I’m having a lot of a little trouble getting my sorry self into gear lately.
I’ve made some big decisions - you know the ones that can alter the course of your life type decisions - but I’m falling down flat on my face as far as it comes to organising and doing them. I know, it all sounds super mysterious like:
I’ve run off with the milk man OR
I’m contemplating running off with the milk man OR
MrT has run off with the milk man
Rest assured, it’s none of the above and no milk men were harmed in the decision making process. I want to focus my work more on writing. And writing about thinks I’m passionate about. Pretty much what I do here (which at the moment isn’t a lot) and over at Wizard & Witch but on a LARGER scale.
Anyway, before I digress further, let me update you on the week thus far. Or at least since we went to St. Margarets.
Well, not a lot has happened. We’ve had to spend time indoors because of grocery delivery and the windscreen repair man. We managed to get another chip in our windscreen.
Popped to the library to take back Doreen Virtue’s Lightworker Handbook (I think that’s what it’s called) which was very good. I’d recommend it to anyone especially if all you’ve ever read by Doreen are pricey books with not many words. You get a glimpse of the lady behind the rather polished exterior.
We celebrated Ostara with a year membership to the National Trust. With spring now officially here I can’t wait to go to the properties and walks they manage. The boys do not share my enthusiasm.
And while life was going on around me I also had a heap load of work. Writing and otherwise.
Yesterday we went to the Explosion Museum in Gosport. It’s rumoured to be shutting down at the end of the month so we thought we’d better get there before it was too late.
It’s rumoured to be a hot spot of paranormal activity because it’s in the old navy munitions depot that’s supplied the navy with explosives from Nelson to WWII. At some point in its history (the era escapes me now) there was an accident resulting in a big bang and several deaths. Just what you’d expect from any accident which involves gunpowder!
The museum itself is quite fascinating. And that’s coming from someone who didn’t particularly want to go (although I have to confess I’m becoming much more interested in naval history living in a navy town).
My elder son didn’t like it but he doesn’t like very much these days - he’s a proper pre-teen. My younger son who hates anything academic LOVED this museum. He stood and read the information panels, pushed buttons on the interactive displays and lagged behind because he was enjoying it too much. No one was more shocked than me at his behaviour!!
If you live local to Gosport, go to the Explosion museum next weekend becaues you might not get another chance.
And there are the photos of orbs. Lots of them. All from the museum.
Look along the floor.
Ostara, or the Spring Equinox, falls between 20-22 March. It’s the first day of Sping and Kim Pearson has 7 excellent ways for you to celebrate.
Enjoy!
Seven Easy Ways To Celebrate The Spring Equinox
The Spring Equinox, sometimes known as Ostara, falls on March 21st. The nights and days are of equal length. All is in perfect [...]
Yesterday we went to the very quaint, very old, very difficult to find St. Margaret’s Church in Hampshire.
I picked it as a place to visit because it’s the final resting place of Florence Nightingale and her ghost has been reportedly seen at the church. So boys went to school and we went to check out the church.
Our methods of finding proof of the paranormal are purely unscientific. And on this particular visit were purely non-existant.
I always have my camera with me. I try not to go anywhere without it. On a trip we then usually have dowsing rods and sometimes voice recorders. Oh, and we always have Tabitha which means our investigations are done under the cover of blaring sunlight (or as blaring as it gets in the UK).
Yesterday I did have my camera and we did have the baby. I forgot to tell MrT why we were going to St. Margaret’s and as I rely on him to bring everything (apart from said camera and baby) we didn’t have anything with us. Whoops.
Actually he was a little peeved to find himself at yet another church quite a distance from home without any good reason for visiting it. Only after, in the car on the way home, when I told him I was a little disappointed we didn’t sense the ghost did he understand the reasoning behind our visit. This did very little to lift his mood (but in all fairness he recovered quickly).
This is St. Margaret’s.
Florence Nightingale’s grave.
My arty shot! A shrine inside the church for Florence. The cross is a replica of one given to her by a soldier during the Crimean War. The original was stolen from the church in 1991.
And this photo is my only ’spooky’ shot.
Look at the size of that orb in the top right corner!
Friday was my birthday and it went really well considering it fell on Friday 13th this year. Nothing weird or unlucky happened apart from taking a detour home from Guildford due to a humongous traffic pile up which piled up for MILES.
So MrT and I had an adventure. A very long adventure. BUT we did get home eventually and we got to see some countryside we wouldn’t normally see because we live in totally the opposite direction.
What should take us a 2.5 hour round trip took us 4.5. Then it was a rush to get baby fed, ready for bed and then dinner for us.
On our massive detour we kept passing quaint pub after quaint pub offering home cooked food. MrT kept dropping hints but sometimes unless you are blatantly direct- i.e. I want to go to the pub – it goes right over my head. Hence we didn’t stop and we got pizza in.
What made my birthday one of the best I’ve ever had (even though most of it was sitting in the car getting a numb backside) was this:
Flowers AND chocolates AND a balloon.
I was totally surprised.
Tabitha was fascinated by the balloon as you can see!
Yesterday was more car sitting and driving. The petrol garages are loving me this weekend but the environment not so much. After spending what has seemed like an eternity, due to sickness and just too much darned work, we went out for the day.
