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Blog: March 2023. (Not Waving but Drowning)

Hi All!

     I’m afraid during the 2022 Season of The Witch, I was hospitalised in October with Covid and pneumonia, and Halloween’s feature of ‘The Druidess’ was thus put on the back-burner.

I still have pneumonia, and warned I could be re-admitted I’ve to wear a mask, that might pose a problem were it not that I like lookin’ like the Phantom of the Opera. Up and about more and more, (ergo I’m off to the Opera in a few days to see the production of ‘Carmen’) I’ve not been idle. Whiling my time with an outline of an Anthology of Stories, Poetry & Prose, that I’m about to submit to publishers.

I lost my beloved little pensioner-pup Hadrian (Emperor of Home) the day before I was taken into the R.V.I., I would not have left him otherwise and we may have simply winged our way up together, to the Dog Star in the sky. And having lost our beloved Brucy the Poosy some Christmases back who was a victim of the local pet poisoner, aspects of them both are in the sea mammals in one of the stories.

Not sure when I’ll be back, so in the interim (albeit I’ve not spell-checked the errata yet) I shall leave you with the ‘Contents List’ for said anthology, and two of the chapters, plus a preview of the full {synopsis} for ‘Where The Dancer Is The Sand’, thus to lend a gist of where I’m at right now, and say farewell to my two little boys.

Credits: to poet Stevie Smith for blog’s heading, and the following song by Pat Benatar.

Keep your eyes and fingers crossed for moi if you will, and keep yourselves safe happy and smiling!

TOAD x

HADRI         

He used to be somebody’s baby

Someone used to hold him close, and rock him gently

He used to be the light in someone’s eyes

He used to matter, He used to matter …

BRUCY

Someone cared if he lived or died

Someone held him in their arms when he cried

And when he hurt, someone kept the world away

Somebody loved him, Somebody loved him …

(Synopsis: WHERE THE DANCER IS THE SAND)

The story references, an imaginary island in Northumberland, an Irish theme, an unrequited love for ballet, and a haunting, thus is a ghost story.

Its title, is ditto to the poem that inspired it.

I’d started outlining said anthology, and too childish to include in the collection of more adult themed poems, I wrote this story around one of them. Which I threaded into the narrative lending an ethereal voice to the words of a missing thirteen year old child, Mariah Daniels. By way of her reveries, or eulogy.

There’s an island cottage called Coquillage

A mirage upon the land

Where Halcyon sings the melody

And the dancer is the sand

The empathy and provenance is authentic, as I wrote the verses when only a year older than Mariah, tweaking this word and that up to my nineteens, like a painting I couldn’t set my brush down on. It was in memory of my Sand-Dancer daddy and an imaginary happy home we shared, before I was witness to his suicide at nine. Lines such as the following ..

The garden has turned to wildness where my father once whiled his hours

And my swing no longer swings there amongst the dewy flowers

.. have been altered to fit Mariah’s scenario. Her name comes from an old song, ‘Mariah, they call the wind, Mariah’; the name of the cottage, from a song by Marianne Faithfull.

Set on Wynd Island, that’s a diminution of Childy Wynd, the heir to the throne of Bamburgh in Medieval times and sibling of the Laidley Worm-Dragon. The island can be reached by a narrow causeway from the mainland. Abandoned, it houses only the ruins of an old church converted from a much older monastery, foundations of a bygone lighthouse, a tumbled down abode once called ‘Cockleshell Cottage’, a petroglyph of a dragon in its cave, and the ghosts of its past said to haunt the island.

The central characters are Feargal O’Finnigan, populary known as Fin. And his wife, Mary O’Finnigan, nee Souvestre.

On securing the deeds to the island, Fin sets about rebuilding the old cottage from the ruins.

Caption: Fin’s concerns about the hauntings.

[He had heard-it-all about Ghosties, Changelings, Goblins, Little People and Leprachauns back in Ireland. And with a granny stirring herbs in a cauldron hanging over the open-range peat fire, a suspicious looking straw fairy with horns on top of the Christmas tree (and he never bought the line in was Rudolph’s mammy), a broom and shillelagh under her bed and a seance every week after bingo, wee-folkgood-folk whattiva-folk were second nature to him. Fin was happy to live and let live even if the living’re dead, so long as no Clurichaun pilfered his malt tipples.]  

On completion of their new home Mary named the cottage, ‘Cobwebs’. Fin went out on his fishing boat to sea, and Mary stayed home tutoring in French literature on the Open University forum. One day Mary rescued an injured seal cub trapped in a fissure on the rocks, and ‘Rocky’ was adopted by the O’Finnigan‘s. A short time later a young walrus scenting Fin’s haul, waddled up onto the garden, and bumped his head on the trompe l’oeil fish basket on the shed. And dazed and confused, earned his name ‘Wally’ and another place in the family . Both cubs thence absorbed most of the O’Finnigan’s time, and received their land mama and dadda’s unconditional love.

Caption:

[When Wally couldn’t access Rocky’s dog-flap in the back door, he simply took the whole door off its hinges, one day. That was hung with tarpaulin, until Big Dadda put his BIG CU CHULAINN foot down. And installed a new door with a Wally sized flap.]

Caption: Mary’s view on hearing about the dreaded Waterbairns, said to haunt the island. Whose giggling Singing Hinny voices are heard echoing across the surf by many a trembling mainlander; whom Mary, living on the island herself has never seen hide nor hair or tail of. Or ever heard one titter from.

[‘Is one to infer from that, the community is somehow suffering from a kind of mass hysteria, from reading too much Kingsley?’]

Caption: Response at Hermon’s loud rude remark about the tea at the Lit & Phil.

[.. dust rose, eyebrows rose, feathers from Hermon’s Vivian Westwood hat rose, and Mary could swear the ears on the taxidermic dog rose.

Hermon’s smile rose to the size of half a saucer.

And Mary felt she might have made a friend on these shores in Hermoine Binx, preferably known as, Hermon.]

Caption: Cobwebs.

[The cubs contentedly full bellied and fast asleep on the rocks just outside the back door. Fin stood behind Mary with his arms wrapped about her waist and head tucked on her shoulder, as they looked out of the window onto the sunset. Their faces a crystalline kaleidoscope of Amber, Amethyst, Peridot, and Turquoise from the stained-glass spiralled cobweb, leaded across the pane.]

Never knowing an Irishman personally, the concept of Fin’s gregariously loud and quietly literate character took shape on watching a programme hosted by Imelda May (the title of which eludes me). The show didn’t so much give birth to Fin, but exuded an infectious childish wonder and awe at the poetic beauty of the Island of Ireland, that mirrored my own views on the piece of the Sceptred Isle, that’s Northumberland. Having ‘Ulysses’ and the complete works of Joyce and W.B. Yeats on my shelves already, the maxim of know thyself may have been a little at play re’ Fin …. were it that is,

I drank like a fish, fought like a fisticuffs , and tied my hair back like a pirate.

Albeit tie it back like, Dick Turpin.

Those who’re familiar with St. Mary’s Lighthouse & Island, across the causeway from Whitley Bay. And have watched its seal population (from a considerate and imperative distance), shan’t fail to see the allusion.

For stripped of its existing structures the island and locale presented the blank canvas for: the Isle of Childy Wynd.

***

(January Journal, 2023. Monday, 6th)

Got up this morning at 8-30, the air outside the window was so blazing white I thought I was looking at the Northern Lights. Until I opened the back door, and the yard carpeted white, the air was filled with tumbling snow so prolific in its descent it was almost opaque. Which I stuck my nose out into (as yerdo), then thought better of it with long-covid-pneumonia and closed the door; showing I was thinking laterally today, or I’d have been out in the yard barefoot on it. And after an annus horribilis 2022, in tandem with the first snowdrops shooting up in the garden yesterday, I recalled Prevert’s lines:

There’ll always be a chink

In the Winter wall

To give us a glimpse of Summer

It’s only that it’s a long Winter, that’s all.

Switching on the T.V. to watch the morning news, I came face-to-face with a walrus. Named ‘Thor’, he was basking his ton-plus frame lazily or dozily before agog Northumbrians on the shores of Blyth, (when he ought to have been in the Arctic.) Maybe methoughts he’d read on the wind of a quarter-ton little brother?

Fancifully of course.

Yet it transpires I wasn’t so far off the mark after all: About the incongruous non-indigenous arrival (out of the blue), of Wally on Wynd Island.

The programme continued, asking the public to look out for and report sightings of whales, dolphins, and further sightings of walruses. (You just couldn’t make it up!)

Soon it’ll be reported locals have heard the mermaids singing through Bed & Breakfast bathroom windows in Whitley Bay!  

Time and tide waits for no one (not even the Toad) and wasn’t sure that I’d make it to this year, but whatta HOOT that I did!

Come, dear children, let us away;

Down and away bellow!

Now my brothers call from the bay,

Now the great winds shoreward blow,

Now the salt tides seaward flow …

                         (Arnold)

Thorsday’s Child signing off for now.

THE REMARKABLE ROCKET II

(Jude The Absent)

In (A Stream) throughout juniors, Suza failed the Grading Exam (11 Plus) having failed to attend and sit it. Resulting in allocation to the (D Form for dunces) at Ralph Gardner Secondary Modern School For Girls.

And now thirteen, she is in Third Year.

Albeit unsurprisingly not at school today, and having bypassed the school homework on Thomas Hardy with a look of prolonged disdain, she is diligently writing in her journal. That she has religiously kept up since writing her Memoirs at four.

Hopes of a Happy New Year dashed, compliments of that piece of maudlin’ misery by (Hard-up for a cheery word Hardy) that’s been polluting my school-bag for days. And if that’s not enough my bike, whose break thinks it’s a Luftwaffe ejection seat (and whatta Hoot to break then fly, hence I get covered in more puncture repair plasters than the bike does). Anyways it went and chucked itself in the air this morning, and has got a buckled wheel. Roddy next door says he’ll find a new wheel, and technically being’s it’s his bike, too right that he oughtta.

Which I guess makes this bag of misery only three-quarters full.

Note:

Better hide this new Five Year Diary that I got off Santa for Christmas (filling up already with passive-resistance nonconformist anarchy and subterfuge), because what’s giveth can be taketh away, and if Mum finds and reads it she’ll kill Meadowell’s answer to Biggles.

***

(These Little Boots Are Made For Walking)

Third Year soon going into Fourth Year.

After morning assembly, and the collective singing of the School Song:

Valiant guardian boldly standing

On a barren windswept land …

The following finds Suza suitably windswept in the classroom, pensively musing on the view of the Barren Windswept Land stretched out into infinity before her.

I’m 13 going on 14.

And my bogus Grammar School scarf is tightening round my neck like the hands Caligula said he wanted to strangle all Rome with, in this dunce-dustbin called School. Sat here in front of a desk with my king-learia-posteria glued to the seat and head en route to the empyrean, to distance myself from this torture.

In short if the school board take Mum to court for my absenteeism again, Mum’s gonna take my head off and chop up my bike. (Now I understand why these’re called, salad days.)

It’s morning in English class, and Miss has just asked us to write an essay on where we live. (Shoulda been about where we are as I’ve a copy of Dante’s Inferno burning a hole in my school-bag.)

Sally at the next desk’s reeling out a yarn about the days when she lived by Haggie’s Rope Works. Celia on the other side’s floridly writing about Northumberland Park where the swans from the lake fly over her facing Victorian townhouse. I live on the Meadowell council estate, and have just run out of margins in my exercise book to continue my games of solo noughts n crosses.

Northeast of Eden

In the ninth century A.D. prior to the Danish conquest, this Sceptred Isle was known as Angel Cynn, race of Angles. And Venerable Bede of the Tyne, wrote in the gens Anglorum scripts about an incident in ancient Rome. On appraisal of two golden haired slaves said to be barbarian Angles, Pope Gregory exclaimed ‘They look like angels!’. Henceforth Papal orders were decreed to convert the pagan angels to Christianity, in their isle of Briton far away, reputed by the staunchest Roman tribune to be the End Of The World Where There Be Dragons. From thence arose the ecclesiastical identity of the the Angles & Saxons into English.

Myn entrance into the world was at the House of Cardinal Air, under the morning star of The Light Bearer, on the day of Saint Michael. He whom with blazing sword flashing didst cast the fallen angel asunder from heaven, to slither evermore across the world of man as a worm-dragon.

And there be many forms, shades and guises that the angels present themselves in. Be they the seven holiest, Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Chamuel, Zadkiel, Uriel, Jophiel. The numerous eyed, seventy winged Almighty Metatron. The fiery-red three-faced six winged Seraphim. The shimmering four winged Kerubim, whose lightning flashing extretions begats further multitudes of angels. The tallest one Sandalphon, whose height spans the universe. The nine heavenly Choirs. The twenty thousand Charioteers of God. The Orphanium wheel angels. And amongst God’s infinite legions, Auhabiel and Bahaliel the Angels of Love and Terror. Azrael the Angel of Death. Notwithstanding, Satanael-Iblis-Samael the Fallen Angel, once reputed to be the most beauteous and beguiling angel of them all.

And whilst there be more roads that lead to Calvary, Purgatory and Hell than to Paradise, the maxim sayeth that All Roads Leadeth To Rome. Thus I begin myn pilgrimage on the road to, Pons Aelius.

At the borderline south-east of the Land of the Free, wherein she who wed the noble Scythian Celt in the Biblical times of the drowning of the Egyptian Army and the Exodus is ever remembered by name, Scota the Pharaoh’s daughter.

