Beautiful Belsay in Spring.

I wish you could smell these

Gunneras will stalk again

Magnificent Magnolias

Lambs of course

CELEBRATING 100 MICROHORRORS, a FIRST at GYROSCOPE REVIEW and MORE!

My 100th MicroHorror is called Levitating Lady.

I would never have dreamt of writing any horror at all had it not been for Writewords duo Bill West and John Ritchie encouraging me to have a go. That was back in 2007. I won three Hallowe'en Competitions in a row and then was a judge for three in a row and here I am eight years later at 100 Horrors in MicroHorror and several elsewhere thanks to John and Bill and editor Nathan Rosen. I am sorry John isn't here to read it and leave me one of his comical comments.

Saints Alive was written just this week in response to the Flash Fiction challenge at Writewords where we are commemorating the brilliantly wicked sence of humour of our late friend, fellow fictionner and mentor John Ritchie aka Prospero who was the landlord of our fictitious local, The Parched Quill. He'd laugh at this one!

We all miss you John.

and I am also up today at PostcardPoemsandProse with Old Fashioned Broth. There seems to be a theme of saints and grannies going on here! It's coincidental...

 




Today is also the inaugural issue of Gyroscope Review and I am delighted that Kathleen and Constance decided to make me part of that by accepting HEART OF BRIGHTNESS that has nothing to do with grannies or saints -- bucking trend here :) Congratulaions on your new venture -- it's a great first issue and I see lots of friends there too. Every success.  

All in all a day worth celebrating.

First Day of Spring and Love is in the air

Yesterday was pretty spectacular here in North East England. Just prior to totality, the eclipse sky was completely clouded.But a small window of thinner cloud allowed me to get the best view possible.

Couldn't have been better When the sun re-emerged it seemed spring-like and we decided to go to Cragside. Nelly's Moss Lakes is our favourite walk. It's on the flat ;) A gentleman who'd never been there before came up for a chat and told us to look out for the frogs in the weeds along the margins of the lakes. We didn't have to go far to see them. The water was full of bubbles from their chasing about and frog spawn too and the air was filled with what I can only describe as frogs' purring -- chirruping little sounds, calls and answers from all over the pond. And then we saw them. poking their pretty little heads out of the water and generally having a spring orgy!

And they were not the only ones! 

At this point we began to notice toads on the path.

Only some of them had - eherm - too many legs ;)

and soon there were so many you really had to watch where you were stepping!

because they are so well camouflaged and when the detect someone coming they remain stalk still. It's not the best survival mechanism in the world when there are serious walkers and CARS are involved. 


3 toads/ five toads/ toads just getting in the mood/ toads that had just finished/ stoned toads! But it is Spring and this is the perfect habitat for frogs and toads and after all it's educational :) Get out there this weekend and see what you can see.

Oonahverse Eclipsed

Well, it was spectacular! The air went cold. A breeze blew up. The birdies stopped singing and the local mogg stopped mousing and left the garden. I didn't expect much and when I saw the cloud this morning I though that's that BUT it was the cloud that enabled me to see the eclipse -- glance at it -- take a few photos. I just snapped and snapped to see what I could get. And this is what I got.

I was PLEASED

A few years back I wrote an eclipse poem Celestial Sunflower and it's HERE along with a professional and tranfixing picture of a total eclipse at the South Pole. You'll see why I called it that when you see the photo!

This photo shows just how dark it got outside -- a mini nox in our Equinox!  

And I had the TV on of course watching the event with StarGazing Live which has been superb with the wonderful Buzz Aldrin being very entertaining and suggesting that Dara OBriain is way too emotional to ever be a test pilot :) Yip that Buzz is a COOL dude!

So that was it. A celestial event in my own back yard. Wonderful!