As many of you who have self-published will know, formatting your book, ensuring the book cover looks right etc, isn’t easy and there’s many a hurdle to be overcome along the way. This is exactly what’s happened with A Walk in the Woods. But, I think (fingers crossed!), I’m almost there. So the paperback version will be out in the next few days. I’ll keep you posted…
As for my non-fiction book, on getting published, I’ll be sharing its title with you soon…
It seems that after all of my efforts, these experiments with biology, anatomy, chemistry and electricity came to naught. The lifeless clay of my life’s work lay on the table, mocking my years of toil.
Adding insult to injury, Mrs. Kemph, the woman who straightens my living quarters, had dared to enter the lab and threw away a work in progress. To say I was livid would be an understanding.
Walking through the village, my mind working out what went wrong with this latest experiment, I fumed as I couldn’t get past the dolt Mrs. Kemph.
Continue reading at Trent’s World
The face of the chief rose above the naked arms of the trees. Her body of smoke illuminating the burnt forest below. Beneath her, squirrels dropped their nuts and ran to keep ahead of the flames. Rabbits and mice dug deeper into the earth to find refuge from the heat, while the beetles clung to the bark and burned. The deer and coyote had left when the first ember crunched the dry leaves with its orange teeth, but where was man?
“Wake, my children. Wake and see what you have done.”
Her words came from the voice of no sound. Rising from the heart of Earth, they broke the barrier of time and space as they wove into the membranes of deaf ears where their vibration was felt in the cells, stirring the unease of truth inside bodies that had become numb.
Continue reading at The Light Behind the Story
There was time for one more visit before our ways parted. Gary knew the town well from time spent there with his father, but could not recall ever visiting the church. Stuart and I have been there before… and were fairly certain the church would have left an impression. But the church of St Peter and St Paul in Pickering has so much history preserved within, and on, its walls that you cannot absorb it all in a single visit. Or even two.
The church is a large one for a small town; built upon a hill near the ruins of the castle, its spire is visible far across Ryedale. There has been a church on the site since Saxon times, but all that remains of this early place of worship is the plain bowl of the font and a fragment of a carved stone cross.
The current building is Norman and was begun around 1140 and was built to a cruciform plan with a central tower over the Crossing. There were the usual additions over the years, then in 1200, the tower collapsed and was rebuilt at the west end of the church. As church services became more complex and ritualistic, the chancel was widened and chantry chapels were added.
The chancel is unusual, wider than the nave itself and now separated from the body of the church by a carved screen added in the early twentieth century. It is a simple sanctuary when compared with the brilliance and colour of the nave and is watched over by a Green Man carved on one of the old pillars.
The northern chantry chapel, built in 1337, once housed the effigy of Sir William Bruce. Today, his image lies near the chancel steps, moved to make way for an organ. With his head under the wide branches of the Christmas tree and a wire trailing beside him, he looked rather forlorn and forgotten.
He is dressed in knightly armour and the crossed legs were long thought to indicate a knight who had taken part in, or was vowed to the Crusades. Or that they were Knights Templar. The current theory is that it may simply have been a stylistic fashion of the times.
The south chantry chapel was built in 1407 to house the remains of Sir David and Dame Margery Roucliffe who rest there still, he with a lion beneath his feet, his lady with two dogs. The chantry chapels were built and endowed with funds that Mass could be sung for the souls of those buried there, a tradition that continued until the Reformation of the mid-sixteenth century.
The Roucliffe Chantry contains some beautiful stained glass showing the saints of the Celtic church, including some of those we had encountered over the weekend in the story of the Synod of Whitby at the Abbey founded by St Hilda.
It was around the time that the Roucliffe Chantry was built that the last major structural changes were made… and the real glory of Pickering’s church was painted on its walls…
“Do you believe in dragons?”
The boy’s mouth quirked. He was amused, sitting on the roof of his dad’s old Ford with his arm around Chloe. From the way she watched the rolling smoke, pale in the headlights of fire trucks, he could guess whether she believed or not.
“I sure don’t. Dragons are silly.”
Continue reading at Western Angels
Forgotten dreams fade
Inattention fells their walls
Castles in the air
Reblogged from The Magical World of G. Michael Vasey:
What to do on Boxing Day? Take a trip to Dolní Kounice to see the Convent ruins of Rosa Coeli and feel the energies there? Yes! It wouldn’t be open I knew but we could still take a peek so off we went to the Jihlava valley south of Brno to visit the Rosa Ceoli Convent.
It was a beautiful but very cold day when we arrived. The Convent was closed and won’t be open it seems until April which was not unexpected but a tad disappointing. The Convent ruins are remarkably intact and you can pretty much walk around the outside of it – which is what we did – detecting some energies in one direction that will be investigated further another day. The convent stands under the castle and by the shore of the Jihlava river and an old mill.
Coat of Arms – Rosa Coeli
Continue reading at G. Michael Vasey
First in this week…
Plumes of smoke rose from the frozen ground
A mythical entity was rising from the dead
The elders stood there in anticipation, alert
The smoke took the shape of their beloved dragon
They broke into applause and bowed their heads
The deep gravelly voice boomed in the cold air
Continue reading at Keep it Alive
My apologies to anyone who has either wondered why I am not commenting as much as usual, visiting their blog, or, in fact, answering the hundreds of emails currently stuck in my inaccessible inbox.
Since just before Christmas, my broadband connection has been running at the speed of a somnolent snail and making my very first dial-up account look speedy…
I can, at the moment, post and I can still answer comments on my blog, but not on all blogs. No matter how long I wait or how hard I try.
And as I squished my phone when I fell on it a while back, the phone isn’t a lot of help.
I am assured that an engineer will be coming out to fix the internet problem. I hope.
But not until the 10th January… if I stay sane for that long…
Continue reading at The Silent Eye
Sue Vincent's Daily Echo 