At the first stepping stones into olde England, whose patron saint is George the Dragonslayer. I venture due south from the castle of Berwick, past the castle and abbey ruins of the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, consecrated by saints and immortalised by gospels: Whose sacking by Viking marauders was reported by the native Votadini, as the coming of queer winds from the ocean horizon, lightning flashes and fiery dragons across the the sky, (namely the longboat fleet masts).

And onto Bamburgh, where Boreus blows the wind beneath the wings of gulls across the waves rocks and sand dunes, and whispers through the hill heather still cloaked in royal-purple hues upon the land, that true as red and white roses once did battle here, here once upon a faery legended time stood a Kingdom, renowned and revered for knights of valour throughout all Christendom: Its castle bearing the legend of Childy Wynd heir to the throne of Bamburgh, whose sister the once lovely Princess Margaret was accursed by their wicked stepmother into the Laidley Worm-Dragon.

In the now Dukedom of Northumberland, I venture on and anon due south to the Priory and castle ruins of Tynemouth. Burial ground of Malcolm Canmore of Scotland, King Osred, and the Sainted King Oswin of Northumberland; and sacked by the scurrilous Viking, Halfdan. Also entered into the annals of Northumbrian legend is the Wizard’s Cave in the cliff beneath, or the latterday colloquial ‘Jingle Geordie’s Cave’. From whence the knight Walter the Bold, harried by demons, hobgoblins and dragons guarding the legendary treasure therein, didst steal away thus bounty with sword shorn from the jaws of hellfire and damnation. Traversing past the Black Middens of North Shield’s Fishquay sands, following the river bank. Until I enter into the Meadow Of The Well, and stand before the house of myn father.   

Miss slapped a star on my essay, Miss from R.I. came in and banged on another, then Miss from history whacked one on, and Miss from dram ..

Well, there’s enough spit’nd bacterial-sputim on that pile of junk in my school-bag to overflow a pitri dish, and paper stars to make a constellation.

Think I’ll make a paper rocket to zoooom up through those stars, right outta here ..

  ‘I HOPE you’ve been to school today and that’s homework you are writing there, young miss.’

.. and must take a book as it’s gonna be a looooooooooooong journey.

***

I’m nearly 15.

Careers Miss wants me to go to art school (Impressed)

Headmiss wants me to go to teachers college (TRAUMATISED!)

Song Credit

Valiant Guardian, R.G.G.S.M. School Song, written by school’s Art Teacher Mrs. Doig.

JOSIE’S TUNE

Josephine Zara Baird-Hetherington is of upper class bourgeois Russian parentage, whose father Serge had been shot by the Bolsheviks, as a dissident. Hence her mother Svetlana’s arrival on the shores of England with their tiny baby in her arms. After one war ceased, the Cold War took up the mantle of grave family risk, and with new Anglo  identities they entered into the upper echelon society, of the ‘City of Dreaming Spires’. Josephine was thus educated at boarding school, finishing school, and the best colleges across the globe to the highest academic standard. Holds a doctorate in archaeology and geology (etcetera), notwithstanding has a proficiency and fluency in languages to the highest level of a polyglot.

Suzanne Eliza Llewelin is a recalcitrant unschooled teenager, educated at the Autodidact Academy whereat she surpassed the national curriculum. Whose bilingual proficiency and fluency in foreign languages is, Geordie.

Tynemouth Prior’s Haven sands was the frequent destination of Suza, racing at breakneck speed on her bike down the Priory bank, past the castle ruins embankment. En route to her own private haven of peace and quiet, where Mother of Pearl was not the sort of mutha to earbash her shell-ears incessantly, and school was shoal only for fishies, ergo it was Suza’s personal piece of heaven.

This day, chagrined at home life, school life, and boys who were her friends suddenly goin’ loony and wanting to teach her the facts of life, Suza stood pelting pebbles into the sea. When a voice from behind her said:

 ‘Here, let one show you how to skip them right across the waves.’

And on turning around, Suza stood face-to-face with the most beautiful androgynous boy she had ever seen, piercing ice-grey eyes, hair styled into a Beatle cut grown longer to the collar, that with the sun shining behind burnishing it to gold had the effect of a halo. An angel in a reefer jacket, asphyxiatingly tight drainpipe jeans, and wearing Chelsea boots.

And Gabriel, was a girl.

 ‘I saw you a week ago, sitting up there on that cliff ledge pensively looking out to sea, so resembling a mermaid with long-long hair blowing in the wind. Was it sketching that you were doing?’

No response from Suza, who smelled something fishy afoot. And it wasn’t the kippers from the quayside smokehouse blowing downwind.

‘I so hoped, to see you here again ………. Cat got our tail?’

 ‘It’s tongue.’

 ‘Aah! the siren can talk. How do you do! I’m Josephine. Josie, to one’s friends.’

Josie reached out for Suza’s hand, and shook it.

‘And, ahem, you are?’

 ‘Suzanne Eliza Llewelin. Suza, to my friends.’

Forgetting that she still held Suza’s hand, Josie unconsciously tightened her grip around it. Generating warmth around initially chilly fingers that was a strange sensation that perplexed Suza as she looked down at the attachment. Seeing the frown beginning to furrow between her arching eyebrows, Josie relinquished her hold and grinned sheepishly. Exposing a glimpse of front teeth that overlapped each other, that Suza observed slightly marred this vision of beauty. Then Josie widened her grin and the pristine whiteness of them made for a dazzling smile, that to Suza, was perfect beauty.

Nonplussed at such weird thoughts about, a girl. Suza put on her bogus Grammar School scarf, slung her shool-bag over her shoulder, and made to leave, when the buckle on the bag’s strap opened and her books fell out. And Josie bent down to pick them up from the sand, while Suza fastened the buckle.

 ‘Hmm, Herodotus, Socrates, and Nietzsche.’

 ‘Yeah, I couldn’t get the “Bunty.'

Josie’s eyes lit up like luminous twin moons, and she grinned ear to ear at Suza, and said:

 ‘Oh, I know exactly what you mean. Should one not have a regular peruse at “The Three Marys” one is positively stuffed, and have to resort to reading any banal old rot.’

To deflect the gravital pull of the strange girl’s stare, Suza turned her head away in the direction of her bike, a modicum of kudos creeping into her expression at clever-clogs understanding her language. And tossing Josie a wide eyed sideward glance, she said:

’Bye!’

***

Suza’s thoughts throughout the following days, often drifted back to the strange girl on the sands, ‘Stranger On The Shore’ coming intermittently on the radio didn’t help, for like the incoming swell and surge of the tide, the memory of Josephine kept flooding back again.

A week later, around the same time as before, Suza breeeeeezed down the Priory bank on her bike. And parking it on the rocks, raised her hand above her eyes to shield out the sun. And peered across the sands, at the jaunty coloured little boats  peppered across the bay and amongst the dunes, and across the pebbles to the frothing surf of the shore. No one was around.

And walking across the sand and the pebbles, she stood for a long while looking across the waves. Feeling inexplicably disappointed, though she wasn’t sure why.

Then two hands coved her eyes .

And she turned around, and there was Josie.

‘Gosh! I am so glad that you came back, did you miss me?’

By the toothy knowing grin on Josie’s face Suza deemed the question rhetorical, and reciprocated the smile but said nothing.

They walked across the bay to the dunes, whereon finding a little green boat named “Bombs Away” they sat down inside it. And face to face talked at length in getting to know one another.

‘Where is it that you are from, Suza? You don’t speak with the Geordie dialect.’

 ‘With parents from both sides of the river, I’m a fiercely proud Geordie. I live with Mum in a downstairs council flat on Meadowell estate, just along the road in North Shields.’

’Oh! Poor you.’

‘Poor me?’

‘One only meant that, even I a stranger here have heard negative stories about Meadowell, and you somehow don’t fit in there.’

‘You’re listening to the wrong stories, I love it there.’

‘Name two things that you love.’

‘I can name more.’

‘Please do.’

‘I love that every street and avenue on the estate is named after a tree: Hawthorn Gardens, Blackthorn Grove, Laburnum Avenue, Cedarwood Crescent, etcetera. I love love that the local park has a clock-face flowerbed that each year for all the flowers’re interchangeable, points to three o clock in summertime for always. When our neighbours hung their walls with Hal and Da Vinci portraits, and cross swords and shields hang above each doorway; and didn’t care that the quasi nobility all comes from Woolworths. For I love the obligatory bowls of plastic fruit polished to shining with Pledge on the sideboards. I love the vases overspilling with plastic red and yellow roses in pride of place on the windowsills, (1 Free With A Box Of Daz) generating stockpiles of soap powder in cupboards, before those roses were no longer there for the picking. And the florid floribunda flocked wallpaper and faded ex-shop-window-display Toile de Jouy curtained, purchased on Provi’ tickets at the end line sales at Binns and D. Hill Carters. And moreover I love my neighbours, who work hard every hour God gives to furnish their little palaces, who have never been anything but kind to me.’

‘Gosh! That is a thought provoking picture you paint and a rather beautiful one too, Suza.’

‘Consider it as one I painted earlier, as I’ve just quoted the beginnings of a school essay I started a year ago.’

Josie laughed, and said:

‘You little cheat, you had one quite going there. Did you finish the essay? I should love to read it.’

‘No, but the subject we’d to write about was “Working Class Values”, a tad too provincial for your delicate sensitivities anyways.’

‘One shall pretend not to have heard the skit in that remark, minx. You have a decidedly Welsh musicality in your stanza and delivery, do you have Welsh blood, Suza?’

‘Not a drop but I’ve been surrounded by it all my life.’

‘Cryptic. Define, surrounded by?’

‘Not when you sound like a teacher.’

‘ …. We, ahem don’t like teachers?’

‘We, me, one, myself, I and moi, do not. Anyways Jos, what was your first impression of Tyneside? Of which there’s much-much more to, than Meadowell. ’

 ‘Warts removed or Warts and All?’

‘The full Cromwell.’

‘Hmm, we don’t happen to have an essay conveniently tucked in the pocket of one’s mind, so let one see …………………………………………….’

‘Spill.’

‘Do keep it in mind that one’s views have somewhat changed since ..’

Suza fixed Josie with a look.

‘Ok, as you insist. One’s first impression on driving through Tyneside, was of backlanes strung end-to-end with washing lines hung with laundry, grubby unkempt snot-nosed children running uncontrollably through the streets shrieking, packs of barking shitting mongrel dogs. And jabbering women pouring out of factory gates wearing headscarfs and hair-culers in clouds of Woodbine smoke, one had to close the car window against. One was not, to say the least impressed, and wondered what on earth mother was thinking of in moving up here.’

 ‘Well, three or so years ago I was one of those snot nosed children dancing round washing lines, and our Butch one of those barking sh….ng dogs. Still is, actually.’

 ‘Good golly gosh! One meant no offence in that, and the inference was not that you lack culture and class, Suza. On the contra ..’

 ‘No offence taken. However I do not, or have ever subscribed to the nonsensical concept of the British class system. Believing unequivocally that all mankind’s created equal. With the exception of the Ruling Classes ergo the Hunting Classes, who’re monstrously unevolved.’

Josie, who was blooded at the ripe old age of three, and had riding and hunting in her D.N.A., felt suddenly dry mouthed, and with bated breath asked:

 ‘Ew! Why sew?’

Conscious that her voice had shot up a number of octaves and if it shot up any higher, Butch and his pack of merry shitters would hear her.

And as she’d quickly come to expect, Suza answered candidly sew:

Suza observed in Josie a classic raging southern snob, but a likeable and immensely interesting one. So she put off her idea to get on her bike for a little while, amused at watching clever-clogs making one faux pa after another, and enjoying the sound of dropping clangers.

Girls to Josie, were as prolific and easy for the pickings as the pebbles on the beach, and she’d picked them on every beach across the world from Ipanema to Saint Tropez. Her charm offensive never failed, her intellect never failed to impress, and her beauty never failed to stun. Sooner or later she’d discard them and brush her hands clean of guilt like sand-grains through her fingers, leaving none to hold her heart. And the girl up on the cliffs, on that chilly little bay overshadowed by ruins and rocks, in the far frozen North; was to be merely another conquest to warm and pass away some time, whilst her mother recuperated from an illness, having moved to Monkseaton on leaving her stepfather.

Until the day she’d got up close and Suza turned around, on the shore.

Having tossed and turned and barely slept those following days from a strange pining, the feeling was alien to her.

And as love up to then had been naught but another bloodsport, Josie was was loathe (and unaccountably afraid) to lose this love.

 ‘I bet that you have a horse, Jose.’

 ‘I most certainly do, his name is Charley, on account that he has a penchant for ..’

 ‘Barley, yeah I wasn’t born yesterday clever-clogs.’

Having been foiled, Josie pulled a gurn at Suza, that she reciprocated. And the two Quasimodos pulling their eyes down with fingers and lolling their tongues, on looking at the infantile spectacle of one another howled with laughter.

Then the mood mellowed, and Josie romantically spoke of an innate notion she felt the instant they met, that she’d known Suza all her life. From another life.

Suza’s idea of fine romance, was to tell the boy next door she’d known since seven: To stop buying soppy lockets and cards for Valentine’s Day, and mortifying her with a record called ‘Rag Doll’ for her fourteenth birthday. And to next time (if he must), bring her a nice spanner wrapped up in a great big bow or a puncture repair kit.

And doing exactly as he was bid, last Christmas he turned up at her door with a spanner in a bow, plus a puncture repair kit, and an even bigger hallmarked-locket.

Suza concluding that there’s some who just can’t be taught, continued to put up with her friend (two years older than she) in spite of his silly-self only because he was, Roddy.

