#hes a very polite and sensible wee guy

[c-kiddo]

una ava universe lore is that there is also a character named johannes who ava knew for a few months (before una) when she was a bit younger. like 18/19 type of age. johannes was staying with his grandparents to help for summer (like help them fixing their house or something, maybe with his dad? not sure yet) and hung out with ava because she had a job in the tiny little corner shop nearby to the small town. she lives outside of the town a couple miles away but she went on her bike to work. they hung out and also i just think the idea of weird girl and also owl ava (who doesnt rly talk) having a friend/sort of boyfriend and they like birdwatch and johannes shows ava tv shows on vhs and camping gear like a dented thermos he brings everywhere with him . she shows him how to peel an egg rly neatly and doesn't show him the big hole she has in her back full of twigs and plants even though he's good and nice she just doesn't want to be that vulnerable right then

johannes looks like this

[sassysnowperson]

How Not to Read Terry Pratchett's Discworld Novels

With the very exciting fantasy books poll bracket going on Discworld and how to read it is in the zeitgeist again. I figured I would take a crack at adding to this important topic with a guide drawn from my own chaotic mess of a reading journey:

Learn that Terry Pratchett is a fantasy author that several people whose reading taste you admire enjoy. He apparently blends comedy, good plotting, and a world that is both grounded and satirical and you're a big fan of all those things.

Fabulous! Decide to read some of his work.

Go to your local library. Love a good library. You're new to the area, so you're also exploring the library for the first time, too.

You have found Terry Pratchett! Points to you! Pull a book off the shelf at random. It's called The Dark Side of the Sun.

Start reading. Realize that this feels more like sci-fi than fantasy. Sigh in smug superiority about people who get the two confused.

Realize about halfway through that this is not, in fact, a Discworld book.

Nobody warned you the guy wrote other things!

It's still good, tho. Maybe a little rough but this was an older book and the author clearly has potential. Let's try again.

Review his works. The vast majority are Discworld. You are highly unlikely to grab another non-Discworld book. Go back to the Terry Pratchett section of the library.

Oh hey he wrote a book with Neil Gaiman! You've hears of that guy!

Grab Good Omens off the shelf.

Take it home, realize, much sooner, that this is also not a Discworld book. Still enjoy yourself thoroughly. You should read more of this Gaiman dude, too.

But okay. For real this time. Go back to the library and don't leave without *CONFIRMING* you have a Discworld book this time.

Grab a book. Look at the cover. Read the back Discworld! Ha HA! You've done it!

It's called Thud.

You are utterly gripped by a story of a man wrestling with himself, his growing child, the political tensions of a city and extremism that echoes reality beautifully while still being entirely true to itself. It's a story of responsibility and love and building communities and Fantasy Chess. You are driven nearly to tears by the sentence *WHERE IS MY COW?*

You emerge from the book fundamentally changed as a person, and finally understanding what all the fuss is about. You are now a Terry Pratchett reader for life.

You realize Thud was in the middle of a series. That was a part of another series. That explains why there was a feeling that you were supposed to know some of these people already.

You finally find one of those flowcharts and figure out a more sensible reading order.

I always sort of laugh when people ask where to start reading Discworld, because Thud would be first on absolutely nobody's sensible Terry Pratchett reading order. I'm still tempted to recommend it though!

(My actual advice: Going Postal if you love con men being stuck doing the right thing, Wee Free Men if you like YA and smart angry girls owning their own power, Guards! Guards! *and* Men at Arms if you like crime shows with heart and are okay giving earlier work a try (the quality gets better and better, but I think it needs at least two books to get you into it), and Monstrous Regiment if you like gender and queer feelings, anti-war books told in the middle of a war, and/or would prefer a stand alone novel...and, you know, Thud if you want a great read and don't mind some chaos.)

[isitgintimeyet]

Road To The Aisles

AO3

Previous

Chapter 12 and thanks to you all for continuing to read, like, reblog and comment. It is much appreciated.

Special thanks to @mo-nighean-rouge @happytoobserve @wickedgoodbooks for their continued support.

Chapter 12 : An Unexpected Exchange

“It’s pointless for a human to paint scenes of nature when they can go outside and stand in it.”

-Ron Swanson, Parks and Recreation

Claire sat at her desk and eyed her tuna sandwich with distaste. While she had magnanimously agreed last night to let Jamie take dinner leftovers -- a very tasty chilli and rice -- for his office lunch today, she had been hoping that he might have somehow forgotten and made his way to the gym and then work without it, leaving her to claim it (rather than it go to waste). When it was clear that hadn’t happened, she had been forced to hastily make the aforementioned sandwich.

There was a light tap at the office door. A grinning head poked around the door, immediately distracting Claire from her dietary woes.

“G, how you doing? Come and talk to me,” Claire exclaimed.

Geillis strolled into the office and pulled up a chair. She looked longingly at Claire’s sandwich.

“Christ, I’m fucking starving. And I’ve only a banana fer ma lunch.”

Claire pushed the untouched sandwich towards her friend. “There you go. Have that. Now, tell me all your news.”

Geillis took a large bite of the sandwich and munched for a few moments before taking a swig out of Claire’s now cold coffee mug and clearing her throat.

“It’s been a fucker of a morning in the emergency department. We had a chap come in, wouldna talk tae the receptionist or a female nurse. Finally agreed tae talk tae Big Steve, ye ken the guy? The nurse practitioner that does the body building? Weel, turns out he’s come in wi’ a can of body spray wedged up his arse, he couldna get it out. Apparently he’d tried wi’ some kitchen tongs, only shoved it further up.”

“He said…” Geillis took a smaller bite and carried on talking. “He said that he’d slipped getting out of the shower and fell on tae it. Imagine that? And we’re there tryin’ tae be serious while he’s spinnin’ us this yarn. So he goes off tae X-Ray and we’re all placing bets on what scent it is.”

“Is he ok?”

“Turns out it wasna lodged too far up, so Dr. Chris was able tae get it out wi’ no operation needed. And then this chap actually asked if he could have the spray back, as it’s his favourite. Dr. Chris told him it was now classed as clinical waste and would therefore have tae be disposed of ‘in an appropriate manner.’”

Geillis finished her sandwich and looked around for a napkin. Claire passed her a tissue.

“And what scent was it?” Claire prompted, laughing.

“Lynx… Africa. I guessed it. Lucky fer him it was only the smaller size… I mean, the girth on those larger sprays… imagine… no’ even Dougal would --”

“And how is Dougal?” Claire hastily changed the subject. “I know it’s ok from your texts, but what did he say about the whole baby thing?”

“Weel… after all that worryin’ and mitherin’ I put meself through, Dougal was verra understanding about it. I told him straight that I dinna want a baby at the moment, and would likely never want one. So it was his choice… me and no bairn, or no me. And he did the sensible thing… he chose me. The door’s left open, but…”

“And why wouldn’t he? He’d be a fool to give you up.”

“Aye, I ken. I tell him regular that he’s lucky tae have me.”

Geillis delved into her voluminous handbag and retrieved a banana, brandishing it aloft.

“Fancy half a banana? Tae eat? I tell ye… what I’ve seen today… it’s oral consumption only with bananas from now on fer me.”

Claire tentatively took half from Geillis, a worried expression on her face.

“Dinna fash,” Geillis sighed. “I bought it this morning. It’s a virgin banana. I do have some standards, ye ken.”

*************

Jamie and Claire strolled through the park, enjoying the warmth of the summer sun. It was a perfect day, with not a cloud in the sky and only a slight breeze rustling through the trees.

“Do ye think I’ve put enough sun cream on William, Sassenach ? I dinna want him to burn.”

Claire looked over at William, clad in a bright blue romper suit and matching baseball cap and strapped securely onto Jamie’s chest. She could still faintly see the layer of sun cream meticulously applied by Jamie before they came out.

“Think you’ve put enough on for a trip to the equator,” she joked.

“Aye, weel, ye canna be too careful. Shall we head tae the river and look fer some duckies then, ma wee man?”

Jamie took the loud raspberry from William as agreement. He held Claire’s hand as they wandered alongside the river, their companionable silence only broken by William’s excited babbling.

After a somewhat disinterested encounter with the ducks, they settled themselves on a riverside bench to watch the world go by. William tried to bounce, pressing his feet firmly against Jamie’s thighs, eliciting an ‘aargh’ sound from his father.

Claire laughed as she gazed at her two men. She held William’s dimpled hand to her mouth and kissed it.

“He’s laughing at you, Jamie, when you make that sound.”

“Aargh… aargh…” Jamie repeated his exclamation to William’s increasing delight, his chuckles growing louder and louder and joining the laughter from his father and Claire.

“Ah, Claire. I’d recognise those curls anywhere. Your hair is very distinctive, you know,” a voice spoke suddenly, cutting into the moment.

She stopped laughing as she stood up and turned around, patting her hair. Instinctively Jamie stood as well and turned to face the voice.

“Frank… wow, what a surprise. I didn’t expect to see you here. I thought… have you… are you still down in England?”

“Er, yes. I’m just up here for the weekend. Conference, you know. Just on my way to the gallery, see the exhibitions. You’re looking well, Claire.”

Frank smiled at her, oblivious to the palpable tension radiating from Jamie.

"Thanks," Claire responded politely. "Frank, this is my fiancé, Jamie. Jamie, this is Frank… an old friend."

Jamie extended his hand and enveloped Frank's long, elegant fingers in a bone crushing handshake.

“Pleased tae meet ye.” Jamie’s words were at odds with the look on his face.

Frank raised an eyebrow. “Engaged? Well, congratulations to you both… and a baby? Life has changed very quickly for you, Claire. So, are you at work, or maternity leave?”

Claire looked at William who, lacking entertainment, was simultaneously sucking his thumb whilst trying to pull his cap off.

“Actually, William is my step-son. He’s Jamie’s son.”

“Oh, I see.” Frank’s statement hung in the air.

“We’re getting married in just over three months’ time.” Claire suddenly felt defensive as she remembered Frank’s judgemental nature.

