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My First Steiff

  Inspired by Honey and Spice and Everything Nice, Central Penn Doll Club's May Day luncheon, based upon a dream, I've scored my first Steiff. I've wanted one all of my life. I prefer Andre to the door prizes that I didn't win, and I didn't spend an arm and leg on him. He growls, it's adorable. I have a Merrythought mohair growler, Popcorn, but she's quiet. Andre is alpaca and very soft. I will be attending Letitia Penn Doll Club's show in Dublin soon and am looking forward to that. If I ever get a new car I will join that club, but in the meantime, I must check out Lancaster's Red Rose Club which is a lot closer. 
 

Collinsport Inn

 

The Collins Port Inn

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

The Collins Port Inn

 

The Collins Port Inn Season Six

 

From Hot Blood

Five

  The next morning nobody mentioned anything. Norton downed his breakfast, but still wasn’t talking. “Mother Agatha wants us to try out Brother Norton with the choir.” Abbot de Brinkeley attempted nonchalance. 

  Brother William looked up from his porridge, startled, he was our resident composer and choir master. “Brother Norton can’t sing.” There was a general snicker carried amongst the brethren. Brother William was Norton’s friend, but everybody knew that he couldn’t carry a tune if his life depended on it. He was one of the few brothers left out of choir practice. He couldn’t even hum. 

 The abbot cleared his throat. “Just try. Maybe start with a chant.” 

  William shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. Nobody argued with the abbot. His word was law. Nobody questioned him as he was as fair and wise as Solomon himself. 

  The choir gathered in the loft. The morning light spilled in from the stained glass window and cast a green glow upon our faces. Tommy was allowed to sing with us as he was our only soprano, seated to the far left. He would probably become one of us in time. He sang quite well, although his voice would certainly change with age. I was a tenor and sat directly behind him. Norton looked uncomfortable and out of place. He usually swept the nave and scrubbed the mosaic floor while we practiced. Brother William composed original pieces, but we also sang Gregorian chants. I presumed that was on the agenda for this morning, but William passed out a new piece for us, a polyphony, and not in Latin, but English. This was all very strange and whispers began around before Brother William hushed us by tapping his baton on his podium and raising his hands. The basses, Brothers Benedict and Bruno, began, sounding like thunder in the woods. My heart quickened in time with them when Alphonsus, Sebastian, and I joined them with, “Lord of light, lead us through the darkness. Lead us through the woods…” That was when it got very weird. Tommy was supposed to come in just now with a sweet solo, like a whistling of a bird. Just like in the forest with the wild girl, the hair raised on the back of my neck. We all stopped, stunned. Brothers’ mouths were agape, some dropped their music. 

     Brother Norton came in with an amazing falsetto like none of us had ever heard. His voice chimed like a bell and rang around the chancel in a tinkling echo, eerie, and sublime. If I was a cat, I think my ears would have laid back. I closed my eyes, picturing his song running round my head in a pool of color. “Oh, Father! Light up thy way! Lead me through your forest this glorious day!” Then he just stood there with an idiot smile stretched across his face rivalling Tommy’s. 

Thanks for following! I'm excited that this horror just crept up on me. Based on true crime it will capture all of my lifelong obsessions: Faeries, Druids, The Green Man, plague, mystery, and more. I'm going to try to make Hitchcock happy. I'll let you know when I've finished, (sooner than later), and it is available in all formats on Amazon. TTYL... 🍁

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From Hot Blood

   Three

  Brother Norton was never the same afterwards. Before his disappearance he was very friendly and jovial. He stopped talking. We didn’t know if he had lost his voice or if it was some other malady that caused this. “Give him time,” Brother William said. “Maybe he had a fright”. 

  “Perhaps it was exposure to the elements,” I wondered. “He was out all night, and it was damp.”

  “I am worried for his soul,” Abbot de Brinkeley remarked. “I’m going to take him to Mother Agatha.”

  The cloister on the grounds housed twenty-nine sisters. Like us their numbers had been decimated by the Pestilence. Unlike us, the townsfolk still held them in reverence and sent their daughters to replenish what had been lost. Half of the sisters had only just reached womanhood. Mother Agatha was their Mother Superior and the closest thing to a doctor that Bury St Edmunds had. Her wisdom was held in high regard throughout the land. During the Pestilence the cloister had become a hospital. The sick and dying were piled high. Although the dead were not given funerals, and like everywhere else were laid to rest in a mass grave on the outskirts of the abbey, near the tree line of the ancient forest; the sisters worked tirelessly to ensure that each person was given a proper shroud and kept records as to where each individual was buried. The fact that none of the sisters had run away further endeared them to the survivors of the little community. This was another thing that the monks could not boast, but we were not proud. 

  I went along with the abbot to the cloister that was a stone’s throw from the cathedral. Brother Norton was silent as ever but came along willingly. A tall middle-aged nun with dark eyes let us in. 

  “We’ve come to see Mother Agatha.” 

  She led us to a kind of parlor off of the stone foyer, to the right. Mother Agatha looked up from her reading and stood up to greet us. “Thank you, Catherine.” She motioned to a seat. Norton and I took it, but the abbot remained standing and took the plump little woman’s small white hand. “My old friend, what can I do for you?” She smiled. Her cheeks were rosey. 

  “Mother, Brother Norton, here, will not speak after having spent a long night in the forest.” 

  “When was this?” She went to Norton, touched his chin, and looked into his eyes. 

  “Just the other night.” 

  Now she looked to the abbot. “Not Walpurgis Night?”

  He nodded. “Yes, the same.”

  Suddenly she seemed concerned. “I presume he had no problems speaking before this?”

  He shook his head. “No, none.”

  “Can he sing?”

