Author Archive

My parents gave me two very special gifts. One was the love of all things related to words, foreign languages and reading, this last much aided by a fertile imagination. By the age of 7 when I transferred into junior school I had already read all the set books we were due to read in the coming year and I was bored stiff in the reading lessons. We didn’t have a TV in our house until I was 11 and my grandparents came to live with us, bringing with them their black and white TV. Up until then our entertainment came from listening to the radio and I can well remember being ill one day, lying on the sofa in the living room, listening to a radio production of The Hobbit. It was the episode where the hobbits go through Mirkwood and, in my fevered imagination, I could see faces in the uneven surface of the plaster in the ceiling. It was terrifying….

The other was a love of natural history. Given the opportunity I would most certainly have had one of those cabinets of miracles as I was always a magpie of a collector and hoarder. I learned the names of all the wildflowers to be found in the woods and hedgerows. My mother had a book of black and white illustrations of wildflowers which she had started to paint, including annotations of when and where she had found them. I carried on this interest and later insisted on having my own copy of the book. At weekends our family would go on geological forays to disused coal tips where we would find fossil ferns or to the
Dorset coast where we would find ammonites, fossil flowers, sharks teeth and devils toenails on the beach at Lyme Regis. I collected shells, abandoned birds eggs, etc. etc and could identify all the birds that came to our garden. At the end of our garden I had my own flowerbed and learned the names of all the garden plants. I spent hours in the greenhouse with my grandfather where he regaled me with tales of his childhood.

Nowadays, I am still a collector, but only of the photographs I take of all things fauna and flora. Perhaps I should add that I collect books as well. But you probably already guessed that …

This is my contribution to “a suitcase for hope”. It is the inside of the lid of a camphor wood-lined travelling trunk whose scented wood would keep clothes safe from moths.

I do not know if the picture is of the owner of the trunk or is merely for decoration (note the raven). I like to think that the trunk may have contained the start of a new life somewhere for someone.

Traveller

“He who has health has hope and he who has hope has everything”.

Traveller

Lady Sybil Riversleigh, Commander of the Soul Food constellation, has requested that members of her fleet participate in a special celebration.

Fleet members are travelling from all over the Empire to be with her on this special day. We travelled in the starship, the ‘burning candle’ together with representative members of the Sisterhood of Ravens who are more usually to be found splashing around in the fountains in Bruges.

Musical accompaniement is provided by the fabulous Barb Jungr singing songs from her first CD “Bare”.

We bring carrot cake for comfort and nourishment together with water from Jacob’s well to share in the sorrow and joy that this day may bring and wish Darryl “bon voyage”!

with love from Traveller and Paul

These are my latest creations for a private RR, the subject of this book is ‘travel’. The quotation above the question reads “all journeys lead to secret destinations of which the traveller is often unaware”.

Greetings fellow revellers,

I am something of an itinerant and my appearances in Lemuria are somewhat irregular but I usually return with tales of afar, photos, collages or words. I have just returned from more journeying but more about that in another time and another place. I have brought with me two pictures to hang on the walls of the tavern (courtesy of the French postal system).

The first one is called “sleep”

and the second one is called “the sleeping muse”

I feel sure that, with all the creative stimuli I can feel floating in the air around me, it will not be long before there are no sleepers here (dreamers maybe), and wonders will come forth.

Troubadour (aka Traveller aka Carol)