William, having succeeded in pulling his cap off and dropping it, now let out a cry as Claire picked it up and secured it firmly back on his head. The cry was followed by a series of sobs becoming louder and louder.

“I think he needs a nap.” Claire explained over the crying. “We should be heading home. Well, all the best, Frank.”

Frank leant forward and lightly kissed Claire on both cheeks. “Congratulations to you both.”

“Bye then.” Jamie nodded and took Claire’s hand as they started walking away.

The journey home was made in silence, William dozing fitfully in his car seat. Once at the house, Jamie, still silent, took William upstairs and put him down in his cot. Claire pottered in the kitchen, putting the kettle to boil, pulling the cafetière out of the cupboard, opening the cake tin. When she heard Jamie’s steps coming downstairs, she made the coffee and cut two slices of banana loaf. Each action precise, deliberate and calm, which was exactly what she wasn’t feeling.

“Jamie, come and sit down.” She placed a mug of coffee and slice of banana loaf in front of him as he slumped at the kitchen table.

“Right, so, what is the matter with you? You’ve had a face like a slapped arse ever since we bumped into Frank in the park. It’s to do with him, isn’t it? And don’t try to tell me nothing is the matter. Sulking is not a good look on a thirty-three year old man, you know.”

Jamie was quiet for a moment, fiddling randomly with the baby monitor. Finally, he placed the monitor on the kitchen table, took a large gulp of coffee, screwing up his face as the hot liquid hit his mouth, and sighed.

“Aye, ye’re right. ‘Twas partly yer man. When ye said William was yer ‘step-son’, I could see Frank, I ken what he was thinking. He was looking at me, judging me, thinking I was some serial shagger hopping from bed tae bed… mebbe even wondering if I’d be faithful tae ye.”

Claire came and sat at the kitchen table with Jamie.

“First of all,  what does it matter what Frank's opinion of us is? He’s not part of our lives. And if we’re talking about serial shaggers, I could tell you a thing or two about him. So what if he wonders about you being unfaithful? No one we know or care about would ever think that.”

“Second of all,” Claire tapped the kitchen table with her forefinger emphasising her points. “Are you unhappy because I said William was my step-son? You didn’t want me to lie, did you? Let him think I was William’s birth mother?”

Jamie lifted his eyes from his mug of coffee to look at Claire, his cheeks reddening slightly. “No’ lie as such, but ye dinna have tae say anything.”

“To make you feel better, to not be judged by Frank? What does that even matter? Or did you want to prove a point to Frank?”

“Ye dinna understand. It’s no’ jes’ tae do wi’ Frank… it’s like… when we’re in the park or some such place, and I see all the families around us, playing and laughing, I like to think, or pretend, that there is nae Geneva, nae leaving ma son fer half the week. I dinna like tae be reminded. I like tae think that we’re a family jes��� like those around us.”

Claire pulled her chair closer to Jamie and reached across to stroke his auburn curls. He inclined his head and closed his eyes, relishing the feel of her nails, now lightly scratching his scalp.

“You are a silly, silly man. We are a family just like those around us at the park… there’ll be every variation of family there… half siblings, step-parents, step-children, single parents, adopted children, fostered, raised by grandparents. And you know what, when it comes down to it, it’s all family. And that’s what matters.”

“Aye, I may be a silly man, but I ken that ye, Claire Beauchamp soon tae be Fraser, are a fine woman that I’m no’ sure that I deserve.”

“Well, I’m not sure either that you deserve me, but…” she replied as she moved to stand between his legs. “... you can try.”

Jamie’s hands settled on her arse as Claire bent her head to kiss him. As the kiss deepened, her hands snaked around the back of his neck, pulling him tighter to her.

The sudden cry from the baby monitor broke them apart.

“He’s no’ got the best timing,” Jamie laughed. “Guess he doesna want his old man having fun.”

Claire breathed in his ear. “Later.”

“Later,” Jamie agreed.

[sticky-institute]

Travel Diary: Zinefest Christchurch, by Bryce Galloway

I used to go to all of New Zealand’s annual zinefests, but now that there’s six of them (!?!?) I only go to my hometown zinefests - Hamilton/Wellington, and one other, in strict rotation. I’m weird like that, just ask my friends.

Last time I was here (2013) I was in a lonely hotel on the edge of Cathedral Square, telling the assembled locals to go zine, cos it was one of the best cultural vehicles for a city lacking infrastructure. Christchurch (Ōtautahi) was post-quake. Christchurch is still post-quake, just a little less so.

This time round I’m staying with friend, artist, musician and Content Manager at inde radio station RDU - Gemma Syme. I slept on Gemma’s coach, until drunken friends and flatmates woke me with their banter and late-night fry-up. I listened to the drunken Pakeha boys try and argue their iwi (tribal) status with the Māori girls. What, with the sleeping bag over my head, I totally missed that one of the boys in question was friend and zinester Spencer Hall. Once they’d left I got up and checked they’d turned the oven off. Those, “don’t drink and fry” ads, ya know?

I see nobody from Christchurch Zinefest 2013 at the 2017 event. This must be a completely new local zine spasm. However, Christchurch’s ongoing love of the risograph and the influence of designer/art school lecturer Luke Wood are still present, extended by Jane Maloney’s riso press (M/K Press Ltd) and her pre-Zinefest riso-zine workshops.

Christchurch Art Centre are providing this space by virtue of the fact that they have a zinester in their ranks - Louise Sutherland. Otherwise, Alice Bush is the primary organizer of this year’s event.

Louise’s zines precede her. She be the author of the wonderful Coaster Frenzy, here today for just “$1 or swaps”. Alice and I gush our respective roller coaster stories at the Coaster Frenzy author. Alice has the world’s highest rollercoaster under her belt. I have the world’s highest vertical-drop rollercoaster under mine, which is surprising, I HATE heights. I launch into the Dead Kennedy’s rollercoaster disaster anthem Funland at the Beach, and later kick myself for the inappropriateness of that song in the context of post-quake Christchurch!!!

Louise says she feels privileged to have been part of the Christchurch rebuild, “It’s a moment in history. How many of those do we get to share.” Louise contends that Christchurch art and music have benefitted from the quakes; that a formerly closed scene, full of hierarchies, is now open to all players. That’s very ziney. It’s a sentiment echoed in issue two of the riso music journal Cheap Thrills (at Zinefest with editor - Erin Kimber). In the opening article - On the Value of Music - Matt Scobie writes, “I believe these events allowed or encouraged us to break free of the shackles of competitive individualism driven by exchange values and start acknowledging the importance of seeing the Ōtautahi music community as a synergetic whole…”

Hey, there’s Cameron from riso design journal Strips Club. His Strips Club collaborator’s moved to Berlin. Maybe there won’t be another volume of Strips Club. “Awe, do a White Fungus.” I encourage. “Berlin/Chch to their Taiwan/Wellington. Interview White Fungus’s Hanson brothers.” We talk politics, voting patterns, Winston Peters, the “king-maker” in post-election New Zealand. Cameron tells me about the massive Justice Building, that cynically opened for election season photo ops with members of the incumbent National party, closing again for ongoing construction as soon as the polling booths were shut.

I do the stall-holder circuit, it probably takes about an hour to get a reasonable handle on the qualities of the various zines on offer. All the zinesters are doing the same thing; doing the whole circuit before deciding how to spend their budget of $5, $10, or $20. I spend every cent that I make in sales of my own zine - Incredibly Hot Sex with Hideous People. I get all zinesters to sign their work.

There are approximately 20 stall-holders here according to Alice: Asian exchange students have written about racism against their own, David Merritt has his foldout poetry housed in upcycled books and banana box linings, there’s a zine from the Christchurch Women’s Centre, Spencer’s pop-up comics and satirical propaganda commands (Spencer also passes round a folded piece of paper for a comics jam on fictitious FX pedals), there are other inde comics, second hand books, witch zines, potion zines, stickers, handmade jewelry, cassettes, CD-zines, creative writing, sci fi stories, photo zines, travel zines, cat zines, music zines, even a zine about zines.

I sell more zines when I’m not on my stall than when I am there!?!? I’m not surprised, zine shopping is a potentially self-consciousness experience in the extreme. Where else do you examine someone’s art while they examine your face for signs of enjoyment, waiting for you to decide whether their art’s good enough to purchase. Imagine being installed next to your own gallery painting, with your hand out!? But that’s also the best thing about zinefest, you meet ALL the artists.

Bleeeurh! A bit tired and hungover now. Need coffee. The worst busker in the world sits in her wheelchair outside Bunsen Café warbling some churchy dirges over karaoke backing. Too good to be full-o-character, too bad to forgive her genre of choice.

My zinefest neighbor is a scrapbooker from the US, so I’m compelled to ask her if she thinks the scrapbooker kits one finds in art/stationary shops are a rip. Thankfully, she does. She appears to be afloat in NZ, not knowing if her art school back in the US will be restructured out of existence or not. Is looking to find an arts program in New Zealand.  

Cameron of Strip Club packs up early. Bastard! Makes a huge hole in the wee zinefest presence/footprint.

I’m just not acclimatized to this Christchurch cold. They’ve put the Wellington guy in exactly the wrong place, by the draughty doorway. Locals chit chat in tee shirts while I hug myself, jacket zipped, hat pulled tight!?!?

I’m encouraging Louie of Dunedin Zinefest and Alice of Christchurch to get committees of helpers. They’re both currently running their zinefests solo!?!?

Spencer tells me to check out his story about NZ alt rock legend Bruce Russel being the alter-ego of NZ alt rock legend Martin Phillips, as printed in his Lyttelton Rotten Radio zine.

It’s nearly 5 PM. I pack up and make short work of my farewells so that I can catch a bus to the airport and relax knowing I’m in the right place for my flight back to Wellington.

Back home and checking the best of my haul:

Cheap Thrills Issue 2 - an elegant risographed volume of NZ music past and present

Wandering Wolves is a gorgeous riso, the very first zine of Prabha Mallya, made at one of the workshops leading up to zinefest. Poetic mix of tagged animal narrative, poetry, illustration, photo and collage.