And in Suza’s book that was mighty fine of her.

 ‘You’ve been quietly digging up the dirt under every tree where I live, whilst keeping shtum about that City of Gleaming Tires you’re from. So spill.’

Josie rolled her eyes skyward and lowered them back to Suza grinning, then with a raised eyebrow said:

 ‘Tut Tut!’

 ‘That isn’t an answer.’

‘There is plenty of time to talk of oneself, right now all I want to talk about and hear about, is you.’

‘Compared to what you’ll have obviously done in your life, that must make for one boring listen.’

‘Boring? Listening to you Suza, is almost like falling down the bl*#dy rabbit hole.’

‘You inferring I’m outta my tree in that smart remark?’

‘On the contrary you are very much in your tree, only the forest is on a parallel universe, where I have never enjoyed so much being. You confound one, Suzanne Eliza Llewelin.’

Suza looked at Josie quizzically, then digesting the concept of having a broader spectrum than Meadowell that went infinitely beyond the Blue Planet, smiled wide as a widemouth frog and playfully punched Josie’s nose, that Josie reciprocated with a kiss on her fingers.

A quiet pause ensued, when Josie with eyes downcast and hooded immersed herself into pensive thought, so deep and unfathomable to Suza her equilibrium countered by taking her own thought-waves in the opposite direction.

Josie silently anguished over what to tell Suza about her life, and what not to, fearing that should she know her wholly she’d look at her see everything she found abhorrent. The prospect made her feel like crying, having never cried over a girl in her life.

Staring up at the sky faraway in thought, Suza was oblivious that Josie’s deep gaze had risen and focused on her.

 ‘Penny for them?’

Suza smiled.

 ‘Do you know any, Betjeman?’ Josie asked.

 ‘Yeah, I know old “ I am dying and DONE FOR what on earth was all the FUN FOR?” ‘

 ‘ ….. Hmm, John Betjeman is one’s all time favourite poet.’

 ‘Oops!’

 ‘Anyway, ahem, there is one of his poems that whenever I think of it I see you, and when last I read it, which as it happens was last night, I thought of you. Not that one shall ever tell you which poem, you egalitarian rebellious little ..’

 ‘Phew!’

Josie stuck her nose right up-close to Suza’s and eyeballed her with an unamused glare, and Suza squinted a grimace back, and each waiting to see who could keep it up longest, they unanimously bust out laughing and rubbed their chilly noses together.

Then another quiet moment ensued, albeit a less fraught one, that was finally broken by Suza who was staring across the bay to the sea, whilst Josie contented herself with staring at Suza.

 ‘Y’know, Jos. Old Bede who penned some of the Lindisfarne Gospels up there in the Priory, deduced what pulls those waves out there.’

 ‘Pit ponies?’

 ‘The moon. And Caligula sent out his troops to stab them all.’

 ‘What, the pit ponies?’

 ‘Look clever clogs, you’re a fast learner but don’t kid a kidder. To stab the waves, of course.’

 ‘That of course, makes ahem much more sense.’

Noting the mischief in Josie’s eyes, Suza indulged her gameplay.

 ‘Of course what the emperor was really targeting, was Neptune.’

 ‘Whatever else would that batsh*t loon target.’

At which they burst out laughing again.

 ‘You know, it’s been a hoot, Jose. But I really must fly now, or Mum’s gonna kill me.’

 ‘I shall drive you home, one’s car is just parked up there.’

 ‘I have my bike.’

 ‘No problem, I shall ahem simply hoist it up on the roof-rack beside you.’

 ‘Ho-Ho, sore loser.’

 ‘And what is it, that you perceive one has lost?’

 ‘Hopefully, that mawkish malady of Betjemanitis you suffer from.’

 ‘One shall kill you for that another time, leaving you to your mother to tenderise in the interim.’

 ‘Nice!’

Josie reached into her pocket and took out a small penknife, and looking at Suza opened the blade purposefully.

 ‘My cue to go?’

 ‘Do hold on a tic, minx.’

And Josie bent down and carved something into the wooden boat, that getting the better of Suza’s curiosity, she lent over and read.

 ‘I get the “J & S”, but what does that French looking word say?’

 ‘Always.’

This love, this love is a strange love

A fated kind of gaoler

This love …

(Song Credits)

Josie’s Tune, recorded by Chris Rea

Stranger On The Shore, recorded by Acker Bilk

Rag Doll, recorded by The Four Seasons

This Love, recorded by Sarah Brightman

(Josie’s Poem to Suza)

Myfanwy at Oxford by John Betjeman

‘Sphinx the Minx’ illustration (after) Leonor Fini

[bethtoad]

Blog 2022, Miniature Magick Project (In lieu of Halloween 2019)

Hi All!

Hope this finds you in good spirits, and that life’s being kind!

I rarely look at posts once they’ve gone out for pertinent reasons, as some ought to’ve had a disclaimer: MAY DIFFER TO DESCRIPTION ON BOX. I refer to ‘Michael Angelo’ (Haven’t got round to ‘is sister Angelona Jolie yet… Squirm!),

‘The Devine Comedy’ ( Madre Mia!), etc.

Because it’s somewhat long, I have divided the storyline for ‘The Druidess’ into three parts.

Part One (The Temple) Part Two (The Dwelling) Part Three (The Haunting)

The imagery in the first part (following this note) is illustration only, whilst the penultimate and final part consist of shots of Coven Cottage.

In my comfort zone of mythology and theology (on a good day anyways), incorporating a witchcraft angle one’s concededly less au fait with, this has been a decidedly more enjoyable doddle to write, than to shoot,

(which yeah, I’m struggling with).

So all that’s left to say on the subject, is:

 ‘HOY! Phidias have you seen my Lego bricks? There be temples of Long Wind t’be builded.’

Hope you enjoy!  

The Druidess Part One: The Temple

On a promontory high upon the cliff top of a seaside town, dwells the witch popularly known as ‘Mystic Myfanwy’. Foregoing the less than popular adjectives, her cottage can be reached by climbing up a labyrinth of crazy-paved steps, crooked pathways, and dead-end caves, that almost circumnavigate the cliff face. On approach of the zenith the air shall fill with the pungent stench of wild garlic, and you’ll be confronted by a gnarled lightening perished tree, whose roots shall undulate and rear in the manner of a nest of vipers, and branches descend like a portcullis. It’s appearance may startle and disconcert you, but be you no foe, enter unhindered onto a pathway lined with the remains of marble mermaids, their heads lamentably faced down into the earth, tails and torsos in smithereens amongst the foliage. The long shadow of a cross shall direct you towards a Gothic stone arch on which two giant sturgeon are bowed and riveted. And between the arch is the lofty driftwood crucifix in whose shadow you have walked, the body of Christ represented by three fishes, the largest the torso and two smaller the arms. Large crudely hammered in nails stud the form like poppet doll pins, and carved equally crudely across the sign that would have read INRI, ‘BURN THE WICH’ sheds light on the defiler of the Fisher of Man.  

Go through the archway, and ship bells hanging from the stoutest branches of a grove of trees shall swing into action, uproariously ringing and reverberating inside your head causing you to fear for your eardrums. Be you no foe though, the ringing shall soon abate and be replaced with the calls of curlews and heron gulls, and of sea breezes whistling through the leafy carpets of Autumn. Recovered of your senses you will find yourself in a churchyard garden, where alongside a hint of salt the air is redolent with the heady scent of roses. In tandem with bindweed they climb and wind about anything and everything as far as the eye can see. The tendril conquest is replicated on an elevated platform whose sign reads ELYSIUM, where amidst broken, disfigured, and graffiti covered angels, strands of ivy hang like clootie tree ribbons on the wings of those still in possession of them, and by nature or design entwine around severed and in situ heads as garlands, lending what is a piteous site an air of joie de vivre.

Straight ahead, mossy stone steps scattered with leaves and apples, lead up to the ruins of the OSSUARY OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. The tree bearing the apples stands before the façade, its branches pouring into every arch and orifice through which the moon now risen glows. The Gothic Revival pastiche is superfluous on a structure that appears to be Medieval, William Morris meets the Bayeux tapestry on the cracked and broken windows. At the side of the bone-yard there’s a mezzanine, or folly as popularised in Victorian times. Reminiscent of the Porch Of The Maidens, on closer inspection one can see thus impression is deceptive. The filigree fretwork is unapologetically asymmetrical, and whilst the snake fits with Erichthonius the half man-half snake son of Athena whom the Erechtheion was named after, the six columns are not in Grecian tunics but tree trunks. Maybe after the sacred Temples of Trees that were chopped down by Hezekiah and the followers of Yahweh, an apotheosis of Hellenic meets Canaanite? Albeit that beneath acanthus volutes on the Corinthian capitals (another deviation), the faces on the columns are indisputably those of the Caryatids.

Two eerie legends surround said maidens: The first, (the finer details of which elude one) is that the Ionic columns were once real people, whom around 421 B.C. lived and breathed and being young girls probably danced around the olive groves of their father’s Karyes kingdom. The king somehow affronting the gods, the penance was accordingly met on his children who were taken away and tasked to stand sentry still in a temple of the Olympians. A task that stretching from minute to hour, morn to noon, day to night, week to month, so on and so forth, proved insurmountable. And a disgruntled goddess, likely Athena or Hera, (for their human failings) turned them all to stone. There is a later retelling that attempts to paint the gods in a godlier light, but implausibly.

Of the second legend: Together for 2,300 years until 1802. It is said that when a Caryatid was chiselled loose and removed from her awning, the remaining five sisters were heard to cry so inconsolably their wailing echoed all around the Acropolis and down to the streets of Athens. And when screams erupted from the crate containing what would come to be known as one of the ‘Elgin Marbles’, the men carrying it along the dock en route to the ship awaiting thus cargo, were so terrified they dropped it and ran, and only nerves of steel got the sixth screaming sister to embark and sail on that fateful journey, in a vessel that almost sank.

However, the only wailing you shall hear around these garden centre pasticcios shall be that of the wind.

Veils billow and sway amorphously in the breeze between each column. And now in the twilight, illumination from within lends the site a shimmering Bedouin tent look. Or Cleopatra’s barge quietly sailing down the Nile, far away from the here and now.

A glimpse of a Lapis Lazuli mosaic floor can be discerned fleetingly beneath sequinned hems, and whilst sheer to the outpouring light, to the inward observer the veils appear opaque.  

Reached by another stone staircase, on drawing aside the drapes and entering the temple…. if unassailed by ‘th’bells, th’bells!’ it is the cymbals, booms and Gregorian chants of ‘ELEGIA’  streaming through a piped music system that instantly invades the senses, confirming that the priestess of this order is in touch with their inner theatre, notwithstanding dark humour. The chamber is deceptively spacious via a recess eked into the next door structure, and belying that arachne have carte blanch to weave the silken gossamer webs that float like buntings everywhere, (albeit so long as their labour is aesthetic), it is pristine clean and the fixtures and floor are shining; evidential in the scent of beeswax polish mixed with lotus blossom incense.

An altar stands at the epicentre of the floor, on which an imposing candelabra dominates the surface, shared only by a wand and a small volume of poetry. The poem in the book that’s bookmarked is ‘The Huluppu Tree’, which is apt’ as the solid silver candelabra has a female form whose branches ensconce eleven lit candles. Long before they were stylised, the temple of Solomon is said to have housed such a menorah in gold. And should one have any questions left regarding the mismatch temple’s purpose, the wand holds the clue. For it is a miniature Asherah Pole, and this is indeed a temple of trees in whose object of worship is neither Athena or Poseidon, but She of a thousand names. The sacred Tree Of Life.

Amidst the sombre melodic dirge and an altar that could be the reclaimed tomb of Nosferatu, unprecious scatterings of bright coloured rugs in leaf and tree designs lend the space an incongruously cosy feel. Frescos of Druantia Queen of the Druids,  and Adonis in the arms of his mother Myrrha (pagan Christ Child) with the cross of Tammuz in the horizon, adorn the walls on either side of the recess.

At the end of the recess is a fireplace, styled from two interwoven driftwood trees, the hue of bleached bone. A motto is carved across its bow ‘SAPIENS DOMINABITUR

ASTRIS’ that from Latin reads: ‘The axe forgets what the tree remembers.’ Scrying

mirrors are inserted into each trunk, out of which the faces of the God and Goddess peer through as if from another dimension. And from ditto dimension, on a raised hearth a blazing fire shooting sparks up the funebre chimney burns; generating heat across the chamber that the collective windpower of Aeolus and the Anemoi may not cool nor extinguish.

The eyes in the mirrors however, are not the only ones peering into one’s core. Jolly Tar, the rescue pet crow can be heard fluttering watchfully overhead, whilst Blodeuwedd the owl watches one’s every move eye-to-direct-eye, from her perch amongst the branches.

Bookending either side of the fireplace two huge floor-to-ceiling shelves stand. Modelled on the symbols of fire and air and shelved with reinforced glass, they house potion bottles, goblets, incense, candles, crystals, runes, journals, spell jotters and inks. And rows upon rows of books housing a plethora of secular and non secular, ancient and modern tomes, on all aspects of magic, the occult, astronomy, and paleo’ paganism; as well as books on monotheistic and polytheistic religions, inclusive of the Bible, Quran, Torah, Kabbalah, Sefer Harazim, and Book of Enoch.

