron and held it in the flame from the candle. “So let’s just say that if Hosaf wins the free raffle, he can cross hell by skating across the ice to collect his prize.”
***
And now a brief note from Jim Webster. It’s really just to inform you that I’ve just published two more collections of stories.
The first, available on kindle, is ‘Tallis Steelyard, preparing the ground, and other stories.’
More of the wit, wisdom and jumbled musings of Tallis Steelyard. Meet a vengeful Lady Bountiful, an artist who smokes only the finest hallucinogenic lichens, and wonder at the audacity of the rogue who attempts to drown a poet! Indeed after reading this book you may never look at young boys and their dogs, onions, lumberjacks or usurers in quite the same way again.
A book that plumbs the depths of degradation, from murder to folk dancing, from the theft of pastry cooks to the playing of a bladder pipe in public.
The second, available on Kindle or as a paperback, is ‘Maljie. Just one thing after another.’
Once more Tallis Steelyard chronicles the life of Maljie, a lady of his acquaintance. Discover the wonders of the Hermeneutic Catherine Wheel, marvel at the use of eye-watering quantities of hot spices. We have bell ringers, pop-up book shops, exploding sedan chairs, jobbing builders, literary criticism, horse theft and a revolutionary mob. We also discover what happens when a maiden, riding a white palfrey led by a dwarf, appears on the scene.
Join Jim and Tallis on their travels through the blogosphere:
Friday 1st May: Sue Vincent’s Daily Echo
Saturday 2nd May: Willow Willers
Sunday 3rd May: Robbie Cheadle
Monday 4th May: Writers Co-op
Tuesday 5th May: Stevie Turner
Wednesday 6th May: Jane Jago
Thursday 7th May: Annette Rochelle Aben
Friday 8th May: Chris Graham
Saturday 9th May: Pete Johnson
Sunday 10th May: MT McGuire
Monday 11th May: Ritu Bhathal
Tuesday 12th May: Anita Dawes and Jaye Marie
Wednesday 13th May: Ken Gierke
Thursday 14th May: Suzanne Joshi
About the author
Someone once wrote this about him:
“Jim Webster is probably still fifty something, his tastes in music are eclectic, and his dress sense is rarely discussed in polite society. In spite of this he has a wife and three daughters.
He has managed to make a living from a mixture of agriculture, consultancy, and freelance writing. Previously he has restricted himself to writing about agricultural and rural issues but including enough Ancient Military history to maintain his own sanity. But seemingly he has felt it necessary to branch out into writing fantasy and Sci-Fi novels.”
Now with eight much acclaimed fantasy works and two Sci-Fi to his credit it seems he may be getting into the swing of things.
Find and follow Tallis (and Jim)
Jim Webster may be found at his blog, on Twitter, Facebook and on his Amazon author page.
Tallis Steelyard may be found loitering at his own blog while their book have their own Facebook page
For many more books by Jim Webster (and Tallis)…
Click the images to go to Amazon.
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