Field Notes from The Crescent City – July 2017 “It’s a very efficient and sensible method of burial that ensures you can never ever escape your family, even in death.”

Louise Sutherland’s holiday snaps and memories of New Orleans (including its cemeteries), well enough written and photographed to transcend any photo album limitations

A Most Elusive Species – by Louise Sutherland’s brother Robert. Photo essay of seemingly empty zoo enclosures. A subtle variety to the picture-by-picture approach creating a rewarding sense of narrative.

Burn Out is a pun. Yes, there are cars, but the scars are not the result of spinning tyres but of the sun’s rays peeling the paint off that once proud finish - by Robert Sutherland.

The cutest wee Untitled zine that pitches it’s teensiness against clipped horror narratives from Greek myth.

Cuss Weird cussing birds. Inexplicable.

OX OX OX... a CDR economically clothed in a folded A3. Rockabilly are the first chords, with hints of Ramones and Stooges. Next song is quite different, same vocal stylings but over “Dunedin Sound” meets Fall repetition. In the zine, we’re regaled with some pretty compelling “um and ah” misadventures from the band’s singer. Now they play a kiwified Joy Division cover. Sweeet!

Strawberry Stories runs some loopy narrative logic, or lack thereof. And some nice red spot-colour on the strawberry coloured one, though s/he’s not actually a strawberry eh, s/he’s like a person with a tree growing outta their head!?!?

A Zine Fanzine Beautifully designed and laid out riso about zines. Tightened up my own understanding about the provenance of zines, though changes to conjecture when talking about post internet zines.

Misc - Excellent poems by Arwen Miriama Sommer. “Snow is built of feathers and birds are built of trees”

All About the Sex* The Christchurch Women’s Centre decide to distribute their newsletter at zinefest, so it’s a zine now. An intro to the Woman’s Centre and their weekly discussion forum, plus an intro to the Red Tent movement and editorial about aging women’s identity.

Rotten Radio Zine - Spencer Hall’s good at writing original meandering comedy nonsense about music and culture.

[barpurplewrites]

A castle and a ghost story.

Rumble Summer Vacation - Northumberland UK

The tale of Dustanburgh Castle’s Sir Guy the Seeker can be found in full (HERE)

Enjoy the RumBelle and baby!Gid fluff.

-x-x-x-

The weather was vile. Both Belle and Rumple were used to what the skies of Maine could throw at them, but Northumberland had a different approach to rain. It slunk out of the sky in a driving drizzle that didn’t look like rain, but could soak you to the bone within moments of being outside.

“Almost like being inside the cloud isn’t it?”

Rumple’s answer was an incoherent grunt because he had Gid’s clean romper suit between his teeth as he tried to wrestle their uncooperative son out of the clothes he’d worn all day. Belle smiled happily as she watched the battle. Gid was alternating between chewing the ear of his beloved Eddie the Elephant and bashing his Papa with the stuffed pachyderm. When the toy bounced off his nose for the third time Rumple rolled his eyes and snatched it from Gid’s grasp. He wiggled it in the air as if Eddie was talking to Gid.

“Now behave. Eddie doesn’t want to sleep with a stinky boy.”

Gid chewed on his toes for a moment and then made grabby hands at his toy. Rumple took this as agreement and took advantage of his slightly less wiggly son to change him. Belle turned her attention to the rain misted window again and wondered if they would be able to see any of Northumberland during their stay.

 The rain turned into a full blown thunderstorm around midnight. Belle startled awake to the lingering dreams of ogres and the sound of Gid crying. Still half asleep Rumple was already rolling out of bed, crooning softly to reassure their son that he wasn’t alone. Belle sat up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes musing that Henry been a star when he found that travel cot for them on Amazon. It had been one of the best holiday essentials they had purchased before they set off on their journey. The adapter plugs that Snow had gifted them were useful, but the cot was a blessing. Many of the hotels they had stayed in claimed to be family friendly, but provided flimsy cots that Belle wouldn’t dream of letting Gid spend a half hour in, let alone the night. She had been scathing in her reviews; beauty-with-a-passport had gained quite a reputation on Tripadvisor for providing harsh feedback for hotels that failed to meet the basics for family accommodation.

Another crack of thunder made Belle shiver and Gid whimper against Rumple’s shoulder. Belle didn’t know if Gid had inherited her fear of thunderstorms, or if he still carried some fear from his first upbringing in the Black Fairy’s realm.  She shook away all thoughts of what had been and focused on making the present easier for all of them. Rumple frowned as she slid out of the bed and pulled on her robe.

“Sweetheart?”

Belle snagged his robe from the bottom of the bed and wrapped it around his shoulders.

“Let’s go down to the bar. There are books there.”

Rumple’s face lit up in understanding as he pressed a quick kissed to her head and whispered; “You are your mother’s son Gid my boy.”

The Caster Inn advertised itself as “ye olde worlde” which was a phrase that made Rumple and Belle laugh, but in this case it was true. The old coaching inn was very like the inns back in the Enchanted Forest with its smoke blackened beams and open fires. The thing that marked it apart from the inns they both knew was the fact the bar was lined with bookshelves; literacy had not been a big feature back in the olde worlde that Rumple and Belle had grown up in. Belle had been delighted to find that the shelves here bore a sign encouraging people to take a book and leave one in return. It was to this haven that Belle took her little family as lightening ripped the sky, hoping that the scent of books would reassure Gid as it did her.

They were not the only ones seeking the solace that the bar-come-library offered this stormy night. In a wingback chair by the fireplace they found the owner of the inn, a steel haired, bespectacled lady that Rumple had declared a carbon copy of their Storybrooke Granny. Thankfully this formidably old lady was not a werewolf, (as far as they knew), and had no preconceptions about Rumple, even though she went by the name of Nanna, which was another sign that the realms were too small to be believed as far as Rumple was concerned.

“Three more who can’t sleep hey? Ah well now I’ve reason to make hot chocolate.”

Belle was about to tell her not to go to any trouble on their account when another growl of thunder and stab of lightening tore at the sky. She jumped and grabbed Rumple’s arm so tightly that she must have hurt him, but his only response was to wrap an arm around her as he crooned a Frontland lullaby into Gid’s hair.

Nanna, who had jumped as well, gave a sniff and a curt nod.

“Three hot chocolates it is then, or is the young man allowed one?”

Gid was approaching seven months old now and while Belle was relaxing into the role of mother she was still very cautious; chocolate in any form wasn’t allowed yet, although she suspected that Rumple had been bending that rule a little; it was highly likely that Gid would have his father’s sweet tooth. Rumple solved her dilemma of how to politely refuse Nanna’s offer on their son’s behalf by pulling a bottle of milk from the pocket of his robe.

“Could we warm this up for him?”

Nanna pointed Rumple to the bottle warmer that sat on the bar; it was little touches like this that ensured The Crastor Inn would be getting a five star review from Belle. Rumple handed Gid to Belle as he went to warm the bottle so Belle settled herself in a chair by the fire and entertained Gid by playing peek-a-boo with Eddie. Nanna returned just behind Rumple bearing a tray with three steaming cups of hot chocolate and a bottle of spirits.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d want a dram of Cointreau, or not.”

Rumple declined; “I might be driving in the morning.”

Nanna didn’t argue with him and handed him his cup which he cautiously sniffed.

“Is that nutmeg?”

“Ah, you’ve a good nose. That it is, I know there is a fashion for cinnamon these days but I’m an old woman and I’m stuck in my ways.”

Belle smothered her giggle behind Gid’s head; Rumple had never taken to cinnamon in hot chocolate for all that it was loved by Henry. Nanna raised the bottle of spirits at her and Belle bit her lip. Rum reached out and squeezed her arm; “Go on, sweetheart, a wee one won’t hurt.”

“Oh go on then.”

Nanna poured a tiny amount into her cup and stirred it well before handing it to Rumple to place on the table in front of Belle. Another flash of lightening stabbed the sky and Belle winced again as Rumple’s hand rubbed soothingly across her shoulders. Nanna was counting and sighed when she reached four before the thunder rumbled.

“It’s moving on, thank God for that, I can’t abide thunderstorm, reminds me too much of the war.”

For an instant Belle almost asked her about ogres before catching herself. Rumple covered up her slight stutter by saying; “We were planning to walk up to the castle tomorrow, but I guess we’ll have to find something else to do.”

Nanna took a sip of her hot chocolate and shook her head; “It’ll be bright and clear come the morning, as long as you’ve a stout pair of boots a piece you’ll be fine.”

“Oh well that’s good then. We’ll stop at that coop shop and grab supplies for a picnic…”

Rumple trailed off with a frown as Nanna chuckled; “You have been away along time ain’t you laddie? It’s Co-Op, short for co-operative.”

When they had checked in Nanna had asked if Rumple was from North of the Boarder, his Frontland’s accent had often caused people to think he was from Scotland; they’d stuck with the story the Curse memories provided and explained that he’d been born in Glasgow, but moved to Maine when he was very young. His frown melted away as he tried the word for himself; “Co-Op, that does make more sense, I was wondering if they were specialists in chickens.”

“That and everything else, good place to get picnic fixings.”

A brief flicker of lightening flashed across the windows, the weak grumble of thunder that followed it didn’t even make Gid fuss. Nanna waited until it had faded before she asked; “Do you know of the ghost story that goes along with the Castle?”

Rumple and Belle shook their heads.

“Ah well if you’ve a mind to listen to a tale…”

Belle nodded keenly as Rumple took Gid from her so she could drink her hot chocolate, it was still hot which made her suspect he’d used a touch of magic, but she couldn’t complain as the taste of orange and chocolate melted on her tongue. Nanna shifted in her seat and began to tell the story.