Carl Jung said: ‘Sometimes a tree tells you more than can be read in books.’ And between the tomes, accoutrements, and ephemera, a collection of etchings portray thus point. There is a dyptic of Odin hanging from the Nine Twigs of Glory, a metaphor for the ash Yggdrasil tree, with his ravens Huginn and Muninn on each shoulder. And the druid god Esus, crucified on a tree cross. An opposing hypothesis on thus scene, is that figurative strange fruit hung on tree crosses in sacrificial offerings to the vegetation tree-god. He is said to have been born of a virgin mother, part of the trinity of Taranis (of reputed wicker man sacrifice) and Teutates , and his name is seen as an epithet for Jesus, irrespective that Esus long predated Christianity.

There is a tryptic of Daphne, Dryope, and Lotis, morphing into laurel, poplar and lotus trees, subsequent to rape and pursuit by Apollo and Priapus. From Irish folklore, the creation of man from the alder tree, and woman from the rowan. A dyptic of the Norse Yggdrasil, and Brythonic pantheon World Tree. An enchanted forest populated by dryads and hamadryads. Another dyptic of Herne the wildman of the woods, and Ghillie Dhu the tree man of Scottish folklore. Tolkien’s Ents and Entwives, with Treebeard’s Song..

‘When spring unfolds the beechen leaf And sap is in the bough, When light is on the wyldwood stream, And wind is on the brow, When stride is long and breath is deep, And keen the mountain air! Come back to me… Come back to me… And see my land is fair!’

.. Lovely. Also a fruitful tree and barren tree on a hilltop, with W.B. Yeats’ poem ‘The Two Trees’. And beside the schematic of the 10 Sephiroth & Tree of Life, is God standing alongside the Tree of Knowledge. That if a tad overt, speaks volumes.

In Genesis 1:27 of the first unabridged version of the Bible, prior to its sanitisation by piety (the euphemism for misogyny). God was described as an androgynous (dual sex) angel named Jehovah Elohim. Thus, that God the Father & God the Son was one and the same with Goddess the Mother & Goddess the Daughter, is gospel. Not that that helped the first translator of the gospels into English, who was unceremoniously strangled then burned at the stake as a heretic. Alas were that only the fate of King James IV-I the later Bible translator, for his penning of ‘Daemonologie’, to preclude the witch hunts of 1645 A.D. onwards.

And lying opened on the floor, on top of ‘The Raphael de Mercatelli Compilation’ is a volume of ‘The Secret Teachings of All Ages’ by Manly P. Hall, as if the reader has paused from their perusing on the fireside rug, and momentarily slipped away.

On stepping back out of the temple, ‘Elegia’ ceases as instantly as it began. And casting one’s eye to the periphery of the farther ruins, lighted windows can now be seen shining through the trees like flickering stars. Through an opened casement, the notes of a piano being played carries forth on the wind, and in perfect French the hauntingly lovely strains of a siren voice peels out. The song Myfanwy sings is ‘Dans le Silence’, that in English is: In the Silence.

 Sometimes when the wind breathes,

Among the hemlock and the fir,

Let the day heave a great sigh.

The sun is low,

And it seems to me,

That a shadow hangs,

In the silence.

In the silence of oblivion.

And the silence proclaims,

That you will not

Toujours,

You will not always be there.

Hist!…. It almost sounds as if another voice has joined that of the siren’s, in discordant duet. From somewhere far faraway in the netherworlds it seems, so heartbreakingly sweet it could hail from the empyrean. However, in a place   reputedly where angels fear to tread, amidst catacombs of the nameless sea dead, and bell knells of the oak groves, the imagination can play tricks. Moreover when heightened by the rising wind, and an impromptu drum-roll of thunder.

I was blind but now I see

What I’ve got is not for me

And I know

It’s time to go..

I DEFEAT THE PAIN

I’M ALIVE AGAIN

The past is gone for good, it’s time to say

Amen!

 In the silence

Of my nights

I can hear a distant voice

Someone out there

Is calling my name

 I’M BEYOND THE DREAD

I’M NOT AFRAID

It’s time to turn the page

And love again

Amen!

    Amen!

        AMEN!

 And the roses in the witch’s garden, close their petals tight, beneath the shroud of moonlight, and indigo of night.

                                       ******

 The Druidess Part Two: The Dwelling

 Traversing the rose thorns through a maze of bramble is time consuming. ‘Dans le Silence’ now silent, the fairground in the seaside town below lights up in flashing neon that strobes the sky, and a cacophony of drumbeats, trumpets, and wailing vocals erupt across the airwaves. It is All Hallows Eve, hence the summoning ‘From The Underworld’ of ‘Severina’, ‘Livia’ and ‘Rhiannon’. And the spectre in the ghost train howling at the ‘Prisoner’ in chains, ‘That Tears SHALL DROWN THE WIIIIIIIIII-IND!’

 (TO BE CONTINUED)

 Song Credits:

‘Elegia (Full Version)’ by New Order

‘Dans le Silence’ by Martha Wainwright

‘Amen’ by Enigma

‘From The Underworld’ by The Herd

‘Severina’ by The Mission

‘Livia’ by Drugstore

‘Rhiannon’ by Fleetwood Mac

‘Prisoner’ by The Jezebels

‘That Tears Shall Drown The Wind’ by The Mission

                                       ******

 Wonder if student architects of the HOW NOT TO school clocked the euphemism for dodgy perspective? ‘Unapologetically asymmetrical’ (Ho Ho, if yer cannit hack it, wing it.)

No pictorial copyright has been breached, nor either etching descriptions, as I don’t refer to the works of others for illustrations. However, I admit I have never seen a tree holding a baby in my life, or an image of Druantia. Re’ the latter, had a mindset of Scota-Meritatin the princess of Egypt, aka Mrs of the first Celt on these shores. And whilst it’s questionable that Egyptians had red hair in the days of the Exodus, the sacred white stag was a no brainer, as it’s white. So if the effect’s as hotchpotch as Myfanwy’s temple, druids, ovates, and forest witches (should you pass this way), be forgiving.

Depending if one’s head’s in or out of the primordial soup, hope to fly by again around Samhain 2022 with full second chapter. And in the interim herewith’s a shot of one of the Coven Cottage sets, and retouch of a painting into, Myfanwy.

Ciao!

TOAD x

[bethtoad]

Paintings On The Wall

Through the windswept coastal trees..

Where the dead come rising from the sea

HAPPY HALLOWEEN 2021!

BLESSED SAMHAIN!

Paintings from the walls in the rooms of Coven Cottage, dwelling place of Gwrach Myfanwy in the upcoming feature ‘Miniature Magick’, parts 1 & 2: in lieu of Oct’-Nov’ 2019 feature, that albeit near ready to go back then, was put on the back-burner due to sad circumstances. The only stumbling block now however’s getting all the set shots done, Covid’s done something to my focus hence it’s proving to be a slow process.

As well as reaching for the Poundland glitter paint bottle again, (a splodge of Poundland best gold, turning a coal-black Baphomet looking like ‘ed sauntered in off a black mass alter, into a homey-honey-hued cutey with a little goat face, amidst a miniature array of bright crochet rugs… and yeah, I’m genuflecting as I speak!) notwithstanding literally living inside a doll-house diorama, has seriously affected the state of one’s mind..

JOY TO THE LAND THAT’S GOVERNED BY A CHILD!!!

.. to paraphrase the bard; peppered with delerium whereby the cottage gets inadvertently addressed as Covid Cottage: I have bled the blood of a thousand Aurora pinpricks, sans the sleep, during lockdown. And the majority of poppets, goddess dolls, Brigids & crosses, shall feature in ‘The Mission Of Witches’, next blog on from the aforementioned. Just in the process of shootin’ all those little critters too…. OOPS, Mother Mandrake, Father Mandrake’nd little Mandy Mandrake’ve all lost their heads, and the Worry Dolls’re too worried about their own heads to care about anybody else’s.. (must refocus!)

The opening lines of verse are from the track ‘Supernatural’, from the album: ‘Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds-Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus’. All ye witches out there, check out ‘Spell’ too, which was used in ROMA to describe a Hebridean cave encounter, with the haunting apparition of the stone angel of Alba… WHOOOO WOO OOOOOH!

Anyways, shall fly by soon, however soon, soon is. So smile like a Jack O’ Lantern ye mote, til I do!

TOAD

Hoy! You up there.. Is there room on your broom for a little one?

[bethtoad]

Mabon, Autumn Equinox September 22nd – Samhain/Halloween October 31st 2019

Hi there, long time no see,

    The following article features Mabon altar images. I stipulate the latter as I’m not a practitioner of the craft, and those who are shall undoubtedly note the absence of certain accoutrements. However whilst I’ve always had a number of broomsticks in varying shapes and sizes for a little rustic charm to inner city living, which I guess to a witch would look like a drive full of cars parked up in my kitchen: Sans access to the internet (somewhat of an oxymoron to those reading this blog, albeit holding few surprises to those au fait with my history; painstakingly punching out texts with a one finger digit on my computer keyboard, then inclusive of instruction for image layout, handing it to my whizz-kid girl to do the technical magic, and post,) I’ve no means to Google and source items from Amazon, etc. Soo Arthur’s Hill being the nearest sounding name to Pendle Hill hereabouts: Where on Newcastle high street are cauldrons, pentagrams, wands, and figurines of the horned god and goddess on offer? And ask in Wilkinsons if they stock a ceremonial dagger, and yer can expect to get yerself arrested. On a plus note though, I finally managed to get a five pointed star at a little shop in Jesmond, but then came out the door and noted Osborne Road was burning down….(‘Eh?...Whaaa..?!’) Five fire engines later, pouring cold water on that gret delyte. (And I kid you not!)

   Therefore if a pastiche that’s more hotchpotch that hocus pocus, hope you enjoy the homemade allusion and imagery, simply for arts sake.

That’s it for now, but shall fly by with a little follow up feature, ‘Miniature Magick’ around the second week in November. So ‘til then, here’s wishing you all a HAPPY HALLOWEEN! And BLESSED BE for a MERRY MEET on SAMHAIN, to all you witches out there!

TOAD

[bethtoad]

Ex Libris!

Hi All!

             Do hope that you’re enjoying this glorious summer. “Storm Hector” notwithstanding!

           As promised herewith are the details about “ROMA” the book I have long been working on, which has gone out on Amazon Kindle this month: circa June 2018. You shall find the cover and blurb at the end of this post. Because there was a cold war raging, the Russian link in ROMA was omitted from earlier drafts. Now that that it’s finally in situ, wouldn’t yer believe it another cold war’s beginning to erupt! Nevertheless, the time, now feels somehow right.

Pre’ 1983 I’d no aspiration to be a writer, having always had one’s sights fixed firmly on theatre and the performing arts. The catalyst was receipt of a revelation pertaining to the innocent-stage of my infancy; ergo negating a one time Christian child, almost since birth, of ever going to heaven. And staring down into the proverbial abyss, there was no recourse but to go back in time, the adult beyond redemption: To rescue the child I once was.

However, singularly battling what seemed like the hundred year war, with social services’ bandwagons lining up periodically in a dogged attempt to take away my children; citing countless litanies of spurious unveiled-homophobic charges, that I’d to cerebrally-outmanoeuvre the care system, the mental health system, the medical system, the education system, the legal system (etc-etc), to disprove. Well, there was never enough time (notwithstanding brain-power) to wholly apply oneself to a paper-chase; and subsequently I resorted to memories to fill in the missing pieces (from a malfunctioning memory-bank), and inevitably, the body of work no matter how many times one believed it (moreover willed it) finished, transpired to be fraught with dialogue and anecdotal inaccuracies.

GARGOYLE, Book 1 of Course Through A Northern Collage, thus begins with a verse from “The Story Of My Life” by Michael Crawford, and ends with Enigma’s “Return To Innocence” And I shall leave it to the prospective reader to ascertain what, if anything, was returnable to the adolescent-young adult, in ROMA.

To anyone wondering why I didn’t go down the orthodox publishing route, the answer’s that, I did. However after a succession of annual reject letters from publishers peppered with adjectives such as “amazing” “emotive” “beautiful” “extraordinary” “enthralling” (etc); notwithstanding one  smaller  publisher whose editor, far from being amazed and enthralled suggested in so many words that yers truly’s a WRITER THAT CAN’T & POET WHAT AIN’T. Having received repeated advice from publishers to get oneself a literary agent, just last year I submitted the definitive, almost errata free, inaccuracies free, fully translated from Red Planet into English manuscript to the Curtis Brown Group of Literary Agents.  On receipt of a reply, the line it “stood out from the many we receive” transpired to be somewhat of an old chestnut kind of a rejection. And I no longer have enough years left to me to attempt to decode publishing industry conundrums. Hence, here we are, one of life’s amazing extraordinary stand-out-from-the-many, failures. And having spent a life in castles on air, I guess it’s apt that ROMA shall go up to the bookshops out in the ether too; in the Atmospheric section, and for those with the dubious pleasure of finding themselves caught in the crossfire of a brainstorm The Hot Air section. ( Ho Ho!)

In much need of a holiday from words and brainstorms I don’t want to write even as much as a shopping list for a long long while, and intend get out with my camera in the sunshine rather than just viewing it through the window by my desk, and seek some photo opportunities. Hoppy days!

Bye for now, smile and take care!

TOAD

The only fiction in this story is the names of the characters.

ROMA is a true account of First Love between a young girl and a young woman. Each bathed in the glow of the meeting of keen minds and young hearts, between the UK and former USSR.

Set in 1960s Northumberland, the story tells of Suza and Josie, whose devotion to each other transcends their radically different backgrounds. It transpires nevertheless to be star-crossed, for in the tenet of the day, theirs is The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name. When barely out of her teens Suza finds herself behind the locked ward door of the County Lunatic Asylum.