And this is where we went:
This is Farleigh Hungerford castle in Somerset. The home to the powerful Hungerford family in the Middle Ages. There’s not much left of it now (like so many castles) but it does have one of the most preserved 14th century chapels in the country.
Inside the chapel there is a painting of St. George and the dragon (but you can’t see the dragon) which is 600 years old. It was plastered over when Henry VIII decided to abandon Catholicism. It was deemed too risky to have painting of Saints in the church! It wasn’t until several hundreds of years later when a chunk of plaster fell from the wall that this wonderful piece of Medieval art was revealed.
The castle, like all good castles, has a dark and murky past. One Lady Hungerford was kept captive in the tower for 4 years whilst her husband tried to poison her. His plan failed because villagers smuggled food into the tower under the cover of darkness.
Another Lady Hungerford only married into the family after she’s arranged to have her current husband murdered then his body burnt in the castle oven. Her crimes caught up with her and she was hung and Tyburn.
The crypt was a fascinating little place with 8 lead coffins. No one knows who lies there – just there’s 6 adults and 2 infants. There’s an iron gate in front of the crypt to keep the public out. There was a time when you could get into the crypt but it had to be stopped because some of the public were using straws to poke through wholes in the lead and drink the embalming fluid! Gross!
If you look really closely to the left you’ll see an orb. Here it is a bit bigger!
Before we set off again we let Tabitha loose on the grass. She isn’t walking yet. She bunny hops. She will do lap after lap of hopping. This is her before I realised the grass was damp and her dress was now covered in grass stains.
We went onto Trowbridge before we went home. Here are some gratuitous gargoyle from St. James Church.
And a scary one…
This Friday it’s my birthday. Yep, I know, Friday the Thirteenth. I can almost hear the Jaws theme tune mixed with the twilight zone. Fortunately they don’t come around too often. Friday the 13th birthdays that is - I do get a regular birthday most other years
The boys are with their Dad this weekend so I’ll be spending a good portion of the day driving to drop them off then sitting in traffic after they’ve departed. Fun, fun, fun!
Instead of missing out on cake and ice-cream celebrating with mum, the boys brought my birthday forward. They went out shopping at the end of last week. I took them to the Mall (this was a test of how much I love my family because I felt SICK. Really, really sick.) and they went off by themselves to spend their pocket money on gifts for me.
I had all kinds of nightmares in the space of 1/2 hour. You see, this was the first time I’d ever let them loose in a shopping mall. Would they get lost? Would someone snatch them? Would they buy me Star Wars figures?
I panicked needlessly.
They did come back. They weren’t snatched. And I didn’t get plastic figures with lightsabers.
On Sunday all was revealed. Here’s what I got:
A teddy bear, a pewter fairy holding a sign with ‘mum’ written on it and a brass pendulum.
And this is what they got:
I make birthday cakes for everyone and I was going to make one for myself BUT MrT said NO!
So we popped down the shop and I bought cup cakes and ice cream. I got to choose the ice cream so I had cappuccino and Christmas pudding. The cup cakes were lemon. The flavours were weird. BUT it was divine!
The results are in for the Aeclectic Top Ten Tarot decks of 2008. AND I do not own a single one. There are several on my wish list but they haven’t materialised into my hands yet.
I have some serious catching up to do with my, already large, collection.
Here’s the top 10 countdown for 2008 in reverse order:
10 - Tarot of the Magical Forest
9 - Whispering Tarot (Limited Edition)
8 - Mystic Dreamer Tarot
7 - Quantum Tarot (Kunati)
6 - Alchemical Tarot: Renewed
5 - Legacy of the Divine Tarot (Special Edition)
4 - Anna K Tarot
3 - Touchstone Tarot (Limited Edition)
2 - Transparent Tarot
1 - Deviant Moon
It’s strange some days, only 24 hours apart, can have a completely different energy. Yesterday MrT and I were full of ideas and excitement for new projects we’re considering and other things in progress that need attention. You could have told us climbing Everest was a good idea and we probably would have agreed, had our bags packed and passport in hand within a blink of an eye.
Today has been a total opposite.
Both of us started out knowing we had a lot of work to do and pretty excited about doing it. Things began to go awry - I’d go so far as to say nothing went right.
The highlight of the day (thus far) was taking a break and going out for a coffee. We’re going to watch ‘Big Bang Theory’ tonight. I love that show - makes me laugh so hard. The theme tune is pretty good too
There’s nothing quite like a fun survey on a Monday!! Spend a few minutes and you too can find out what Tarot card you are. Here’s mine and it’s pretty accurate.
You are The Moon
Hope, expectation, Bright promises.
The Moon is a card of magic and mystery - when prominent you know that nothing is as it seems, particularly when it concerns relationships. All logic is thrown out the window.
The Moon is all about visions and illusions, madness, genius and poetry. This is a card that has to do with sleep, and so with both dreams and nightmares. It is a scary card in that it warns that there might be hidden enemies, tricks and falsehoods. But it should also be remembered that this is a card of great creativity, of powerful magic, primal feelings and intuition. You may be going through a time of emotional and mental trial; if you have any past mental problems, you must be vigilant in taking your medication but avoid drugs or alcohol, as abuse of either will cause them irreparable damage. This time however, can also result in great creativity, psychic powers, visions and insight. You can and should trust your intuition.
What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out
Leave a comment and let me know what card you are!
March 22, 2009
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