“It was a dreadful stormy night much like this one when Sir Guy found himself in need of shelter. Since he had taken the cliff road he was too far from the village to head toward the coaching inn so he turned his horse toward the ruins of Dunstanburgh Keep which was the only building of any sorts that would offer shelter from the tempest. His horse had more sense than he and bolted as they approached the ruins of Tom Plantagenet’s castle. Now my great-granddad he said that Sir Guy’s horse found his way to our inn and became the stud that provided us with the coaching horses that made this inn great back in the old days. I’ve no idea if that is true, but such is the stuff of family legends.

The rain soaked Sir Guy, no doubt cussing his errant nag, made it to the ruins of the keep and found a place sheltered from the driving wind and rain. He’d scarce had time to light a fire when the twisted figure of a corpse ridden hag appeared to him. All tales say that Sir Guy bravely faced the spectre and demanded to know its business, I suppose he must have since the bards tend not to sing of knights who widdle their britches and run screaming from a ghost like a sensible person would.”

Belle reached for Rumple’s hand, she knew as well as he that tales of great heroes and villains could begin with running away. He smiled softly at her, and she felt relieved that he’d not taken Nanna’s words to heart.

“The spectre told him of a shining beauty imprisoned in a secret room in the castle, and being the gallant knight he was he asked to be shown her resting place that he might rescue her. The spectre led him up a twisting staircase, much higher than the ruined tower, and ushered him into a room filled with a hundred sleeping knights and their horses. At the centre of the room in a crystal casket laid the most beautiful maiden Sir Guy had ever seen.

I suspect he wanted to wake her in the traditional manner for waking a sleeping beauty, with a kiss, but the spectre pointed out the two snakes at the head of the tomb, one holding a sword and the other a horn. Sir Guy was told to pick one, for only the right one could wake the beauty.”

Rumple glanced at Belle; he could almost hear her thinking her way through the riddle the knight had faced. Had they been alone he would have pointed out that applying the rules of Enchanted Forest magic to the tales of this land was impractical, the rules were too different, and without seeing the casket, snakes and maiden for themselves there was no way to be sure they had all the facts. That wouldn’t have stopped Belle from trying to puzzle it out and it didn’t.

“He blew the horn didn’t he?”

Nanna nodded; “Aye he did and the knights awoke and charged at him in such an almighty rush that he fainted, but as he fell unconscious he heard the spectre’s taunting voice say 'Now shame on the coward who sounded a horn, and the knight who sheathed a sword.' He awoke the next morn to a clear day and spent the rest of his life trying to find his way back to the shining beauty. They say he stalks the castle still poor soul.”

The rain had receded and the thunder was long gone, the only sound in the room was Gid’s gentle snores and the odd crinkle from the ears of Eddie the Elephant. Nanna gave a deep sigh and pushed herself from her chair.

“Looks like the storm’s blown itself out. I’ll away to bed now. Breakfast normally finishes at nine, but I’ll see to it you get what you want when you wake up no matter the time.”

She waved away their protests; “Ah you’ve kept me company through the storm, it’ll be no trouble.”

They thanked her and exchange good nights before heading back to their room. The instant he was laid in his cot Gid rolled into his blankets with a sleepy smile on his face. Belle and Rumple slipped into bed and snuggled together before Belle asked; “Which would you have picked the horn or the sword?”

Rumple gave a soft chuckle; “Depends on which way the knights were facing, sweetheart.”

“What do you mean?”

Rum shifted against the pillows and yawned; “Were they going to attack the sleeping beauty or defend her…”

“Good point…”

 -x-x-x-

 As Nanna had predicted the next day dawned bright and clear. Belle had awoken around seven, but neither Gid nor Rumple were overly keen to get out of bed. Gid was easy to encourage toward wakefulness, the instant Belle went to change his nappy he decided that wriggling was more fun than sleeping. Rumple was a little more difficult, but Gid bouncing on the bed and Belle promising him a strong cuppa finally roused him enough to get vertical.

Over a full English breakfast, and in Rumple’s case several strong cups of tea as well, they decided that they wouldn’t need to drive anywhere. The walk along to the castle was easy enough and the Co-Op was on the way, so once they had loaded Gid into his stroller they were ready to go.

In the shop Gid proved to be his father’s son by sneaking a box of cherry tarts from the shelf. Belle didn’t notice he was holding them until the lady on the till asked if they were to pay for as well. She blushed and plucked them from Gid’s hands to let the lady scan them.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t see him pick them up.”

“Not to worry, no harm done.”

Belle was sure she heard Rumple muttering praise to Gid on his good taste, but she decided to let this moment of almost sticky fingeredness slide since they hadn’t actually walked out of the shop without paying for them.

The walk along to the castle along the cliff tops was gentle. Belle found herself distracted with the stunning scenery of the sea rolling into the beach below the cliffs to the point where Rumple took over pushing Gid’s stroller because she was stopping every few feet to take a photo.

“Oh! Rumple!”

He was at her side in an instant and grinned with her at the patch of spongey ground she’d ambled on to.

“Did you think it’s safe?”

Rumple bounced on his toes, “Feels like it. How bizarre.”

“Feels like walking on a sponge cake.”

He snorted and stepped back onto the gravel path, “One of yours maybe, this is more like walking on one of mine.”

Belle giggled, Rumple was good in the kitchen, but cakes were his failure, they tended to sink and turn tough, thankfully cakes were the only thing Belle could cook so they complimented each other well.

Gid was babbling clearly wanting to join in with whatever was making his parents giggle, but they decided that letting him out of the stroller at this point wasn’t a good idea, the cliff edge was a sheer drop on to the beach below and Gid had proven many times how quickly he could move when he wanted to.

“Once we get to the castle you can have a toddle around, okay Gid?”

“Astl.”

Gid waved Eddie in the direction of the ruins which loomed on the cliff.

“Yes Gid, castle.”

“Papa astl?”

“No darling not Papa’s castle.”

They set off again and after a little while Rumple softly asked; “Do you think he remembers my castle?”

Belle hooked her arm through his and hugged herself into his side, making the stroller wobble.

“I don’t know. In a way I hope he does, it might be his only chance to see it.”

Rumple hummed and bumped his shoulder against Belle. She had a feeling he was dwelling on this more deeply than he was ready to let on. She resolved to ask him about it again tonight once Gid was asleep.

It didn’t take long to reach the ruins of the castle and once they had stepped through the gate that led to the grounds Belle stopped Rumple so she could take a picture of him and Gid with the tumble down tower in the background. The National Trust who looked after this site had provided handy information boards detailing the history of the castle and the wildlife that now made the ruins their home. Belle snapped a shot of the board that told the tale of Sir Guy the Seeker.

“Do you think he ever found her again?”

“I don’t know sweetheart,” Rumple reached out his hand to touch the rocks of the keep and Belle heard the crackle of magic, “There is still magic here, not from our world either, this is old.”

“Are we safe here, Rumple?”

“Oh yes, it feels finished,” Rumple shrugged, “Maybe Sir Guy found his shining beauty again after all.”

[mustinvestigate]

stream of consciousness headcanon…ish…thing…

...which owes entire countries’ national debts to @niceteeth-nastysmile‘s health & food canon post and @adistraughtthought‘s on MacCready’s teeth and why Lucy was just beyond brilliant.

And this is all fic-related ponderings of general standards of personal upkeep in post-apocalyptia and their divergence from vault or pre-war sensibilities and how exactly romance could surmount this, which doesn’t really earn “above the fold” status, so…

So it’s generally held in fandom lore that folk are too busy surviving to truck much with hygiene, a thought which derails the sexiness of many T+ fics before they start. Like, “We’ve been trekking across the desert nurturing a deadly two-person epidemic of UST and, oops, convenient cave-in, we’re trapped together…carrying several days’ worth of sweat and battle muck in non-breathable armor we seemingly never change, without water to drink or freshen up with, and, y’know, let’s just sit in opposite cave chambers and breathe through our mouths until rescue comes, ok?”

And a vault dweller or pre-war person would live in suspended state of horror at the miasma of human funk and yellowed snaggleteeth when they have any at all, unable to hold a civil conversation no matter how high their charisma stat. As for romancing, well…nope. Nope nope nope.

Except, in settlements at least, with more pooled resources and storage space and security to allow people to spend time on less essential tasks like making tallow soap and extra under-clothing to change regularly and water to wash clothing and bodies, they’d totally raise standards to at least those of a modern week-long camping trip, right? Being clean and in fresh clothing is one of those small achievable luxuries, on the level of toys and games or cards for communal entertainment, that makes a huuuuge difference in feeling like you’re living, not just surviving. And with teeth, well, humans have been cleaning their teeth (albeit sometimes in ways that could not have been kind to gums or enamel) since we’ve been human. Morning breath and stuck-in food bits have apparently always been pretty high on the short list of activities worth spending limited energy on fixing.

Also often found in human settlements? Doctors, or at least some form of medical-type professionals to push for improved sanitation and enough cleanliness to minimise the spread of disease, not to mention heal injuries or perform simple dentistry or help prevent/treat substance abuse and all sorts of other ailments that lead to one being unable to maintain a comfortable-ish body.

(Aside for ghouls: although they’re described in-game as smelling like rotting flesh, I call bullshit. The smell of rot comes from decay, and by definition, things which are decaying are in the process of existing increasingly…uh…less so. [I don’t know, I can’t word good today, ok? Ahem.] And since ghouls are canonically unplagued by senescence [see? Fancy words!], there’s no decay beyond a certain level of damage that would produce that particular offensive smell. And further still since the skin damage would probably render most of their sweat glands gone or non-functional anyway, they’d possibly even lack the traditional human eau du ew at the end of a hard day’s farming. Y’all just decided they smell bad because you don’t like how they look – real nice, post-apocalyptic humans. Real. Nice.)

People living outside of settlements, though…they might be a different story. Like, raiders? Forget it. You’d smell ‘em coming a mile away, where they may be gasping their last due to catastrophic bacterial infection from what started as a wee molar cavity. They’re not expending energy on small personal-upkeep luxuries, or value stealing them from those who do.