Bringing light into the dark; the stage here is lit up by crystal chandeliers, with a sound track that evokes the waves rolling in and out on Priors Haven Sands - whereupon Her Majesty’s Service is superseded by the kings of Northumbria and the gods of Olympus - encompassing the arts, mythology and theology.

Fully illustrated with over 70 hand drawn images ROMA is not only a teenage love story, but a stark and uncomfortable document on socioeconomic history, still embedded in Victorian and pseudo Christian values, and rife in the draconian dogma of the not too distant past.

Buy now or read for free with Kindle Unlimited

[bethtoad]

“She Moved In Through the Fair” Autumn Blog 2017

Hi All!

 Do hope you had a wicked Halloween, and a cracker of a Guy Fawkes Night! The latter of which my youngest girl and I spent down on Whitley Bay Links, watching the fireworks display from amid the crowds at the funfair there; Afraid the slow shutter on my camera didn’t begin to do it  justice..

Albeit mucho thankyous for a stellar event, to the Organisers and to Whitley Bay Council!

      En route to the fair that sparkled like a mirage in the horizon, complemented by a prism of lavender light that was St Mary’s Lighthouse. After a much needed coffee against the chill night air in the Art Gallery cafe, behind whose structure the waves roared and rose up towards the Rendezvous Cafe in the shadows like burgeoning tsunamis: Bellying their earlier spat, I took this shot of my girl as she busied herself with her own camera, silhouetted in a golden path of moonlight streaming across the now serene waves, with not a glint of the moon’s customary silver anywhere: Magical!

Early winter’s designated for the book’s release onto the circuit, in time for next spring/summer; and as well as two visual additions on the web page, following this note is a montage of some of the other images from ROMA.

 E.L.O are on the radio as I write this, and if not actually the track that’s being played, the one now playing in my head’s perfect to end with..

Take Care, Smil-l-l-le, and CIAO for now!

TOAD

www.bethtoad.com

[bethtoad]

Summer Blog, 2017

HELLO!

Hallo, hello

Is there anybody out there?...

Hi!

    Afraid it might be a tad presumptuous to say All; for one’s had it on undoubtedly sound advice, that for a blog to be viable, one’s to maintain a seriously dedicated presence thus for anyone to be aware of its existence. So albeit that the role of the Phantom Of The Opera’s a more appealing one than it maybe oughta be, should there still be anyone out there among my followers, ergo the seriously impressive real life artists amongst you who’ve been lost without Salvador Danby’s priceless tips (when nobody else’d buy them, ha ha), my woolly minded brigade seekin’ entanglement from the knitwit guru, or just anyone randomly surfing by, or orbiting above the blue planet from the parallel universe pink planet Floyd: This post’s for you.

My website has been redesigned, gaining a few new images on Paintings, whose progress you shall be au fait with via the blog, and losing many on Room Interiors to updated versions. There are also some new sections, titled:

Still Lifes - incorporating manic mannequins in miscellania

Pattern Book - which’s pretty eponymous as it houses working patterns in progress and those painted onto upcycled tat

Rag Dolls - which houses the Sirens and their other raggy friends

Cartoons & Collages - Prototypes and rough drafts from my sketch books

Recent Works - need I say more

Book Illustrations - replacing Illustrations per se, that houses images from my written works, the first batch of which’re from ROMA.

   The latter of which’s finally finished (shall post the How Not To Write feature for the literate at a later date), and in the interim by way of a precursor, the opening prelude of the book can be downloaded in PDF form from here. I shall keep you posted on its release date onto the electronic books circuit, which’s going to be between late autumn and early winter this year, and where and at what price it may be acquired and purchased at.

Looking out of the window on this summer’s day approaching the ides of July: at the grey overhanging clouds baring down on the rooftops, a yard filled with plant pots of flowers with raindrops falling from their petals like tears; little bright heads waving back and forth on increasingly drooping stalks evoking to mind a line from that poem; Not Waving but Drowning! The threat of another deluge from the heavens bringing out, not the birds to sing in full joyous throttle from the telephone wires, but the families of slugs and snails whose trails are mapping out the ground like a mollusc motorway: Not one to do the blues, leastwise over the weather, until la phantom reappears here’s an uplifting line from the Minstrel in the Gallery to bid you well and farewell with.

There’s a haze on the skyline

To wish me on my way

And there’s a note on the telephone

Some roses on a tray

 And the motorway’s stretching

Right out to us all

As I pull on my old wings...

(Jethro Tull)

TOAD

[bethtoad]

New Site, New Relaunch!

My new site is about to launch! Developed by Some Thing Visual and being transferred over to UK hosting providers Freethought Internet, it’s bigger and better than before...

Check back here soon for the full blog post.

[bethtoad]

Autumn-Winter Extra: SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW

B. Autumn Journal: Saturday, October 31st

Woke up with the dawn.  Afternoon, took this shot of smiley pretty witch, Kirsten in city centre. Then, got back home to My Boys...

Went out with the boys at All Hallows’ sunset. Later on in the evening, whilst I did my thing, these three lovelies were on a ghouls’ night out. (And yeah, it’s apparent why it’s said my youngest girl has her mother’s looks.)

Thursday, November 12th

Whereas the Aurora Borealis that we’d gone out to shoot in early October, eluded us; our fruitless search around the windy city horizons and riverside finally culminating with a pint of lime & soda on the balcony of the Hilton Hotel, with the Millennium Bridge tauntingly drawing pastel coloured arches across the water as a cock o’ hoop to what was somewhere up in the sky : the former quest being Nature alones creation, the next lightshow shall be man’s invention, so this day we are not about to be thwarted in capturing somethin’ akin to the Northern Lights.

Crossed the river with our cameras, to shoot the Durham Lumiere Festival. Met there by ‘Storm Abigail’, and took shelter from the rain in the Head of Steam...

Stepped outside when Abigail finally left town, only to be met by another rain cloud; and a castle whose walls had eyes...

Stepped outside when Abigail finally left town, only to be met by another rain cloud; and a castle whose walls had eyes...

Moving on next to the Cathedral, its great arched ceiling ablaze with changing polychromatic  patterns sang out: ‘EAT YOU HEART OUT MICHELANGELO-OO-OOO!’... Or with an equally vivid imagination it could’ve done anyway. And out in the hallowed garden, Trees and Flowers of Light sprouted. Whilst all the while, up in the cathedral belfry the bats, slept soundly...

We then left the Cathedral, and traversing the quagmire and puddles left by Abigail, went to the bridge to see, the Whale...

Which was truly wondrous, but alas uncatchable by the slow shutter on my automatic.  And, waving a fond farewell to Orca, and the illuminating splendours of the Wear, many others un-shown here, we crossed the rainbow bridge of the Tyne back home to Newcastle...

Where, the last of the fallen leaves and hip-berries of the wild rose tree blow by, as this year’s Spring and Summer, with Autumn in their wake, blew by; to make way for Winter. Whose own illuminations are beginning to sparkle and shine in the fairy lights going up around the city streets and dwellings, and the annual Christmas animations in Fenwick’s shop windows.

Tuesday, December 1st

Switched on our own lights today...

Meet me at the station don’t be late I need to spend some money and it just won’t wait Take me to the dance and hold me tight I want to see the bright lights tonight! ...

(Richard & Linda Thomson)

HAPPY CHRISTMAS and, Keep Smilin’ Brightly!

TOAD. X

[bethtoad]

Be Careful What You Wish For

Warm coco and a cold story for bedtime.

Bride of Night

THE CHURCH CLOCK STRUCK 8 P.M. each chime measuring his footsteps toward the churchyard gate. The sun descended beneath a bank of cloud on the urban horizon, yielding a steady drizzle of rain. The evening out on the town, during which time he had drank too much in a futile bid to allay the boredom, and drown out the ear bashing from his carping now ex girlfriend: the youth having imbibed his taxi fare home, entered the tall cruciform iron gates of the grounds of The Holy Cross Church by way of a shortcut home. Moonlight therein, ascending fast in the wake of the setting sun now reflected upon the dampened cobbles around the church, upon pools of water spouting from the scaly mouths and forked tongues of gargoyles ensconced high up on its parapet; and upon the lofty Gothic window astride the arched doorway, depicting the three crosses crucifixions high up on the green hill of Calvary.

 ‘Holy Moses! Bring on the friendly neighbourhood spook monk.’

He whispered to himself, with a wry smile on his increasingly saturated face as the rain notched up in volume and began to pound. Turning up the collar of his leather jacket and pulling up the zipper fast to brace himself against the torrent, he squinted his eyes due west, and spotted the route he sought via a moonlit path between an avenue of yew, elm, and willow trees, through the graveyard.

 ‘Perfect view for a light note of Chopin!’

And still decidedly p...ed, amused himself with some graveyard humour as he hummed ‘La Marche Funébre’  and parodied the stilted sombre walk of an undertaker, as he embarked upon his lonely walk home. Fresh dug graves filling up like wells with water, graves of the newly buried sinking heavily under floral tributes, greeted his vision. The air redolent with the perfume of saturated petals, mixed with the under-smell of sodden earth and its lower stratums of putrescence had a heady effect on him.

The newest part of the cemetery then opened up to more established graves whose only notable significance to him were one or two stone angels en route, with football scarves incongruously fastened around their necks.

  ‘WHOA, supporting that team son, it’s neither wonder you’re in here!’

The insensitivity of his remark lost to graveyard humour.

Humour finally left him in the cemetery’s next quarter.. Here angel, fairy, and butterfly mobiles swayed directionless in the wind. Wind chimes tapped each to each with raindrops, tinkled tuneless lullabies; sounding all the world like Chopinesque piano keys, tink-tink-tink. Thinking of his baby sister warm and sound in her cot at home he sought another route to shake off the effects of this sad and mournful place.

He was unconsciously singing an old Paul Simon song under his breath, which his mother had sang in a tuneless dirge after the loss of little Sammy, when he finally found it through an almost indiscernible pathway behind an ancient yew. No willows wept on this path, where tiny animal and cherub shaped monuments were replaced by monolithic ruins of neo classical design. Portico covered tombs, shrouded urns, broken angels with faces veiled in moss cast elongating and retracting shadows as the moon played tricks with the eye. An apparition against a tree making him jump, he laughed out loud when it transpired to be a page of soaked broadsheet adhering to the bark.

The realization that he was lost, so disorientated him, he bumped into columns, grazed himself against trees, and almost tripped over objects every which way, as he plodded on, and on. Until his feet became entangled in what looked to be a bed of rose vines, and unable to halt his fall this time, he hooted loudly as its thorns gained purchase through his jeans. And curious to see whose bed he’s fallen into, and silently hoping for them to be female, he eased himself from the sharp grip and got back up onto his feet to better survey the structure before him: and ladishly grinned from ear to ear, as the name showing through the climbing roses was...

ADELADE

‘Halo, Ada! D’ya come here often?’

Barely able to contain himself at his comedic prowess, when he finally stopped laughing at himself, he applied himself to learning a little more about his impromptu date. Sentinelling either side of the gravestone stood what appeared to be two mammoth proportioned headless angels, that were de facto the Goddess of the Soul. And making a clearing through the profusion of red petals and thorns to the epitaph hidden behind, he licked the blood trickling from his pricked fingers, and read the first lines.

Roses grow in the churchyard O’er this grave marked ADELADE That since the day spade and earth formed a mound here Shade has walked in the midnight shade And until laid and staked at the crossroad Adelade will walk in unrest In veil garlanded with roses As the Bride of Night e’r dressed

‘WHOA! What’s this? Death Comes Fast On Wings To Those Who Enter?’

His laugh, tempered now with concentration on what he’d learned on his college course about the tombs of ancient Egypt, he concluded that this read like a cartouche, often put in place to scare away treasure seekers, or safeguard the secrets of a rare and noble beauty. So what’re you m’lady Ada: Loaded or lovely? Maybe both! he grinningly mused. And read on.

Life ceased for her ladyship on learning That the ship of her love had gone down And from the lighthouse she lept asunder Enshrouded in her wedding gown

In life she was comely and beautiful In her bonnets of roses and lace

In death tis a terrible beauty Beguiles the beholder of Adelade’s face

So pity you not lovely Adelade Tis afraid you better should be And anon embrace the holy crucifix Should the vampire ‘er encounter thee

  ‘.........Err, they didn’t hold back from calling a spade, a spade, those Edwardians!’

Suddenly a frisson of disquiet passed through him, at the word spade

  ‘Brrr, I think somebody just walked over my grave, HA.’

His laughter sounding curiously hollow as it reverberated about the tombs, it struck him that his soon to be reinstated girlfriend now seemed like the epitome of joie de vivre to be around. If he backtracked to the pub, she might still be there. He glanced down at his watch...

  ‘Nearly twelve....CAN’T BE!’

The church clock struck once accompanied by the boom of rolling thunder. At the second stroke of midnight, when the roses began to writhe and undulate upon the grave like a nest of serpents, then rose, and rose, and rose: the youth involuntarily relinquished every unit of alcohol to the intensity of their ravenous thirst, that he instinctively knew no amount of rainfall would quench. Up they rose, twining and entwining into a form of slender curves. Vine changed into sinew, petal into flesh, as like a rabbit caught in the headlights he stood frozen, and rooted to the spot. At the last stroke of the clock a scream of mortal terror was unheard above the thunder storm. That abated as sharply as it had erupted. Then all was silent except for the roll of traffic trundling passed on the road outside the church gates, its passage monopolised all lanes by the taxi cabs.

THE END

Short ‘n’ sharp, eh? If that was a movie, it’d be a (B) movie. Well, anyway it’s just gone midnight so, must fly!