  The abbot chuckled. “Brother Norton was never known for his singing voice.” It was true, he was tone deaf and could not carry a tune. 

  “Well, try. Any other troubles with him?” She was studying him intently again. Took his hands and opened his mouth. He seemed obedient as a poodle. 

  “Well, he was always outgoing and gregarious, now he is withdrawn.” 

  “Maybe had a fright.” That’s what William had wondered. “Take him back. Feed him up, and keep him warm. If you have any other troubles with him, sleeping, or behavior, bring him back to me. We will keep him in our prayers.” The younger nun was still standing in the front of the room by the door with her back against the wall. Mother Agatha raised her eyebrows to her and gave a little nod. “Sister Catherine will show you out.” 

  The abbot took both of her hands this time. “Thank you, mother, we will do as you say.” 

  Flowers had sprung up along the path and colored our way back to the hall. Brother Norton seemed to be intent on studying a busy bumblebee. 

From Hot Blood

  Two

  His cassock was gone, nowhere to be found. His eyes looked wild and confused as he rose from the ground. I ran towards him. “Norton! What in God’s name?” I bent down, took his hand, and helped him up. He stumbled as if he was drunk. I didn’t smell any wine on him. He smelled terrible like a cave. “What happened? Where have you been? Abbot de Brinkeley is worried about you. We feared the worst.” We had come to expect the worst. It was easier. My father had said, “Hope in one hand, shit in the other. See which one fills up faster.” That was how it was, or how it had been for years now. 

  He rubbed his throat but did not speak. I turned him around on the path and started out of the woods. I thought I had. I thought I had only come off the footpath into the trees a bit before seeing the girl. Where were we? My breakfast rolled over. I removed a handkerchief from my pocket and mopped my worried forehead that was breaking out into a cold sweat. “Can you walk?” I let him go. “Where are we?” I felt dizzy and lightheaded as if my blood pressure had suddenly risen and dropped. 

  Just then a May Day parade broke through wearing animal masks, all whistles and bells. I stepped back, putting my hand against Norton’s chest, holding him back, off the deer path. There were foxes, owls, badgers, and boars. They picked up their feet and held out their hands. Their tambourines were strung with colored ribbons that they shook and patted against their hands and hips. I followed at a distance hoping they’d lead us from the woods, but they seemed to go on for miles deeper into the forest. I became tired and thirsty. Norton dropped to the ground and stared up at me like a child. I would’ve panicked if I wasn’t exhausted. I dropped down beside him and fell asleep for a long while. 

  I dreamed of the girl. She ran from me on and on through the forest and the trees. It was getting darker, and she laughed like a bird before disappearing into a mossy chasm hidden in the rocks. 

  I was woken by somebody shaking my shoulder. “Brother Francis, get up.” It was Brother Luke and Vigilius, two of the youngest brothers in their late twenties. Brother Norton was already standing beside them. I rose and downed a good bit of wine that Vigilius handed me in a skin. “We got lost.”

  “I see that. How?”

  “I don’t know.” I rubbed my head. “I didn’t think that I had come far into the woods. Then I made the mistake of following the mummers. They got us lost.”

  “Hmm…” The two of them took us back to the abbey. It was late afternoon by the time we got there.  

From Starve Acre

   "It seemed to Richard sometimes that Juliette had actually brought twins into the world: Ewan and Guilt. The latter had always been the stronger of the two. It fed more, weighed more, demanded more of their attention. When it had outlived Ewan, it had grown larger still."

"It seemed that he'd only come into the world to take their love and fill them with sorrow." 

Andrew Michael Hurley

  Funny, my book is from the Lancashire library. That's not only where the author is from, but my beloved late friend had sent me a copy of The Lancashire Witches from the museum that I could not put down. I really have to try for a nap and a dream. I'm back to that every three days thrice as much gig. Arthur and Frankie both sleep twice as much as I. TTYL... ✨

 

THE SECRET WORLD OF POLLY FLINT, Episode 1

Recognized the author of Moondial straight away. I love that, read the book. This book is in my Amazon cart. I'm a little backed up with reading at the moment. I ordered Shadow of the Stone as it seems rare. I finished The Jaywalker recently. 

Sir Beltane, Sir Napsalot, & Mr. Magnolia

  The fairy cakes and Ron's fairy house are gone. Sir Beltane is mine. Sir Napsalot is Ron's since I sleep all day because he won't let me have a puppy. Mr. Magnolia stayed in the tree. Ron said it rained twice while I was sleeping, but these fellows stayed dry beneath the tree while I waited for their Super Glue to dry. Their faces are done with Sharpies, and they have a couple of coats of varnish all around. Ron had drilled holes in the nuts for me, and I wired them with pipecleaners. I am not selling them due to fragility, but they are a fun craft for kids while they are learning about trees. I like trees and puppies way more than people. I am working on my first Jennie Wade doll for the Jennie Wade House in Gettysburg. I am making two sizes: ten inch and dollhouse size. I probably won't get back there in awhile as my next plans are for The 1777 Americana Inn in Ephrata. I want to stay in the Garden Room. TTYL... 🎕

 

May Day

The First Fairy House

Beltane Celebration

Beltane Celtic background music for fire dance Beltane rituals - May day...

Camelot | 45th Anniversary: The Lusty Month of May | Warner Bros. Entert...

Scratchy Fairy Cakes

   Ron had gotten me Betsy Williams Are there Fairies in the Bottom of your Garden? from the witch at The Green Dragon. I read it to him on the way to The Leticia Penn Doll Club's Christmas at The William Penn Inn. I got the fairy cake recipe from there. The fairy blackberry punch will match. Have a Happy Beltane! 

🔥Light All the Fires🔥

Beltane: A Celebration of Light 🌄 Celtic Music ☘️ Healing Harp Music 💚Re...