Non-sociopathic nomadic types, like traders or mercenaries or people who don’t have useful skills or can’t afford to buy into a settlement (however it works when there’s no pre-war savior throwing away land for free), where carrying space is very limited and they likely don’t have much time or energy for non-essential luxuries…yeah, they might be closer to what we picture as a standard post-apocalyptic citizen. Like…in today’s terms…your stereotypical European gap-year backpacker. You’d certainly bathe and wash clothes when the opportunity and supplies came to hand, but wouldn’t go out of your way unless your red and orange Maslows were all in the black, and if your yellow, green, and blue were already in the pink, why bother?

(Is that a coherent joke? Probably not. Requires googling. But we strike on!)

Hence, in a slightly roundabout way, we come to MacCready’s teeth, and, further, the impact therein on writing a romance with a pre-war character. Or, really, any of the romanceable companion options, but fanon, and Bethesda going out of their way to make him the only one with bad teeth, seem to hold that MacCready’s a special case. He grew up LARPing Lord of The Flies, defiantly proud that there were no adults to make them clean anything they didn’t want to, and he married a girl (brilliant doctor or not) who was part of the same culture and tolerant of near-toxic personal hygiene or at the very least, since they seemed to be on the road when she tragically died, was biding her time until they settled down to enforce better standards.

(And, seriously, Bethesda, just admit it’s the same character as the Lucy he was best buddies with instead of someone who just happened to have the same name…except that does mean that sweet girl died terribly…and now I no longer know what I want to believe. Huh.)

And a pre-war professional lady, one who’d’ve had to maintain a polished image as a non-negotiable element of her career, she’d get past this…how?

Actually…even writing this out, it still doesn’t seem insurmountable. For years, I shared a very small office with a large, manly fellow who didn’t wear deodorant, worked out before work, and ate a lot of fish-heavy lunches. It’s amazing how quickly the human nose shrugs and moves the goal-posts, particularly for lovely people you get on with, or when everyone around you’s more or less at the same level of smell, or when you’re also working out and coming in kinda sweaty and, you know, we’re all human here, right, why are we so dang picky?

And my version of Nora, for all she prefers pretty dresses and parties, isn’t averse to dirty fingernails. She was in the military, had all her hair shaved off and slogged through muddy obstacle courses and dug latrines and everything; she went hunting with her father and helped out in his plumbing shop, getting elbow-deep in animal viscera and worse. A filthy soldier-type would definitely be on her experience spectrum with probably no more judgement than welp, try to stay upwind when possible, even that forgotten after she’s been in the same outfit herself for a couple of weeks.

But the teeth, man, there’s something moreish about bad teeth, right? There’s not just the aesthetics of non-white, non-straight teeth (trust me…having moved to a country [unfairly] famous for poor-quality dentistry, I can report that uniformly white, straight chompers quickly become the weird-looking alternative) but the visceral reaction to class comma lack of, to an indicator not just of “poor” but “poor and not trying to do better.”

Like, I grew up what’s politely called white working class (in a family that mostly passes leisure time with drinking, Fox News, and stockpiling weapons of dubious origins, so, y’know, shruggy-emoticon), and you bet all of us cousins had braces. We were going to get good grades and have office jobs. Our parents were real touchy about terms like “redneck” or “okie” and wouldn’t admit to liking country music. There was something different about the kids who lived in the same area but didn’t get braces. We weren’t encouraged to make friends of them, and as for dating…well…the bad teeth on a significant other brought home would carefully, one could say pointedly, not be mentioned, but every other possible flaw would be.

In college, I dated a mysterious guy I met on Match.com, who wasn’t white and who had the worst teeth I’d ever seen in real life. They were somewhere between ferengi and pirate and I’m sad to say they were the first thing anyone would notice about him. We ended up dating for two bloody years, even talked about marriage, and the funny thing? I never found out what the deal was with those awful, awful teeth.

At first, I didn’t bring it up because, well…how bad did his childhood have to be, that no one made him brush, no one took out a loan to get him in braces? Like, bad teeth were so intrinsically linked with lower-class deprivation in my mind that I just could not even broach the topic with someone of a different ethnic background. And, anyway, he turned out to be solidly middle-class from birth, held two degrees and a software engineering cubicle job that required a tie, even on Fridays. And by that point, well…if the teeth were the first thing you noticed, the second was that he was bubbly and goofy and sweet, and when months later someone looked at a photo of us and asked, “Oh dear, what happened to that poor boy’s teeth?”, it genuinely took me a minute to figure out what she was talking about.

So, my conclusion: even when one’s brought up to see poor hygiene and bad teeth as viscerally, mockably horrifying…as romantic obstacles, they’re quite surmountable. Like, there’d be some half-hearted stocking up of new brushes and mouthwash, nagging to go see the dentist no I don’t care that your childhood dentist looked like Ted Bundy, and probably a collateral raising of their bathing frequency through shared living routines, and it’d be fine, you guys. Totally fine.

Anyway.

This is what happens after a few months without drinking, y’all. These are the brain cells that’d usually get culled off by the friendly gin hammer.

[redstarfiction-blog]

Just Because.

I received an awesome message from @thatwetwomaybeoneagain yesterday and it was just so lovely it made me want to show my appreciated for her and for all the fanfiction readers who encourage us, inspire us and keep our spirits high. Thank you so much guys. 

Claire seldom went into the village except to tend to ill or injured folk, she tended to stay at Lallybroch and the surrounding cottages and homes. It was not that she was afraid to venture out alone, far from it, but she always found that her work was cut out for her just staying on top of the work that needed doing close by.

However when Fergus outgrew the boots he had worn over from France, Claire offered to take him to the cobblers to purchase some new ones. Jamie had raised his eyebrows at the thought of buying brand new boots for a lad who would surely grow out of them in a matter of months but had handed over the money for them without comment. Claire knew it was something of an extravagance but Fergus had never owned a pair of shoes not first owned by at least three other people before him and despite taking to farm life like a sparrow to the open air, Fergus was a dandy at heart and Claire knew how much he would appreciate the gesture.

The people they met on route were friendly and openly curious about the Sassenach who had married their laird and the French waif that they had brought home from their travels, despite most having met them before.

Fergus was all too happy to show off his differences and exaggerated his accent and peculiarities for the delight of their onlookers until Claire begged him to stop so that they might make it there and back before Christmas!

The cobbler was a gruff man in his late forties who treated them with an aloof politeness that Claire was beginning to realise was synonymous with the Highland culture when doing any sort of trade for money that did not require bartering. Fergus had been convinced that he could get the price down if he haggled but Claire shushed him. If the cobbler told the Lady of Lallybroch that the price for the shoes was four shillings then that was already a bargain price and she had no intention of embarrassing him, nor of robbing him.

Fergus wore his new shoes out into the street with all the swagger of a king in full regalia. He side-stepped puddles and made sure to turn his feet just so when stepping so that the sun sparked off of the new buckles.

“Milady, these are the finest boots I have ever seen, they are like walking on clouds and see how perfectly they fit me? You and Milord have showered me with perfect gifts …”

He beamed up at her and Claire had to resist the urge to pull him into a hug, she knew that in public Fergus saw himself as her guardian and took his role seriously.

“I’m glad you like them and they fit well, but new boots can give blisters so let me know if you need padding while you break them in.”

“Blisters? From these?”

His outrage was theatrical as he shook his head in supposed disbelief.

“It is like they have been filled with ambrosia! They will never suffer a blister to arise on any skin they touch!”

Claire rolled her eyes and slung an arm around his shoulders, smiling.

“You are going to be a thespian! I just know it.”

“An acteur?? Non! I am going to be a warrior and then a farmer, like Milord.”

“Ah! Well that will please him I’m sure”

Claire nodded sagely. Fergus left her side to peer into shop windows and Claire allowed her thoughts to wander back to her garden and the neat rows of seedlings she had planted a few days before. So far they appeared to be surviving the slugs and Jenny’s goat which was forever trying to sneak into the fenced off area Claire had claimed but how long their luck would last was uncertain.

“MILADY!!”

Fergus’ shout pulled her abruptly back to the present and Claire looked round frantically before her eyes settled on him, beckoning to her from outside a store which apparently sold leather goods and, from the smell of it, brandy.

“What? You nearly scared me half to death!”

She chided, peering into the window over the top of his head

“Milady, look! For Milord!”

Fergus pointed at a pair of soft dark blue gloves and Claire’s expression softened. They were beautiful but they would have barely covered Claire’s own hand, let alone Jamie’s massive paw.

“Fergus, that is a lovely thought but they are far too small.”

“But they will have others, non? We could ask?”

Claire opened her mouth to refuse but stopped. Why shouldn’t she purchase her husband a decent pair of gloves? The weather was turning and come winter he would be glad of a pair of leather ones that would not absorb the rain the way his knitted ones did. Also she wasn’t sure that she had ever bought Jamie a gift. The realisation came as a surprise but when she tried to think of an occasion where she would have but no, she had not.

“Alright. Why not?”

She led the way into the store and whilst Fergus eyed the pockets on the assorted bags with a pick-pockets professional eye, Claire spoke to the shop keeper and explained what she wanted.

“Fer wee James Fraser ye say? Himself’s lad?”

The man must have been at least seventy and he pondered her request as he scratched his chin before ducking beneath the counter with surprising nimbleness and rifling through boxes.

“He’s not so wee anymore! His hands …”

Claire turned her own hands over to think how best to convey the size of Jamie’s.

“Ach, dinna fash. I ken James verra well. Big lad. Hair that makes a lass think of sin, eh? Ah… begging ye pardon Mistress.”

He looked up briefly to make sure that Claire was not mortally offended and resumed his search.

“Here we are! I dinna have the blue, but that’s too effeminate for a man o’ his size anyway.”

He laid the gloves he had selected on the counter for Claire’s approval. They were the colour of roasted chestnuts, beautifully soft and looked as if they had been made with Jamie in mind for their size. Claire paid the price asked with a willing eagerness that made Fergus roll his eyes, a born haggler it insulted his sensibilities to see her pay without trying their luck.