Happy Halloween!

TOAD

[bethtoad]

Summertime Extra Blog: God Save Our Gracious Queens!

Danby In The Underworld

Had a subliminal urge to go out, and put some paint on the backyard wall. And, one’s labours labouring beneath sunshine and intermittent showers: with a T.Rex compilation of personal favourites on the c.d. player; I re-approach the technique of colour wash.

‘Well, you damaged the soul of my suit You pulled my love out by the roots But I’m not such a ba-aad boy Oh-oh no-o-o-o....’

Musing on the reverse steps of the Indian Rain Dance, as the heavens open up onto my cadmium red, turning the wall into a scene out of ‘The Shining’: being’s ‘Dandy In The Underworld’ follows this track, this might be a good time to digress under a warm towel, and a brief line on the origin of thus paraphrase; for which a momentary switch to The Herd on the c.d. player’s necessary. And should anyone be down at Oxbridge studying The Classics in all good gravitas, maybe’s best to log off now.

The Greek myth ‘Orpheus in the Underworld’, consists of three central characters. Orpheus: son of a king, poet, and lute playing musician. Eurydice: Beautiful young bride of Orpheus. Hades: Titan God of the Underworld, and brother of Zeus and Poseidon. And notwithstanding, the aforesaid locale: reached through the dark caverns and passages of Erebus; it houses Tartarus (zone of the bad), and the Elysium Fields (zone of the good).. ‘SSSSssssssssss’, oh yeah, and akin to many other good old religion based yarns, there’s a snake. The snake bites Eurydice. Eurydice dies. And Orpheus, stricken with incredulity and grief, ventures down to the Underworld to bleed his heart out in song to, Hades. His lamentations and entreaty to send his beloved back to him, even making The Damned weep, (and I shan’t do an asinine rendition of ‘Elooooooise’ here.....albeit, maybe just did), eventually Hades granted Orpheus’s wish. With one proviso: that on no account must he look back at Eurydice, as she followed the guiding sound of his lute through the dark passages of the underworld, until they reached the light land of the living...

DANG-DANG-DANG-DANG-DANG-DAAAANG ‘Three times the THUNDER roared in my ears In all of my tears I see that lost look in your eyes...’

...And of course, he looked back. Losing his beautiful wife for a second time, Orpheus grew embittered and misogynistic towards the fairer-sex; focusing all his attention thereafter, on Apollo. A faux pas that riled the Maenads, female followers of the rival deity of Dionysus. And finding himself somewhat more than metaphorically torn apart by these fairer damsels: legless, armless, and heartless, legend goes the severed head of Orpheus floated down the river Hebrus, and into the sea, still singing.

Rain’s finally stopped, so back to the wall. In the short timeslot, notwithstanding landsliding pebbledash to contend with, a trompe-l'œil effect’s out, so best to keep it simple. And foregoing the subliminal urge to reach for the Poundland glitter paint bottle: I finish off this fresco with a coat of clear varnish.

Which just about summarizes this English summer morning.

‘Sat ‘neath the eyes of the lofty skies We were chained by the rain to the pain of Our lo-o-o-o-oove...’

Brigitte Nielsen’s Legs

Lookin’ Woeful........................................................And, Lookin’ Tidy

Gettin’ Ahead

Amongst many lovely surprises my girls got me from Santa last Christmas, a gallery of Low Art from my youngest, and a sackful of vintage national dressed dolls from my eldest.....In that sack, was a doll head (sans a body), ‘OOOH!’ just like I always wanted. For it was reminiscent of one of my sadly departed twin baby dollies......whom I daily sought to reunite with their bodies, until the day came when, I never found their bodies again! Then, just last week, the icing on the Christmas cake came, on browsing through one of my favourite haunts on Chilli Rd. For in a box of random body parts,( that I resisted taking home, to find I’d reassembled Frankenfurter’s monster baby), a lone doll head looked up at me, lookin’ lovin’ly down at her, ‘OOOH!’  .And, my twin baby dollies’ve been reunited, similarly to how I remember them best....

And I make no apologies for, an arrested development.  

Crownin’ Glory Now here’s news of something I made earlier. When staples snapped, wood glue failed to hold it all together; and patients finally frayed: and the last resort nails went in, cracking the head of poor old Narcissus vertically, as well as its natural state of horizontal separation.....And yeah, three bodiless wonders featured already, with a headless torso on its way, notwithstanding the half torso of sweet Brigitte, there seems to be a bit of an inadvertent theme going on here. However, sparing oneself the efforts of the saw, virtually speaking all’s not lost. For whilst it can never be exhibited palpably, having studied the shots I took of the painting prior to its scrapping, I’ve decided to put the image out on my website and, in print, as a life study: however true to life what comes out of the top of my head can get, sans some buff pretty boy getting ‘is kit off before TOADivaggio.. So, redressed, reposed, and retitled for all you delightful queens out there, and followers in general, herewith’s...

‘It’sa Kinda Magic!’

Metal Guru

‘Whoooo’s the fairest queen, of them all?’

On the subject of the fairest, there’s really no contest. For the delectable Miss Connie Lingus wins hands down...

Shot strutting her sassy scintillatin’ stuff down Northumberland street today, where my youngest girl and I took our cameras, to shoot the iVamos! Festival Mardi Gras Parade. And evidential in a shot I took much earlier, Martin a.k.a. Connie, is as beautiful out of drag, as in; here with another vision of loveliness, who needs no introduction...

Amidst the glittering, swirling, marching, dancing spectacle, that uber talented duo: The Ladies of Midnight Blue, contributed to the rainbow of colours, and the parade music, also. And now, after the drum rolls, and the trumpet calls, and the marching, dancing forms chasing pavements fade into the distance, and down the banks of misted memory. I let the home-alone-animal-menagerie out into the yard to strut and sing their own stuff: whilst partaking of a much needed moment of solace, some karma, and a welcome mug of Earl Grey; and replay that beautiful young god, who may’ve fronted T.Rex, but will never become a dinosaur. So, aloha, sayonara, shalom, pax, via con dios, Ne-ne-na-noo, and May the Force Be With You! Til next time.

‘ I could have loved you-oo like a planet I could have chained your heart to a sta-aar But it really doesn’t matter at all No it really doesn’t matter at all Life’s a ga-aas,..’  ‘TWAAAAT’

TOAD. X

[bethtoad]

DOLL HOUSES AND MANNEQUIN MANSIONS

Hi All!

  Do hope old Phoebus is beaming down warmly on you: even if only via a sunny disposition, given the rain we’re experiencing in these, the days of ‘Flaming June’, and the month of Julius!

Out of the Blue

I’ve been out here in the back-yard all morning, recycling old furniture, and busying oneself with this and that; jotting down notes for this summertime blog amongst them: and it must be mentioned, in the shade of wild summer roses.

  A compilation of Dylan and Donovan songs are drifting through the open door and windows, from my c.d. player in the kitchen:

‘Heyup! Santa Anna They’re killing your soldiers belo-ow So the rest of Texas will kno-ow And remember the Alamo....’

  And, as Davey Crocket abdicates from his post as king of the wild frontier, along comes Saint Bob, with ‘You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere!’...

  Rose petals whirring about my bare toes in the summer breeze, the birdsong reverberating all about the roof tops was quite lovely: so I brought out our budgie ‘Gobby’, to lend her own inimitable harmony. And now above the sweet chorus of tweet-tweet-tweets, is a sound we could swear is, ‘TWAT-TWAT-TWAAT.’  I keep telling her, I’m gonna swap ‘er for a canary.                     

Funny thing, about this tree.  I’d been at this address near eight years. Throughout which time, this yard consisted of naught but a cement ground surrounded by pebble-dashed brick walls; no soil anywhere, and the only concession to nature’s foliage, was the wood of the railings.

 Until that is, last year.  When during a period of acute homesickness for the seaside, and a longing to move away.                                                               Out of the concrete and brick, this tree sprouted.                                             And spread out its branches, that prior to tethering it, literally tap-tap-tapped on my back door when the wind blew northwards...                                           And, I shan’t childishly follow that with a rendition from ‘The Highwayman’, ‘The Listeners’, or ‘Whooooo...WHOOOOOO...Heathcliff, Heeeeathcliff!’                   OOPS!, just did. Anyways, unaware just what species of tree it was, one day I stepped outside; and found it had clothed itself in thorns and these wondrously lovely wild roses.                             And unsure if the gods were having a laarf (as is customary), or trying to tell me something....       Before I was able to look this proverbial gift horse in the mouth, ANOTHER tree sprouted on the other side of the yard this year!                                       Suggesting if ditto anomaly arises annually.                                                 There’s a veritable magical forest of thorns in the offing.

‘Buy me a flute’ ‘Twat’ ‘And a gun that shoots’ ‘TWAAAAT’

........Just a mo’ while I pop back indoors,

    ‘Whoo-ee! Ride me high...’

 That’s better.

 Maybe surprisingly, it wasn’t a folk legend troubadour that wrote my all time favourite love song. It was, Yes; whose ‘Don’t Kill The Whale’, when the whales come in at the chorus, never fails to make me near inconsolable. Which’s unsurprising, to those who know me.                                                 Who know, I may have a philosophical ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright’ outlook on relationships with people. But I never took my children to see ‘Watership Down’, because I couldn’t bring myself to take them. And was near traumatized when ‘The Iron Giant’ DIED, and when he put himself back together again, was the happiest bunny ( not called ‘Bright Eyes’ ) alive. Of course, in the omniscient words of Saint Bob: ‘Ah, but I was so much older then!’ ‘I’m younger than that now.’

 I sit here outside, this summer especially, under sunshine, cloud, and showers. And when burning the midnight oil, under starlight: for the lamp by my desk on the windowsill, lighting up the yard like a football stadium, is more than conducive to work in, and to wonder.

And, when the wind soughs eastwards up the lane.                                             And the kittiwake flocks fly overhead, en route to where their brothers call from the bay...                                                                                             (Undoubtedly to the question: what, turned these seabirds into city slickers, dwelling in every nook and cranny of the town’s riverside and bridges?)  Notwithstanding the advent of nature’s impromptu gift, that brings me out here more often to closer observe these things: it’s possible to momentarily forget, I’m still living, (like the kittiwakes), in the city.

Dylan and Donovan, having gone to ‘Catch The Wind’ on ‘Positively 4th Street’ via ‘Sunny Goodge Street’ now: I’ve changed the c.d. to something particularly meaningful, to this next anecdote.

‘I wish I could fly Way up to the sky But I can’t! No I caaan’t!’

Only kidding. It’s a compilation of numbers including: The Cocteau Twins’ ‘Pepper Tree’, Enigma’s, ‘Return To Innocence’ (another ditty that cracks me up), and Delerium’s ‘Incantation’, etc. The latter of which, these poignant lines’re out of...

  ‘Too late to fly-y....’ (?)

 A gospel truth is I was once an angel, and I have wings on my arm. And trusting you noted the singularity of thus extremity, the wings are on the only tattoo I possess, of a free bird in flight (and yeah, I rate Leonard Skinnard); and my nursing uniform did not come issued with white starched wings.

 Said to look ‘more like a fish, than a bird’, might’ve been a Freudian slip by the Plymouth tattooist who applied my fishgull freehand all those years ago; or simply dodgy art. But one of the many things I wonder about, is.... We all of us swim before we walk, prior to birth. We all have gills to enable breathing underwater prior to birth; and in some instances are born with gills still in situ. Some of us are born with, webbed feet and fingers too. And that we once had a tail, is clearly evident by its remnants at the coccyx, (tailbone). And disbelieving Darwin’s simian theory, I don’t rule out a fish tail; whilst there again, one’s not about to write it in sandstone either. But outside of primeval cave paintings, and tribal urban legends, (suggesting we may be less indigenous to the Blue Planet, as to the Red: which given what humanity’s perpetrating on its infra structure, would surprise me not), there is no physical evidence, at least still in existence, that we ever had wings. However, if my clone is up there in some parallel universe; and their art (as with Da Vinci) coalesces with science. Specialized in all the fields of bionics, aerodynamics, aeronautics, biophysics, biochemistry, aerostatics, aerology, quantum physics, ornithology, and eugenics. Sans experimentation on animals, human or fauna… If they’ve not done so already. I’d like to think, Dr. TOAD Icarus is doing the utmost to rectify mans’ wingless shortfall.    

And, hailing a new renaissance, of flight.

       ‘JET! Woo Woo Woo Woo Woo Woo....’ to that.

The Icarus of Greek myth, alongside his father Daedalus, escaped from Crete on wings of feathers held together on wax. His wings, alas, melted when he flew too close to Phoebus Apollo, the sun god…

 And falling back down to Earth, he then drowned in the Aegean Sea. The moral of this tale being: never use wax in the field of flying, except when waxing lyrical.

Now, as I was saying: funny thing, about this tree. D’you know, a popular name amongst old mariners for the sea is, ‘la Mer Fleurie’, (the Flowery Sea).  And another’s, ‘Bed of White Roses. Weird or what?

With water surrounding me I fly through the light And dive Into the blue....                     (Moby)

Salvador Danby’s Tips on How Not To Paint

We’ve already established, How Not To Write, so here goes with this little vinegarette in the field of fine art. It shan’t have gone unnoticed by the artists, and the general discerning eyes, amongst you: that when paintings come onto the blog, often’s not they’re not quite finished, and still a little ropey. And the following’s no exception to the rule: moreover as yers truly’s been at the Poundland glitter paint bottle again.... And having executed the work on two odd bits of board, the finishing touches on this one’ll be the addition of a hammer and some nails. And, if they don’t do a convincing trick of holding it all together, that field mentioned earlier, shall be the one where the local rubbish tip is. Anyways, herewith’s what might be a one-chance peek at:

The Metamorphosis Of Narcissus

Hangin’ Out At Nina’s

No place left to hang up my Van Der Syde print of ‘Nina’, left no choice but to give Nina a place to hang out in of her own. And yeah, having a substantial bloodline of Dublin Irish, the oxymoron comes easy to my way o’ ‘tinkin’.

