#ScenicSaturday 4th May 2024

Tintagel Castle This continuing series of posts depicts our beautiful world, encouraging viewers to share them and help save our unique home from human carelessness and indifference.Today’s photo was taken last May in Cornwall when we were celebrating my 75th birthday. We stayed in the well-known village of Tintagel and this shot is from a …

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How Goes the WIP, 29th April?

Just to update you, I last posted about the WIP on 7th April. At that time, the word count was at 62,531, it has now reached 77,854, following a short break away from home and the computer. In the meantime, I’ve also produced a few short pieces on Oddities Observed and on places visited on …

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#ScenicSaturday 27th April 2024: 

This continuing series of posts depicts our beautiful world, encouraging viewers to share them and help save our unique home from human carelessness and indifference.Today’s photo depicts the village of Burnsall in the beautiful Yorkshire Dales. This area in the north of England is a National Park and is considered by many to be the …

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#ScenicSaturday 20th April 2024:

This continuing series of posts depicts our beautiful world, encouraging viewers to share them and help save our unique home from human carelessness and indifference.Today’s photo of a willow tree on the banks of the River Wye was taken some years ago on a visit to Tintern, a small village in Wales, where an ancient …

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The Golden Age of Roman Britain, by Guy de la Bédoyère: #BookReview.

Much more archaeology has been done since this book was published in 1999, and that will inevitably render some of the observations here less certain, but the bulk of the text is clearly based on sound academic research. One thing I must question, however, is the title. It’s either favouring the wealthy landowners or perhaps …

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How Goes the WIP, 7th April?

Just to update you, I last posted about the WIP on 25th March, here. At that time, the word count was 42,025. I’m now at 62,531, and still enjoying the creative process. The characters are mostly behaving themselves and, so far, I’m not having to allow for too many retrospective changes when I get to …

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#ScenicSaturday 30th March 2024:

Rhodes and the Sunlit Mediterranean. This continuing series of posts depicts our beautiful world, encouraging viewers to share them and help save our unique home from human carelessness and indifference.Today’s photo shows a landlubber’s view of a rough bay on the Greek Island of Rhodes. It’s from October 2017, and I hope it’ll warm the …

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The Fabled Coast, by Sophia Kingshill & Jennifer Westwood: #BookReview.

Subtitled ‘Legends & Traditions from Around the Shores of Britain and Ireland’ the 510 pages of this weighty tome reveal the origins of many a dark tale and some amusing stories.The place of superstition in forming and embellishing folk tales and traditions is illustrated in this well researched book. It is fascinating how many tales …

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Change Everything, by Natalie Bennett: #BookReview.

Subtitled ‘How we can rethink, repair and rebuild society’ this book deals comprehensively with issues and problems of our current political systems. It is essentially written about the situation in the UK but has a pretty universal application.I’d like to have all our current, and potential, politicians made to sit down and read this manual …

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Progress on the WIP #2

Photo of yours truly taken by my wife. The first post about the new novel’s progress can be found here.I started actually writing, following a year of research, last Sunday. At the end of today, I’ve achieved a total of 20,293 words and am currently working on Chapter 8. It’s going well. Despite the extensive …

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Now the Real Work Begins.

I’ve spent the best part of the last 12 months engaged in research for the new novel I’m now writing. I’ve ended up with three documents totalling 83 pages and 54,468 words, many including links to some of the research sites used for the information. Add to that the 604 pages from the Chronicle of …

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#ScenicSaturday 9th March 2024: 

Flamborough Head. This continuing series of posts depicts our beautiful world, encouraging viewers to share them and help save our unique home from human carelessness and indifference.Today’s photo depicts a calm day on a beach under the chalk cliffs on the northeastern shore of the North Sea at Flamborough, just north of Bridlington in East …

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Symbols in Australian Aboriginal Art

Picture created by Linda Huddleston. The Visual Indigenous Language that Communicates Cultural Life. First published on Medium. I published this on the blog platform, Medium, but only subscribers can read there (it's worth the small subscription, by the way, as there is a huge variety of good quality work on there), so I decided I'd …

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#ScenicSaturday 2nd March 2024:

This continuing series depicts our beautiful world, encouraging viewers to share them and help save our unique home from human carelessness and indifference. Recent months have seen me featuring only photographs taken in that specific month, though not necessarily the current year. I think, with the UK entering meteorological spring on 1st March, I’ll include …

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The Owl Service, by Alan Garner: #BookReview.

I have no memory of acquiring this book, which is considered a children’s classic. I wonder if the mystery of its origin in my home was a factor in keeping me reading it since I found it hard work.Generally, I need to empathise with at least one character in a book to give it any …

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