As they approached Lallybroch, Fergus spotted Jamie in the court yard with the dogs and called out a greeting, pointing at his new shoes and hurried forward with a strange sort of speedy waddle of exaggerated care not to dirty them before Milord’s inspection.

“Ah! Now they are a bonnie pair of boots. Ye’ll walk miles in those wi’out knowing ye’ve done it.”

Jamie nodded and Fergus beamed with pride at his approval.

“Oui! I selected a modest buckle but I did not compromise on the quality of the leather.”

He informed Jamie with all of the solemnity that the occasion demanded. Being trusted with the choice of his attire had brought out the confidence that Claire had expected and as she raised an ‘I told you so’ eyebrow at her husband, Jamie’s lip twitched but he held his smile in check.

“Aye, the quality is important. Well chosen lad.”

Fergus hurried off to show Jenny and Jamie took the moment of quiet to gather her into an embrace.

“I’ve missed ye today.”

“Have you?”

Claire pulled back to look up at him and his smile warmed her to the very core

“Aye, I ken it’s foolish but I like having ye close by. I feel it when ye are no’ there.”

“Well I have something that might make up for it!”

Jamie’s hand slipped lower down her back to grasp her bottom, eyes alight with expectation.

“Er … well there is that. But I actually have a present for you.”

Claire grinned, pulling back from him.

“A better gift than an afternoon with your arse in my hand? I dinna ken that there is such a thing.”

Jamie murmured, stepping in close to her again but Claire placed a hand on his chest, stilling him and followed up by producing the small box with a flourish.

“Here. This is for you.”

Jamie smiled uncertainly and held the box as if it was made of crystal

“Ye bought me a present?”

“Well yes. I told you so didn’t I?”

Claire cocked her head to the side as Jamie ran his thumb lightly along the edges.

“Aye but … well ye didna have to.”

“I know but I wanted to. Aren’t you going to open it?”

Claire was excited to see his reaction and Jamie nodded placidly, gently untying the ribbon and carefully placing it in his pocket before lifting the lid.

“Oh, Claire.”

He peered down at the gloves and traced his finger gently across the back of the top one.

“Do you like them? I’m sure you could change them if …”

“They’re beautiful.”

Jamie looked up from the box and carefully replaced the lid. His eyes wide and blue and more beautiful than Claire could ever tell him.

“Thank you so verra much Sassenach. I shall treasure them.”

Claire stroked the hair back from his face and kissed him gently on the lips

“Good. It’s about time I got you a decent gift.”

“Why?”

His tone was incredulous and Claire laughed as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed herself close to him.

“Just because.”

[stevecoleridge-posts]

SPANISH LOCKDOWN …DAY14

Saturday night s all right for fighting.. on Facebook of course,

i was just casting my mind back to a Ninurta  Night , as there called their Saturdays Night in Uruk, capital of Sunny Sumeria, and  imagining what a great time they were probably having 5000 years ago , getting pissed on the local beer, because they invented that ,as well as the seven day week. Of course they did nt have Netflix, but they got to go out more..i don’t have Netflix either , yet , but have axs to lots of stuff including Music documentaries , which we are watching in order , chronological order that is..starting with The Birth of Country music .. and Mr Ralph Peers,from new York, who looked a little like Brian Epstein by the way , who set up a temporary recording studio above  furniture shop, there you go agin , NEMs , well no, it was nt , but anyway I digress, and into this temporary Studio  walked The Carter Family..3 of them .. and Jimmie Rogers.. yes.. that Jimmie Rogers , the Singing brakeman..i mean ,Okay , i can hear you mumbling about Sam Phillips, and the Chess brothers etc.. but this was Bristol, Tennessee/Virginia..a place no-one who doesn’t live round there has heard of..its like discovering the Beatles and the Rolling Stones..or rather signing them..   After that we watched a newish doc about the King , E.V. Presley..and it was mad by some guys driving round America in his Rolls royce..great stuff   That led to the Fab Four , Eight days a Week.. which was about their touring years and the whole world has seen it except me… its absolutely.. the F word , second letter A..anyway this time 55 years ago they were filming Help. inSt Margarets..Twickenham..and taking photos for the infamous Butcher cover , in the Vale , Chelsea, where my first nursery school was located..ah well.. don’t want to get too carried away on Beatles Lore..or i ll bore you to death , because i don’t mind admitting i am well versed in that subject…   The Beatles represented the 60s in the same way Elvis represented the 50 s…and someone told a story about how the disgusting Colonel Parker, in inverted commas,used to put a cover over Elvis Cadillac so the girls could nt see him when he drove on to the Movie lot in hollywood… well once the Beatles arrived the Colonel still put the cover on , so Elvis could nt see there were no longer any girls..A sad figure..but  his mantle of  loneliness was later to be worn by Michael jackson and especially Prince..Do these Royal titles always end with a solitary death on the loo or in a Lift

From there we moved too the Seventies… and surely the quintessential Seventies hero is Bowie..well now it so alluringly sunny outside ill have to go and play guitar on the terrace .. and leave David for another time..

No i don’t want to see the News..

DAY 15..Sunday…

The clocks have gone on to sensible time..even in lockdown this is cheerful news.. I was wondering how long it will take for people with imaginary ailments to return to their plastic chairs in Hospital waiting rooms throughout the Western world.. these people presumably will be the ones most frightened of Covid 19..there s nothing imaginary about that..but if you have ME and you re lying on the sofa all day, and you feel depressed , and your bones are aching etc.. well how do feel different from everyone else..and as for food intolerance .. that should be interesting when the statistics come in about consumption in Supermarkets..i know there are allergies and allergies.. but the possibility of imminently drowning in ones own mucus does concentrate the mind wonderfully, and a lot of people will find themselves in the second category once shortages begin of certain previously essential items..suddenly one has to be tolerant of a whole raft of things one had previously considered unacceptable ..two weeks ago i could not have imagined four days without bread.. but its no big deal.. onions likewise..thats what happens when you shop with no list.. bit like going on stage without a playlist.. its a gamble … it can produce unexpected benefits in that you try stuff you had nt tried before.. but you often forget the best songs..

We watched the film about the Kursk, the Submarine which was on the seabed and owing to bureaucracy and politics the Crew were allowed to die..even though t5here was a foreign Ship with equipment nearby that could have saved them.. reminds me of something..are we the mariners or are we the mariners wives?

Does the Chinese government have a cure? are they just waiting for the US economy to completely collapse?..Will we ever know?

Day 16

Each day just goes so fast , i turn around , it s past..

One of my fave tracks from Revolver..anyway playing in E7 , as usual , in fact I’ve been stuck in E 7 since Lockdown started..Catfish , Smokestack lighting ,Good Morning Blues , Take Out Some Insurance..however now the time has come to expand ..and try Freight train..the classic finger picking song..so ,if i observe radio silence for a while you ll know why..

Saw the news…The government had adopted some economic measures which seemed very well thought out , in the sense they were are determined not to let the mistakes of the last crisis , where the poorest people got the rawest deal. I won’t go into details , its all online if you re interested..it was more a sensation than anything  logical , but it made me feel a bit less pessimistic for the first time in a few weeks,i found i was nt thinking about Death quite as much , even in the abstract. that may sound overdramatic , but i think everybody is thinking about it subconsciously a great deal more than they were, say, last Christmas..well actually in our particular situation , where we had been frequenting cancer wards and the like , maybe i should go back to 2018…but  the awarerness of death affects every facet of how you think about everything else..i don’t just mean concentrating the mind wonderfully..anyway its half past two, and tomorrow ill probably delete all this..The gist was that for some reason things don’t feel quite so bleak..

Day 17

Yesterday was a 3 own a scale of  ten as far as ding anything worthwhile was concerned. After watching a film i unreservedly recommend..The vanishing.. about  3 men who disappeared from a Scottish island where they were repairing th elighthouse , i watched Tolkien , the movie about one of my heroes , but not one of Auroras heroes apparently as she fell asleep during the first reel, so to speak, anyway she s not huge Tolkien fan , having been made to sit through the fellowship of the ring seven times..be that as it may , the sofa is not designed for sleeping comfortably so she had a severely cricked neck the next morning and stayed in bed, leaving Tina and i to our own devices..this meant i ate a packet of chocolate biscuits for brunch and did nt eat again till midnight , which goes to show how lucky I am not to be on my own.

  to entertain myself between bouts of fingerpicking i decided to9 look up on google what English people disliked the most.. while i did nt find the answer to this question i did get seriously sidetracked and found out the answers to several more pressing questions about Europe,and i m proud to say the british isles scored very highly

The Dirtriest City..Yay .. London The Ugliest people..The British and the irish  and the Germans ..okay , so we cant beat the Germans but at least we drew The Rudest people..That was easy..The French win every time, when i lived in  Paris  i prided myself on becoming Parisian, and adopting local customs , but one day , in a moment of absent mindedness , and for a subconscious second imagining myself in Spain , i said Good Morning to my next door neighbour, a short fellow with a mop of dark hair and glasses, who i passed on my way to the metro in Boulevard St . Germain… i am not a Physiognomist.. he replied…i made a not e of that , hoping i could use the phrase Je ne suit pas Phisionome, myself on some future occasion..but sadly , said opportunity has not arisen. Most boring City..Brussels .. for the third year running…Hasve nt these people been to Oslo? Most Friendly Country..wait for it… Scotland..most friendly capital .. Dublin Worst Cuisine..Malta , tied with Kosovo Best ..Italy Most Beautiful Women ..Norway ..and Bulgaria..i would have voted for Madrid..but you cant argue with Norway Most ignorant Country in Europe ..italy. Most Rapes..Sweden..well that was no surprise..however i won’t analyse those statistics or Ill be done for Isamolophobia Most ignorant country in the World ..Indonesia Most depressed ..World..China , India, Brazil,..what??..USA.. and Bangladesh Most mental Illness..Estonia,Belarus , Russia Most Obese Europe..Yes We won agin .. Britain

And so on .. there was more , i could nt stop , but i did check the criteria..and obviously ruled out anything from the Daily Mail or the Independent.. which are not really newspapers at , but sheets of opinions conforming to the prejudices of their readers.