 And Nina’s gaff’s not the only one on the Tardis Estate.                                 For instance, there’s Shelf Hall, located.........well, on the shelves in the hall...

There’s also ‘Cupboard Cottage’, situated, where else but in a cupboard. ‘Shelf Villa’, next door to ‘Shelf Hall’... And opening its doors next, is a palace no less.

Woolamina

Where am I?........What am I?

In The Palace of The Drag Queen...

Plastic Heads Leave Bad Dreams In Beds

I never got the dolls’ house I longed for all my childhood, even though I utilized a lot of shoe boxes: and mine making tiny cottages, so many big brothers with BIG feet made mansions. So I didn’t cry in my pillow over it. The crying came when I got a twin pram on my seventh Christmas, inclusive of two rosy-cheeked twin baby dollies .... Who my brothers would decapitate, to play football with their heads out in the street. Then, when I’d climb up onto bed, my dollies heads would be waiting for me on my pillow, dripping in tomato sauce. But that’s not what it looked like in the daaaark! ‘.........Boo-Hoo-HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!’                                                 It’s surprising that I grew up to be such a well adjusted mother to, two real babies.

 One of the books I’m busy at is on interior design, with what could maybe be termed an eponymous title.                          

  ‘RAINBOW’S END’.

 Amongst its chapters: Fashion House, Animal House, Theatre and Opera House, so on and so forth. There is, wait for it!............ Doll House.                                                                                                 Hence this little precursor.                                                                             Aaand, you all thought it was simply child’s play, didn’t you?

 Until the ‘Summertime Extra’ following not too long behind this post, that’s about all there is for now. So leaving you in the capable hands of the legendary goddess of mortal beauty and stunning one-liners, it’s time to say, as ever...

Keep Smilin’!

TOAD 

[bethtoad]

Springtime Extra

‘The Dream Of Young Albion’ Detail, coming onto ‘Paintings’ page soon.

One Small Step for Man, One Giant Leap for Mannequinkind.

    Arriving in the post from China, the identical twin to this dubious lovely was even more bashed and gashed, but I’d painted it before thinking to shoot it...

However, who says you can’t make a silk purse, out of a sow’s ear?

And herewith’s where Marjorie Mannequin & Co’ live...

Out and About. at the Baltic with my Monochrome Queen...

and, my Rock Goddess, who’s shooting the picture.

Now, before I’m off to tiptoe through the tulips, I shall leave you with something appropriately flowery:

   Girl’s World............................................TOAD’s World

Flora: Roman Goddess of Flowers.

Take care and CIAO for now!

TOAD  

[bethtoad]

From Neverland to Wonderland

Rise up my love, my dove My fair one Arise and come away For lo, tis past the winter The winter of thy year The rains are past and over THE FLOWERS ON EARTH APPEAR

Hi all!

  Dunno the author of that paraphrased verse, other than its origin’s biblical. And this being April, whilst I can’t vouch for the rains, the winter is past and over, and finally it’s Springtime!

I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud

I got an invitation leaflet through the door some time ago, to come see the local Lady Garden. Well its front door leading right onto the street, I’d been in that particular address’s backyard, and knew it to be too cramped to swing more than a couple of plant-pots in, and mused about its sudden capacity to house a garden.

It was down to my two girls to proffer, enlightenment. What I do know, is that the word garden in ancient Persian, is paradise.   And paradise was filled with flowers.   The narcissus-daffodil is my all time favourite flower, and yet behind its cheery instant-sunshine persona, lies a mythical tale of Greek tragedy proportions.   And the tale, as I see it, goes something along these lines…

There was a day, long, long ago.   When Echo and Flora were not the stuff of margarine, and The Sun in the morning was none but, the sun.    Echo, was a chatterbox nymph, beloved by Narcissus, who quite paradoxically could not convey her feelings outloud to him.    The gods in an intolerant mood, she was thus condemned to eternal silence, apart from repeating every last word she heard.     And the words coming from Narcissus: ‘My beloved, whither love canst mine heart go?’   Echo, for all that she longed to answer with what was truly in her heart, could only repeat his last word...   ‘GO, GO, go, goooo.....’    And Narcissus, went.    Never knowing, how Echo had so loved him. Or how she died from a broken heart, with her bones turning to mountain stone.   The only lasting trace of her existence, being her undying echo-echo-echoooo.  The binding of love everlasting, eluding him.  With his head bowed at the lakeside, in a state of lonely rebound, Narcissus fell in love with a face peering up through the water at him.

   Deemed to be a callow, shallow fellow for leaving Echo, the gods poured scorn on the mortal sin of self love, (being immortal, the gods never practised what they preached,) and Narcissus was accordingly condemned to bow thereat the water’s edge, transfixed by his own reflection, until the day he died... 

Passion chokes the flower  Until he cries no more...

    His beauty, even in death however touched the gods; and out of pity they turned Narcissus into a flower, whose petal framed face gazes into the lakesides of the world, ad infinitum.

  The belief arising from this tale, being: That we see the image of our own soul, reflected in the eyes of our one truest love. And are thus destined to fall, and re-fall in love with similar eyes gazing from different faces... For the rest of our mortal, and immortal lives.  

(Songs:Verse from ‘Silence’ by Delerium; verse in the illustration’s from Lamb’s hauntingly lovely track, ‘Gorecki’)    

Ssssay My Name

Were it that I had two heads, and there’s some who’d swear thus to be the case, what would I name them:  Roma? Well, if Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde wasn’t available, maybe, maybe not.  Elizabeth? Not by the hairs of my tasered chiny-chin-chins, nor skewered four eyes each side of my perty little nosies, would I’ve ever been an, Elizabeth.  I read on a plaque in a gift shop window once, that:

‘A CHRISTIAN NAMED ELIZABETH, IS CONSECRATED TO GOD, SOPHISTICATED, NOBLE, CHILDLIKE, SPONTANEOUS, DIRECT, HAPPY WHEN ALLOWED FREEDOM, AN INNOVATOR, AN ORIGINATOR, A SHAPER OF OTHERS, AND CONSIDERS HOME TO BE HER CASTLE’: unquote. (Which you’ve got to hand it to it, fits Elizabeth Báthory , known affectionately by her country compatriots as, ‘Countess Dracula’ to a T.)  And, if that’s not enough, remember a handkerchief when a drunk showers yer with their attention ‘’Ello Lisssshabissssh!’ and spittal. And when the Queen herself could only manage ‘Lilibut’ throughout her formative years, what chance has any other infant school-kid got at saying it: ‘Lidibit’ ‘Shishashish’ ‘Bishybish’ And doooo’nt ask an infant minus their two front teeth to say it: ‘Hello, my name ith Elitttttttttth.....’  I was near ten years old, before even I could say it!    By which time, near everyone had shortened it to Beth and Eliza anyways.    And put that mouthful back together, and we have Betheliza. Name any drunk knows better than their own mother’s.   Alongside the obligatory Louisa May Alcott references, Eliza Doolittle’s what gushing blushing teenage boys liked to call me.  But it was my big sister Vera, not I, who had the doe-eyed loveliness of Audrey Hepburn. So much so, that the smitten patients on the wards where she nursed, called her ‘Nurse Bambi.’ She was the beautiful fairy-tale princess I wanted to grow up, just like.  And, in a way I did grow up into a fairytale: to a frog called TOAD, whilst my big sis grew into that sloe-eyed old hag on the wrong side of twenty, Sophia Loren.  It can be said however, that I do have my roots in flowers. Having a different father to the rest of my older siblings, my paternal grandfather started off the family florist business, selling flowers from a sand-dancer street barrow.       

Off The Wall

You’ll have heard the saying, ‘Boring as watching paint dry.’  I’m one of those odd-bods, that actually likes watching paint dry. On first moving in here, after covering up every inch of matt mocha and slate-blue on the walls, with Wilkinson’s own brand of satin emulsion. I sat in the middle of the floor, watching the gradual transition of subtly deepening hues, arrive with the dawn as ‘Happy Yellow’. And it was like the sun coming up in a room, colder that the winter ice at the door.  Small space living, means that these two rooms must incorporate, alongside living space, and notwithstanding that this is also the boys’ indoor dog-kennel: artist studio, study, and platform on which to explore ideas. Hence it’s fortunate that I don’t subscribe to the textbook idea, that limited space must mean limited content. One’s logic being more in the camp of Doctor Who,  than the House Doctor, for the walls surrounding small floor spaces, are as open to visual expansion as, the Tardis: ergo, the more interest and dimension that’s stacked up floor-to-ceiling, heightens the perspective: and wall-to-wall, broadens it. And the various shapes and form, colours and textures, create montages and collages, that in themselves can become art installations. Along the lines of some images in Supermarket Sarah’s book, ‘WonderWalls’

 And, having utilised every inch of wall space, including the hallway and loo. There’s only one conceivable place left around here, that remains uncharted territory.

  Whoa! I can just see it, like a Sistine Chapel-Michelangelo epiphany...  WONDERCEILINGS!

Family Portrait

‘It’s the last station home It’s the last station, home...’

Africa, was described by my father in the stories he’d always tell me, as ‘The Land of Forever Sunshine’, where only the beasts of the jungle and out on the desert plains are wild and ferocious, not the people.  When the world far away from his African utopia, became a jungle, and he packed his suitcase on life one April night: His prayers to God unanswered, witnessed only by a dumbstruck kid, who wasn’t God, and wasn’t about to answer anything... Poor daddy would’ve been better served to’ve put them to, the Lion King.   It wasn’t until I was about to leave for Cornwall, that I quite impromptu picked up the phone, and dialled a number in the phonebook on the other side of the river, in a sudden quest to find my roots.   The recipient of my call, told me I have a black African brother, who’s a doctor. Born during my father’s soldier days out there.  I wasn’t given a name, so because the Toni Childs’ song ‘Zimbabwe’ somehow evokes familial feelings in me, my girls have always known him as ‘Uncle Zimbi.’  I also learned that day.  Like something out of a gothic novel, that my father’s youngest sister, who was wed to a count, died tragically young and beautiful, in a fire.  ‘My Lady Danbyville  Why do you sleep so still...’ Goes the almost ode from, Cat Stevens.

 On analysing thus information at a later date however, I did wonder if my ears had somehow dropped a couple of syllables, and that count was actually accountant.  I shall never know; albeit that even if she’d been wed to a sand-dancer street-sweeper, alongside grandfather’s flower barrow: I should have still loved to’ve known the beautiful sounding Lady, who was my aunt.  Life having a propensity to give a little, in forfeit for a lot. Sans a real name or a photograph of either...    I Painted my father’s wide Nordic mouth onto my brother, and his ice-blue eyed blondness onto aunt, notwithstanding having a gist in my oldest girl, said to resemble her:    So herewith’s a sketchy (some might say dodgy) impression of, Dr. Danby and la Contessa de la Rosa, (be she Mrs. Accountant or nay.)

Zebras Crossing

Out of Use            

Out of Paint Tins

Somewhat incongruous, in a room that looks like the aftermath of a polychrome paint-bomb blitz: with all this talk of Africa, and notwithstanding that my oldest girl’s the ‘Monochrome Queen’, her flair with zebra print attested throughout her beautiful little apartment...

 Of late I’ve begun to see things a little in black & white. Albeit that, even should my life depend on it, it’s doubtful that I’ll ever have the dicipline to dispense with yellow.....and green, and then there’s turquoise, and..............

Space Traders

Whereas Martian T.V. has finally left the planet, the odd green face still pops up now and again on the screen.  

  Prior to my last visit there, I was up the Chilli Road, rescuing a donkey. I believe you know him, he’s the cutesy little fellow on the retro lamp in my study area. This time, the lovely lady at Chillingham Rd. Collectables, not for the first time, took pity on my struggling artist persona, and let me have an original retro ‘Tina’ print by J.H. Lynch: for a song. ‘OOOOOOOH!’   However, such an exotic flower as Tina, didn’t sit quite well alongside ‘Weedy-Weeds’ (Check out my art website, I’m not makin’ this up), so I’d to take out a canvas and my brushes... And paint a wilder flower altogether in, Sassiana. Full title of painting: ‘Mama, She’s Makin’ Eyes At Me!’, in homage to retro Big Eyes art. And this being about it for now, I’ll leave you with my sassy lady to say, as ever...

....That’s, near enough to what I meant.

TOAD.

[bethtoad]

Ballet of the season: RITES OF SPRING

(PostingMarch-April blog soon)

TOAD x

[bethtoad]

Gone Fishing!

I don’t get much to the coast nowadays But still keep my head in the sand Shell seeking and fishing Off the shores of Neverland

I’ve digressed to thoughts of writing the November blog, as a kind of busman’s holiday from the essay I’m doing on Kant, all reasoning behind why, suddenly eluding me. Maybe it was a cerebral exercise in running rings round Saturn, which isn’t so inconceivable on a good day; only spoke in that wheel’s I ought to’ve waited for a good day. 

(Highlight of the Week)

Bought a ballerina brooch at the town’s Quayside Market on Sunday, and...

(Lowlight)

This is not the mirror of evening, or either the wee small hours; it is eight thirty seven am on a God awful November morning...

