Discovering Albion – day 4: Snow in Them There Hills…

scotland trip jan 15 405We decided that it would be sensible to take the coast road north… it is both unusual and rather nice when ‘sensible’ walks hand in hand with preference. We had seen the snow capping the distant hills of the Lake District across Morecombe Bay and thought that the salt air would be beneficial on that score. And anyway, who doesn’t like the seaside? Particularly in winter when there are no crowds and we had many of the roads pretty much to ourselves.

scotland trip jan 15 256Had we not seen the third of our triad two days before we would have called him to come for coffee in Don Pedro’s café. As it was, we simply speculated on which one Steve was referring to in his stories as we sailed through Grange-over-Sands and onwards towards our next destination, skirting the snow covered hills.

scotland trip jan 15 379It was beautiful… perfect in fact. To our left we had the sea, around us the green of the foothills. Close enough to see, but not to pose a problem, we had the high, white peaks of the Lakes in all their pristine beauty. It was just a shame that the engine warning light chose to come on… Given the panic a few days before to get her fixed and the mechanic’s expensively pursed lips with his ‘can’t guarantee I’ve fixed it…’ I was a tad apprehensive. We would see.

scotland trip jan 15 414What we didn’t seem to have were many places where we were able to stop. The camera rested mournfully on the back seat as I drove the narrow, serpentine road, occasionally breathing my delight at the landscape. We were heading for Gosforth and, just for once, we had done at least some homework the night before, checking that there were several pubs there that offered accommodation. Mid-January we thought we would have little problem finding rooms for the night.

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The Shrieking Womb: Warriors and Kings…

*

… So, Connavor took Conall Cernach to a place apart,

“what would you do,” he said, “if I sent you for

the sons of Ushna and, by some mishap, they were

destroyed in spite of your surety and your honour?”

*

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Light

*

A circle open to the sky becomes a covered mound,

Within, a tree now made of stone, casts shadows on the ground.

The earth is changing as we pass, each footstep turns to gold

The sky inverts reality, a passage eons old.

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Ani’s Advent 2020! “A Squirrel of my Very Own…” El Duque and Marilyn Armstrong

Dear Santa,

I think she is trying to pull a fast one. I know my ball is getting a bit past it… but, as she ought to realise all too well herself, being old and tatty doesn’t stop you being loved.

So she has no need to try replacing my ball with a new toy… even if it does have a smiley face on it and a wicked squeaker…

I mean, it isn’t even Christmas yet, so if she is trying sneaky stuff now, I have to worry what else she has in mind…

I remember her telling me that when he was getting a bit old for trailing a blue blanket around with him (even though it had gone grey by then), my boy was persuaded to leave the blanket out for the Easter Bunny… who turned it into a budgerigar called Magic…

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New Book Release – #Shortstories – Life is Like a Bowl of Cherries: Sometimes Bitter, Sometimes Sweet by Sally Cronin

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Dreamer

pre dawn 059

If I could dream a dawn
Into existence
It would wear your face
In its sleep.
If I could dream a morning
It would wake to your breath,
A pillowed silhouette against the dawn,
The space between filled with warmth
And the tenderness
Of tangled legs.
If I could dream a sunrise,
It would hear our voices, laughing,
Recreating ourselves
To match the perfection
Of golden light.
Why dream a morning?
All I need to do
Is open my eyes
And wake.

pre dawn 065


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Shadows #midnighthaiku

No more than shadows

Interrupting dancing light

Still we change the world

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The Foundations of Our Prosperity ~ Tallis Steelyard

Reblogged from Jim Webster, aka, Tallis Steelyard:

You can sometimes see them at the very lowest tides. You’ve got to walk a long way out into the Estuary and frankly I’d rather take a boat down the main channel and view them from there.

To the shore combers who’re the only people to ever see them now, they’re known as, ‘The Old King’s Shackles.’ Actually they’re more correct than they know, but then ‘simple’ people have an embarrassing habit of remembering things their betters have made a point of forgetting. Nobody talks of the Dreen Dynasty of Partann anymore. The three kings, Batar, Ortar, and Ortal are long forgotten. The poets who told of their glory have fallen silent, the high speech of their Partann survives only as a peasant dialect in a few insignificant villages.

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Discovering Albion – day 4: An Irish Saint in Lancashire

Heysham (130)We climbed up the ruins of St Patrick’s Chapel, built in the eighth or ninth century. Legend has it that it commemorates the landing of St Patrick of Ireland and although it was constructed many years after his death, it is possible the place was already marked and remembered. A large cemetery going back over a thousand years was excavated long ago here, but the most striking feature is the line of rock-cut tombs.

scotland trip jan 15 147Given the nature of decomposition we had to wonder about those. We thought they may have once held bones instead and later research confirms this has been considered. I wondered too about the use to which they may have been put considering the veneration of the bones of the ancestors that had been prevalent in earlier centuries.

Heysham (148)The shaft of a standing cross remains near the chapel, as well as record of the eagle shaped stone once found there that may have been part of a seat or throne. The chapel was once highly decorated… painted plaster fragments with inscriptions were found during an excavation. Yet little is known of its history…it remains an enigma.

scotland trip jan 15 219A dyke was cut between the chapel and the place where a new church was built, quite deliberately, it seems, dividing the old from the new when St Peter’s was built. An older, Saxon church had once stood upon the site of the present church, dating back, it is thought to the seventh or eighth century, similar to St Patrick’s just a few yards away.

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Are we there yet?

*

“Tell me, when will the kingdom come?” said Judas Thomas.

Joshua said,

“why do you wash out the inside of a cup?

So that you may fill it and drink from it?

Whoever makes good the inside, makes good the outside also.

*

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