When i got tired of this i got the Scythe out of the tree and  cut the grass for half an hour .. feeling like a peasant woman in Quiet Flows The Don..its quite restful when you get in rhythm. Aurora was still ill so i made her some chicken soup.. well , packet chicken soup with some noodles and chicken added.. anyway , she did nt eat it .. so i had it saved for my supper.. I did nt watch TV..i could nt be bothered to work out how turn it on to be honest , thats how lazy i felt, and i just sat by the fire and went through all the fingerpicking songs again.

Spanish lockdown..Day 18

Aurora s feeling a wee bit better, but cant eat anything , so cannot take Iboprufen, or whatever it is in English ..but says she could probably handle bread.. so..that means a trip to the heart of Fukushima, err..well ...on with the masks , gloves etc  and to the shop in El Llano.. small village near here , a lot more isolated than Carboneras..I was feeling fairly confident as i trundled along the track  , that the town hall had tarmacked before some election or other..anyway , rounding a corner there was a woman of un certain age in the road waving me down,.,.

What to do?…You re are not allowed passengers , plus she was not wearing gloves or a mask..

Should i observe the Law, or basic good manners? i d vaguely recognised her.. and had she she been a total stranger i would have passed on by , but , hell , she was Local, so i had to pick her up..

She did nt recognise me.. obviously , as i was wearing a cap , two masks with a scarf on top, and polo neck unrolled over the bottom half of my face , like a character in the Bash Street Kids..an way i had the window down , and was almost sticking my head out as i drove..

@ Chilly out @.. she observed…

i pretended not to understand this hint that i should close the window..

@ Do you think it s going to rain ? @

@ I  think probably not @

@All these people with masks @  she observed ,as a car squeezes by us, going in the opposite direction . I began to wonder if she knew there was  such a thing as Covid 19,and  saw the driver  studying us..I was hoping he  would nt recognise me either.. and was weighing up whether what i was doing would meet with his approval. i.e. helping a distressed local, or would be considered a breach of community sprit. On coming into the village we received more enigmatic looks..and i  felt uneasy as i got out in front of the shop and followed her to the door … pausing  to read the safety notices outside.and thus give her a head start . i won’t reproduce them ..wherever you are you ve probably seen the equivalent..anyway ,no sooner did i enter the shop than she was next to me selecting suit and veg..and ignoring safe distancing, which i agree was academic , as we d just been in much too close proximity,..thus forcing me to leave the fruit and go and study the options in frozen fish..while she was having a conversation wi the owner

  @ Do you think it will rain?@   @ Its chilly out @ etc..

As we went about our purchasing i saw more and more foodstuffs i would nt normally consider..and soon had over a weeks supply..which , considering how much we already had at home made me hope this lockdown was going to go on for  a while ..or otherwise id feel a fool .. no , i did nt really think that.. Much as i wanted to prolong my shopping experience there was queue forming outside , so felt obliged to go more quickly that i would have liked..especially as i hoped to delay long enough not to have to take the woman back to her house..vainly as it turned out as she was a quarter of a mile along the track when i was obliged to pick her up again..

We passed the garbage truck.in a lay-by. @ My nephew..@ she explained..I began to feel id made the right decision..as i doubted she d been more than a mile from her house in the past few months… nonetheless i observed full protocol on arriving home..even disinfecting the car having a shower and putting all my clothes in the machine.

[republicstandard]

The Ballad of Count Dankula & The Nazis

Ash Sharp Editor

God save the Queen, the fascist regime.

As it happened, it appears The Sex Pistols were 40 years early, and about 400 miles too far south with their assessment of the undemocratic nature of Britain. The fascism in the United Kingdom lives not in Buckingham Palace, nor even in the hearts of the bin-bag wearing Mosque door-steppers, Britain First.

It lives in the mind of a petite scotch lady with a penchant for power suits. A microcosmic tartan-clad Clinton. Fascism lives in Scotland, under the regime of a political party that is both Socialist and Nationalist at once. What could go wrong with such a combination?

The cry of humans yearning for freedom is intrinsically tied to the Scottish experience. This is partly thanks to the descendants of Scottish emigrants around the world, and also to the popularity of a certain movie featuring a particularly red-pilled Australian playing William Wallace. Even the anthem Flower of Scotland dubs the Scots as brave fighters for liberty, ready to see off the encroachment of cheeky wee English devils from the south.

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All the more interesting then, that one of the most curious explorations into the modern understanding of freedom of speech has taken place in this country. The curious case of Mark Meehan, a pug named Buddha, and Adolf Hitler, transcends merely the price for transgressing polite public conduct. Meehan and Buddha have found themselves built into a bête noir; ironic, as Buddha is tan in color.

I'll describe the gist of the tale in short, in case you are not familiar. Mark Meehan makes YouTube videos as a hobby, under the name Count Dankula. Yes, he doth smoke the Devil's Lettuce. His girlfriend owns a small pug, named Buddha. Mark likes the dog very much. Mark's girlfriend likes the dog very much. She thinks he is very cute. Meehan -being quite the joker- decided to change this reality slightly, for comedy effect. For a giggle, Meehan has trained Buddha to behave like a Nazi. A Nazi pug. An Uberpug. Buddha now responds to phrases like 'Jews' and 'Do you want to gas the Jews' by turning his head, thinking a treat might be coming. He is a dog, let it be said again for clarity. He is utterly unaware of what a Nazi actually is, just as he is incapable of reading Mein Kampf- or Das Kapital, for that matter.

Buddha will also imitate the Roman Salute with better accuracy than most Neo-Nazi Live Action Role Players when given the command, 'Sieg Heil'.

Incredibly, you cannot even share the original video from Meehan's channel. YouTube have removed the ability to do so, even going so far as to remove the ability to embed the video in articles like this one.

When Meehan made the video, his channel audience was small. As happens with funny videos, Buddha being a Nazi went viral, and Meehan found his YouTube channel growing apace. The video also came to the attention of the Scottish Police.

Arrested for violating hate-speech laws, Meehan has been subjected to multiple court dates, the most recent of which have carried with them the possibility of Meehan not returning home and being sent straight to jail.

He lives in a country where the state will take an interest in a video of a dog performing tricks. We can admit the humor is risque, but what is at stake here is curious in the extreme. Who, exactly, is the butt of the joke in Mr. Meehan's video?

It is not Jewish people. It cannot be Jewish people unless we are now to say that to mention the word 'Jews' is offensive. Is the word Jew offensive? Is it only offensive when spoken by non-Jews? Perhaps it is the phrase 'Do you want to gas the Jews' which is the problem. If this is the case, then it can only be the case that regardless of context, the words 'gas the Jews' is always offensive. In many cases, this will be an offensive phrase, particularly if it is said with venom, in public, to incite people to carry out violence or promote anti-Semitism. It cannot be so, that to say 'gas the Jews' is always offensive. If that is the case, then I may be arrested (were I in Scotland) for writing these words down, as should the writers of all the other articles about this case. Context has to matter, or nothing makes sense at all, and we live in a society without meaning.

Is training a pug to respond to 'Do you want to gas the Jews' anti-Semitic?

The butt of Mr. Meehan’s joke is not Buddha the dog, nor is it his girlfriend (who no doubt has the patience of several saints). The butt of Meehan's joke is the Nazis. It is called irony, the Scottish court should look it up. Incidentally, so should the Mirror, the Telegraph And the Mail Online.

This is definitely what we should focus on. Not context. Context is for Nazis.

It requires an uncharitable reading of this comedy sketch in extremis to extrapolate anti-Semitism. The title of the video should be enough to indicate the comedian's intent; Mate, your dog is a Nazi. (Translation from Scotch- mine.)

There exists such a concept as dog-whistling, which is to say that there is a hidden subtext to a piece of art, or an article or even a tweet, which secretly conveys another meaning to other extremists. This allows you to accuse someone of just pretending to not be a Nazi while mocking Nazis, because really you are a Nazi after all.Irony; a sketch featuring an actual dog is accused of being a Nazi dog-whistle. Hitler loved dogs too, you know.

Does your dog want to build the thousand-year Reich?

I will go further, and argue that Meehan unintentionally presaged the leftist lunacy of 2017 with their punch a Nazi rhetoric, and is mocking the hysteriical Antifa activists and other proponents of violence too. Although the video in question is now over two years old, watch it again and remember that people have been assaulted for the suspicion of being a Nazi.

The concept of the joke is that Buddha the pug is a Nazi. Pugs are very silly dogs indeed. They look silly. They act silly. Therefore Nazis are silly. The people who want to punch Nazis are also silly. Silliness begets silliness and now, stupidity, as Meehan is facing jail for making edgy jokes. As a writer who enjoys a joke as much as the next guy, I am most annoyed at having to explain a joke. Imagine how Mr. Meehan has felt, for the last two years. Imagine having to go to the same party over and over again, where the same boorish prigs demand you explain a joke you made two years ago.

The curiosity is not that the state is too humorless to spot that Meehan is mocking Nazis by training a pug to imitate their salute. The curiosity is that the state is making an example of Mr. Meehan. Not out of revulsion against anti-Semitism or opposition to the Nazis; oh no. Mr. Meehan will be the example to show what can happen to you if you step out of line.

The whiff of religious bigotry is easy to find in some parts of Scotland. Sectarianism between Catholics and Protestants runs deep. This long-running blood feud has not been targeted with the same level of resources as has Meehan and his evil Nazi dog. Occasionally the police will denounce anti-papist songs of the fans of Glasgow Rangers. We must ask, what is the motivation here? Scotland has no history of Anti-Semitism, beyond the support for Palestinian rights among the supporters of Glasgow Celtic Football Club.

I contend that this court case contains a hidden message. A dog-whistle to all citizens, if you will.