  Six days ago every light-reflective surface in this room, sparkled via sun prisms pouring through the south facing back window. My TV screen looked like ‘War of the Worlds’ was being aired, as strobe like lighting blotted out the lower extremities of all the green people.

   I’ve never enjoyed Breakfast Television so much.

   In reverse order: it reminded me of the Bolshoi Ballet performance of ‘SwanLake’ at the Sunderland Empire. Where my (affordable) gallery seat was so high up in the rafters, the dance took on a surreal slant, exacerbated by vertigo: when, aside from the principle dancers at the front of the stage, the rest of the company danced as an array of pirouetting - arabesqueing - leaping legs, dislodged of their upper torsos and heads. I thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle though, albeit that I’d have done so even if they’d been dancing on their heads. Matter of fact, even if I’d been strung up on a chandelier for affordability, near every ballet I have ever seen, inclusive of the Bolshoi’s, has been priceless.

   Now where was I?

Love lifts us Up where we belong....

   Ascent of any description’s unlikely in this fugue.

   Funny thing is, had I still lived beside the sea, nothing so trivial as living in Bleak House would’ve dampened my spirits; for I would be out all hours - all weathers with my dogs, playing Hopscotch with the waves roaring and crashing along the shoreline, rocks, and promenades. Most all of my life, aside from this last decade in the city, I have lived within near walking distance to the sea. So near in fact, that in Newbiggin-by-the-Sea where I lived for three years, preceded by Blyth and Cambois: borne on the wind, the sand from the beach would blow up Sandridge, and form small dunes at the bottom of my stairs, via the letterbox. Down Sandridge, the fishermen would set sail on their cobles to a dawn chorus cacophony of gannets, herring gulls, kittiwakes, cormorants, and puffins. From his cage on the windowsill, my (sadly departed canary) ‘Sunny’, would sing beautiful arias in harmony with the operas and overtures by Puccini, Prokofiev, Mendelssohn, and Tchaikovsky, playing on my CD player. Whilst all the while, the lighthouse beacons from Blyth and in the farther distance St. Mary’s would criss-cross the path of the moon, as it shone all the way from Norway, (where my forefathers set sail on their longboats from.) Creating a scene right out of ‘SwanLake’ and ‘Rusalka.’

   Magical!

   Not much of that here: where outside the window in the backyard, the Tomcats from the alleys, yowl the dawn chorus for the queen next door, leaving a spray that smells the antithesis of sea-spray, whilst her majesty leaves a succession of mutilated birds outside both my back and front windows, because she apparently likes me..

   But the Tomcat Serenade, aside: in a reflective mood of late, with the window by my desk open throughout the nights, I’ve been playing a lot of Tracy Chapman with the volume switched down low, whilst I work.

Oh, the bridges that you burn Come back one day to haunt you....

   My girls were only little girls, when I crossed the bridge of the Tyne, and traversed the bridges of Yorkshire, Birmingham, Bristol, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Dorset, and Devon, en route to Cornwall.

In search of solace in which to clear the brainstorm in my head, and deduce the answer that would relinquish the vice grip on my children, of a bandwagon of social workers at the North Shields, WhitleyBay, Killingworth branches of Social Services: remonstrating a work ethic of spurious rhetoric, if not tact and sensitivity. For my children didn’t know I was gay, as my private life was private, and my children’s life, their own; until social workers enlightened them. One year later. On arriving at the answer, I arrived back on Tyneside; and the aforesaid crawling back under their respective stones, and the court judgement reversed onto the complainant they all championed, I was finally reunited with my children; we Three Musketeers residing for the next ten years, on both sides of the River Tamar’s hamoaze.

   Those years sailing by from bow to stern on the west wind, were busy.

   I took my youngest girl to school every morning - and brought her home after school, across the river on the chain ferry, the only saving grace in dire weather being the ferry landing’s close proximity to our home. Via the persistence of the deputy-head at her high school, with whom I shared a mutual liking and respect for, notwithstanding mischievous sense of humour, I allowed oneself to be talked & talked & talked into becoming a school governor, and ironically ended up attending school more then, than back when I actually went to school : resigning from the board, only after being asked out by the head of science, (nice person, wrong gender.)

   I also made friends with a bunch of lovely affluent arty people in Penzance, socialising with the gang whenever possible, at the Acorn just up from the seafront, and the Arthurian’ly beautiful Saint Michael’s Mont...

  And talking of saints, the gods must’ve had an almighty titter at one’s expression on opening the situations vacant page in the local paper, and reading this ad...

NUNS WANTED

THE HOLY ORDER OF SAINT DUNSTANS

Welcome applicants to our close knit order of sisters, to .......

..........................................................................

(Divorcees, welcome also.)

...the nuns and divorcees bit is verbatim, whilst the rest lends the gist.

   The square in which we lived housed the Anglican church of St. Peter’s, with the cloisters just around the corner and the Cathedral just a little further on. St Dunstan’s was the convent standing adjacent to our door, where the sisters referred to, who taught at St Dunstan’s School around the other corner, would whizzzzzzzzzzzz by our door in sports cars, and ebulliently sing along to tracks from ‘Sister Act’, which would resound from our nun neighbours’ open windows, and reverberate around the square: the vibrato in the lovely soprano and contralto voices coming out of some, suggesting they taught music; and others, that they taught woodwork.

I will follow Him Follow Him wherever He may go There isn’t an ocean too deep...

  There’ve been two significant other halves in my life. My first (forever) love, Lauranya; that cost me my liberty, and almost my life. My last love, that cost me and almost lost me, my children. Yet, for all that: amid the neighbours saint Peter, saint Mark, and saint Dunstan, therein another day in paradise it wasn’t Him I wanted to follow; not in a lifestyle choice, anyway. But having taken my oldest girl off the police missing persons list on Tyneside, (social services looking after her better than I?!), and my youngest coming out of foster care: there was no recourse but to forfeit the love of my girlfriend, Kiirsten, and apply oneself to the vow of abstinence sans the fine detail of actually marrying, God. Not in a martyr’s role, being too fiercely proud to be anyone’s victim: just for some blessed peace.

Oh, my mama told me You know you learn the hard way She said, you’ve got to spare the children And don’t give or sell your soul away For all that you have, is your soul....

(The Three Musketeers: Cornwall, 1993)

(The Three Musketeers: Newcastle, 2014)

   The happy homecoming back north, never quite surfacing, for a long-long while every sleeping and waking dream has been preoccupied with getting back to the sea to breathe some fresh clean air again: to a little terraced flat by the promenades, with a bay-window view of the beach donkeys and in earshot of their bridle bells, in Scarborough. Not quite so far as that 500 miles due south west, but far enough, and moreover near enough to nostalgic echoes of the coast and fishing industry I grew up in, now barely recognisable here on Tyneside. We can never go back to retrace time, concededly; for the past, like Brigadoon disappears into Scotch mist: But we can go forward. And however soon I achieve it, hangs on how earnestly one applies oneself to the four half finished tomes, awaiting completion on my desk. Logic deducing, that with two already completed, in novel format, and ‘Roma’ about to go out into circulation soon: six books on diverse subjects ought to yield at least one success story...

And I’ve a vested interest, in seeing it’s not a posthumously acclaimed one.

    And in the interim, to content oneself: there’s still one place within walking distance, filled with things of the sea...

  Time now for something delightfully low, rather than depressingly so.

  I painted this, another of my faces, in homage to the sultry females painted by the Low Art artists: Tretchikoff and Lynch, and the wide-eyed images by Keane, (moreover because, whereas I’d love to own the original retro prints, notwithstanding an extra four walls on which to accommodate them, the market for them’s quite outpriced me.)

....Yet who knows: if one paints ‘Smilalina’ onto canvas some day, there might be an original Danbikoff on the Low Art wall of fame, hanging between ‘Nina’ and ‘Tina.’ And should I use blue on her complexion akin to Tretchikoff’s usage of green, the proceeds might buy a great BIG house in Scarborough, in which to adequately house all the Low Art prints I’d buy, complementing all the wonderfully ‘Bad Taste Art’ Jeff Koons’ sculptures I’d buy, and Warhol’s tins of soup, and of course a little room at the front housing artefacts from the Valley of the Kings, the Parthenon and Pantheon, the Palace of Versailles, the............ (Shopping List Memo: 2 tubes Cerulean-Blue acrylic paint.)

   Amongst my many other favourite artists to date, are Edward Hopper, Matisse (especially his earlier ‘Odalisque’ interiors), Grayson Perry, and local based artist Lizzie Rowe (whom I’ve exhibited with, albeit paled into insignificance beside such stellar talent; check out her work at the Laing Art Gallery.)

     Having been uplifted, and notwithstanding up and awake since yesterday morning, it’s almost time to go catch an hour of sleep, (in the fervent hope sleep’ll let me.) After which time, it shall be time for morning elevenses...

   Then it’s back to work at my desk again; though best I put Kant’s philosophies on the back burner for a while, lest I end up procrastinating on this holiday till spring.

   It’s a busy month next month, and it’ll be next year 2015 when I next get back to you, so Happy Christmas in advance! And as ever, here’s saying ...

...Naah, that face is so last month. Now, what was it I was saying... 

TOAD (Danbikoff)  X

Been busy hence late posting. See you next year.

[bethtoad]

The House of the Danbyvilles

The scent of burning wax from tall tallow candles pervades the air, their flickering flames cast dancing shadows about the walls, la Dance Macabre, in the castle chamber: where the Lady Macbeth, reposes with a book....

A resounding creak echoes along the corridors and halls, as the castle door swings open.

   Its lock uncompromised, by mortal hand.

   Letting in a great gust of wind aridden by leaves of the dark forest...

   And, something else!

...Yeah, and a footnote to that’s, if you got them in Poundland, make sure they don’t melt!

Digressing into the interlude, just days after posting my last blogmy two girls took me to Tynemouth Market to spend my birthday money; and whilst rummaging through the old dresses on a vintage stall for fabric to cut: of all the markets, in all the towns, and all the places in space and time, this tattered yellow hat fell onto my foot! Affirming and reaffirming, that the gods enjoy a little titter at we lesser mortals... 

...(Not if I don’t answer the door, I won’t!)

Anyways, just prior to coming in to my study area and switching on my computer, ‘Kalinka’ was playing on Classic FM, inducing me to drop everything and play air-guitar on my stage-prop balalaika: knocked together at Plymouth University for some Pasternak or Chekhov play, by a long ago art/drama student with the artfully painted initials GP; whom I like to think’s, Gregory Peck. Albeit if they’d been GR, I’d’ve been just as happy with Grigori Rasputin.

  When I was young, using the high mantelpiece of the TRIPLEX fireplace as my bar, I’d avidly watch the TV screen and emulate every move of the dancers thereon: albeit favouring Nureyev rather than Fonteyn might’ve raised some eyebrows, had I ever got to audition for ballet school. And needless to say, I could dance to ‘Kalinka’ just like my Cossack TV screen teachers: landing my King Learia Posteria right in the grate on occasion, occasioning one to be the hottest act in town!

  ‘HOWL! HOWWWL!’ yeah and I did a good rendition of King Lear too.

  Now, where was I?

  Ah! Yes, tis the Season Of The Witch!

  Being a seventh child, born on the eve of Saint Michael, and notwithstanding done a considerable bit of light reading on the subject over the years: it’s not I, who’s the Wicca- Wonder in my little family of three. Or either is it my youngest girl, albeit that the odd incident may belie it: such as piping up in the middle of a Plymouth used book store, at the ripe old age of thirteen, that the book she had in her eager little hands was only three pounds, and could she have it, it being the ‘Malleus Maleficarum’! She barely noticed the subtle switch as she placed ‘What Katy Did’ on the counter, and has grown up sweet as if she’d been Anne of Green Gables...

   Our white witch is my little moon-maiden Mickey, whom I affectionately call: ‘Micktic Meg’.

Studying for her relevant qualifications at the school of the ‘Sisters of Isis’, Sister Michaela has eyes as green as leaves, that throughout her childhood were blue as cornflowers...

And if that isn’t an attribute blessed by her goddess, I don’t know what is.

Now, back to the castle: ergo the room next door...

After warming the cockles of their cold black hearts on steaming brews, and their cloven feet and taloned hands by the fire.

  Twas at the stroke of the thirteenth hour, ‘Ye Witching Hour!’, that the creatures of the dark forest surrounding the blackwaters, finally relinquished the Lady of her patronage.

  The castle door throwing itself open twice this night, revealing framed beneath its portico, a herd of snorting champing kelpies.

  Thunder claps preceded pounding hoofs.

  And alighting their fearsome steeds, twas on a great gust of wind that the strange troupe was thence borne out into the night...

  A blaze of bright leaves, in shades and shapes of flame, dancing and dissipating in their wake.

Having played the perfect hostess, and bid her guests a cordial: ‘Good morrow! Dooo come  thou hither again to mine welcoming hearth!’

 Before bidding her servants to hoist up the drawbridge, let down the portcullis, thrice padlock and, barricade the door floor to ceiling...

  The Lady Macbeth, is once more reposed in her chamber.

  She yawns. She places on her nightcap:

  ‘Methinks tis time to sleep, to dream, a midsummer night’s dream.’ she sighs.

  And as a gust of ghostly wind blows out all the candles, and the wall shadows cease (to be seen ) to dance: she turns her face toward the audience.

  And bids all thereout, a: ‘HAPPY HALLOWEEN!’

Keep thee smilin’! TOAD

Note: Images 4 and 5 shall be on website Interiors pages soon.