The longer this case drags on and the more notorious and misreported it becomes in the press, the greater the impact of Meehan's sentence will be; should he be found guilty and jailed. Such a case will send a message to all Scotland- don't speak about any other religious or ethnic group; no matter what. There will be a new crime on the books. You will be charged with being white while in charge of an edgy sense of humor. Meehan is far from the first Scot to be a comedian on the cusp of taste and decency. Frankie Boyle to name but one has made a career from offending sensibilities at will, with jokes about cot death, incest, rape – the list goes on. What separates Boyle from Meehan is that Boyle is overtly politically left-wing, with a column in The Guardian newspaper to espouse his views, whilst Meehan has resolutely ignored inquest into his political leanings and was, up until now, a private citizen.

As we see today, this is a damning indictment of Scottish society that to be protected from the state, you must be a tribalist of some variety. If Meehan had performed his sketch while having previously declared his allegiance to a group- almost any group- then he would have had the support of that interest group to fight his case to the press, to the public. As it stands, Meehan is, like most people, merely a citizen. A citizen who wanted to make his friends laugh. There is nothing more tragic to my mind, that a supposedly free society is punishing individuals when they have done no harm- although as we see, the Scottish state is claiming that words are literally harmful in this case.

But who benefits? Politically, The Scottish National Party (SNP) is a separatist party with pro-European Union leanings and a pro-immigration stance; as most leftist parties are in Europe. Benefitting as the Democrats in the United States do from a strong base among migrants and descendants of migrants, Meehan and his dog represent a great opportunity for the SNP to forge a weapon with which to purge the land of those who would dissent against their policies. There can be no other explanation for the obsessive pursuit of Mr. Meehan by own government. The motive is not to protect any group from evil men who wish to incite bigotry. It is about control. It is a public flogging on the altar of modern multicultural society.

Two Jews, The Ayatollah Khomeini, and Caitlyn Jenner's lawyer walk into a brothel.

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If you are unable to make jokes, you are unable to speak your mind.  If the state is able to interpret this comedy video as a hate-crime, then you may not speak against, for example, disproportionate crime rates among migrant populations. That too will be a hate crime. You may not speak about the predilection of Pakistani males to rape white children. This is a hate-crime. This case is not concerned with a man saying the word 'Jew'.

This case is the state of Scotland against the idea of being offensive itself. Being offended is no longer possible, as all offensive behavior is against the law. You are not offended. You are the victim of a crime- even if you are not the target of a joke, you can be offended on behalf of your conception of the alleged target of the joke. Though I am averse to bringing up the topic of race, we would no doubt see a different response from the state if Meehan was an ethnic minority. A sad thing to say. Worse, that it is undoubtedly true.

If the Scottish legal system fails Mr. Meehan and jails him for the crime of mocking Nazis on the internet, the Flower of Scotland no longer will represent the land of the free. It will become a symbol co-opted and perverted by a fascistic state, just as the Third Reich co-opted and perverted the swastika. No one will be able to crack a joke in Scotland for fear of being misunderstood, misrepresented or taken out of context.

In an effort to purge herself of bigotry, Scotland will become what she claims to hate the most.

I think that's what they call ironic. Good luck, Count Dankula. Good luck, Buddha. Thanks for the laughs, and long may they continue.

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[elmo08884130-blog]

When To Beginning Getting Baby Garments And Add-on.

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[annamcnuff]

Cycling into New York City, Via The Bronx

“This could be a complete disaster. Or it could be fun. Either way - let’s be ‘avin it.”

Wise words from younger sibling, Jonty, as he boarded a plane to join me in Boston at the start of the week. This is the sibling that deposited a brown coloured gift in the bath when I was 5 (true story) and the reason I slapped a 9 year old lad when I was 7 (I don’t condone violence in any form. Unless they call your brother “Specky four-eyes.” Then you get buck-wild on their ass).

Yes he’s 27. Yes he’s 6ft 3". Yes he’s far more sensible and grown up than I am. But he’s still my 'little’ brother. And this week it was my task to guide him safely from Boston to NYC.

BEING A TWO

Having ridden alone for 3 months since Lydia left my side at Reno, it was strange to have company again. Contrary to expectation, when cycle touring with another, a real conversation is rare. You mostly develop a form of store-sign Tourette’s, uncontrollably shouting names of places you pass in odd accents. I have no idea why this happens. It’s a new-world phenomenon.

One thing that didn’t change was the level and frequency of singing. In fact, singing levels hit an all time high. For when riding with a partner, it is imperative that everything be expressed via the medium of song. Were you to buy the 'East Coast Hits’ album from this week, you’d enjoy classic tracks such as - “I need a wee”, “My chuddies hurt”, “Where is Lockwood Avenue?” and “Can I turn right, at this Red light?” (Radio edit). Where I was once alone in these musical endeavours, not only did I now have a back-up singer, I also had a percussionist. It turns out that Jonty and I would do very well in a musical round of Never Mind the Buzzcocks.

Riding with a member of the opposite sex for a few days also proved rather educational. Too many times I’d set off and find myself alone 100 metres down the road. I’d look back and spot Jonty with his hands down his pants, rearranging 'the furniture’. Apparently it’s all too easy to mount your bike in an excited leap and land on one of your testicles. Who knew?

CAPE COD AND THE WAMPANOAGS

Heading straight to NYC from Boston would have been a little too straightforward, so I decided to indulge in a cheeky side step onto Cape Cod. Here we stayed with Jim and family, and got to talking not about clams, or lobsters or cranberry farms (all things you might associate with the region), but instead we chatted Wampanoag. Wompa-who? Wompa-I’ll explain…

A key trip revelation has been the discovery of US Indian reservations. I knew they existed (I’ve watched Dances with Wolves after all), but I had no idea just how many there were, and how large. In Arizona I spent 2 days cycling through Navajo (Nava-ho) land, which spans over 24,000 square miles. The Cherokee, Sioux, Chippewa and Apache are just a few of the other tribes living on one of the 326 reservations across the US. These areas are 'sovereign nations’. That is, they are countries within a country. They have their own laws and schools, and are governed and policed by separate political forces.

Spread throughout Massachusetts, including Cape Cod, are the homes of the Wampanoag (Wom-pa-nog) Indians. I was fascinated to learn that the spoken language of the Wampanoag died out 100 years ago, but one woman (with the aid of a linguistics degree from MIT) has been working since 1993 to revive it. She’s been successful, and although it’s now her 2nd language, it’s the mother tongue of her 10 year old daughter. Int that just wonderful?

THE ELI WHITNEY MUSEUM

Leaving the Cape and continuing South, we entered the town of New Haven - home to the prestigious Yale University. For those not yet old enough to walk the halls at an Ivy League School, the town offers an alternative - the Eli Whitney museum.

Upon entering, it’s immediately apparent that this isn’t an ordinary children’s museum. It doesn’t follow the standard template - that is, brightly painted walls, carpeted floors and milk and cookies on offer at 3pm. Instead, it treats youngsters as miniature adults, providing a space in which they’re respectfully encouraged to learn under their own steam.

Founded by William Brown (trained in child development) and Sally Hill (trained in design) The Eli Whitney is founded on a notion of 'essential experiments’. The discovery method, trial and error, it has many other names. Sally and Bill believe that you learn by doing, not watching. You screw things up. You get messy, noisy, break things, but eventually you find a solution. The individuality of experimentation is a central theme, and although classes are structured, there’s no set list of things you should and shouldn’t learn before you 'grow up’.

It’s an incredibly unusual place - one that nurtures and indulges the naturally inquisitive mind of a child. It provides a platform from which kids can develop an understanding of how the world around them is put together, and plants the starter-seed for a lifetime of exploration.

Perhaps I was so struck by The Eli Whitney because this the way I’ve always liked to learn (just ask my Mum and Dad). Perhaps it’s because it bases itself on the very thing I tell anyone and everyone who asks me why I embarked on this trip. As children, we’re curious. We’re excitable. We’re willing to tell people what we want to be, to try in spite of everything else, to get messy and wind up in a right royal pickle. All too often something happens in adulthood that stops this process dead in it’s tracks. We let the belly of our fear-monster get fat with regret and missed opportunities, and above all, we stop asking questions. We stop believing that there’s a unique and individual solution to just about anything if we just … keep going.

RIDING INTO NEW YORK CITY

Full of inspiration, and with my inner-child rekindled, we left New Haven bound for New York. Riding into the city was …. unforgettable. I knew it was going to be ugly, I’d figured as much, and been warned on top of that. Still, it had to be done. So we rolled up our sleeves and waded headlong into the urban jungle.

Twenty miles out, North of the Bronx in New Rochelle, we got 'stuck’ in a traffic jam. Quite an impressive feat when on a bike, non? Here commenced three hours of using every sense possible (including my sixth one) to avoid being run off the road. I didn’t take it personally. The swearing, honking and bumper dodging weren’t reserved solely for us after all - although I’d wager that we had more car doors opened in our faces than most.

The only way to describe the Northern Bronx is as an assault in the senses. It’s like a scene from The Fast and The Furious (one through six) collided with Tooting high street, in the midst of an M25 traffic jam. And I’ll make no bones about the fact that it made this white middle class chick feel a little uneasy. More because Jonty and I stood out like a sore thumb. And then because a man made a beeline for us at a traffic light just to say “you two be careful through here”. Fabulous.

We could have found another way in. We could have taken a ferry over to Long Island, and gone in via Queens. But who knows what different traffic treats lay in store that way. Plus, really, it’s just like mushrooms, Blue cheese, olives and frogs legs - you can’t say you don’t like something until you try it. I won’t be using my holiday to go back to The Bronx next year, but at least I’ve experienced it. Ain’t no regret in that.

So we took three and a half hours to ride the last 20 miles (a new record), but eventually we made it to Downtown. Jonty was safely delivered to his awaiting girlfriend, Kate, and so ended my duty as a big sister for the time being.

This is my 3rd visit to the city that never sleeps. I’m a huge fan of the crazy place and so excited to come back with a purpose. I’ll be seeing a few more touristy sites whilst here, visiting a local school and meeting the guys from Right to Play USA before rolling out again on Tuesday.

To you all from The Big Apple, farewell until next week.

McNuff out :)