Cats in the Kitchen, Flora in the Garden

The World is but a canvas to the imagination - Henry David Thoreau


To the right of this sandstone cliff stands the castle with the waterfall. A blogger friend has asked if I know any tales about castles, so here is a slightly scary one from the castle that was in the photographs last week.

You retire to your bedroom, after a convivial evening, you have had a pleasant dinner, a musical interlude and the night rounded off with stimulating conversation. It has been a long day, an early start from home in the carriage arriving here, at your destination, in the late afternoon as the sun was setting. The maid has built up the fire and you hurry to bed whilst the fire is at its best. A wind has arisen and is howling around the castle, from the bed you can see the storm clouds hurrying across the night sky through the open curtains. You pull the covers tightly around you and drift off into sleep.

You stir in your sleep, the sound of the wind wakes you, and the room is icy cold now, you can see a glow in the room, surely the fire has died down by now. You sit up slightly in bed. Yes the fire has burnt down, but what is the golden glow, it seems to be growing brighter by the minute, slowly but steadily it enlarges and begins to glide slowly towards you. Your hands clutch your bedcovers, you can not move, you cannot make yourself jump out the other side of the bed or hide under the covers. You are mesmerised. The glow is right at the side of your bed. A misty form seems to be materialising within the glow, second by second this forms into a human shape. A young boy with long golden curls and a white shift appears in the glow, he stares at you for a long time with a benign expression on his face. Then slowly he turns away, the glow still surrounding him, and disappears into the wall beside the fireplace. You realise that you can move again and your heart is beating rapidly. A strange calmness overcomes you and surprisingly are able to fall asleep again. You awake to a bright new morning and the maid bustling in with firewood for the fire.

The above is my retelling of a ghost story connected to the castle. The ghost is of a radiant boy, similar to my description. It is said that those the radiant boy appeared to would make their mark on life but eventually die a tragic death. The ghost was first written about in the early 1800's when a clergyman declared he had seen it. As far as can be ascertained only one person who saw the apparition did die a tragic death, many others died peacefully in their beds in old age.



Complete change of subject now, do you remember that I said I was involved in my first two ATC swaps a couple of weeks ago? Well I was very excited about this and got two lovely packs of swaps in return, but I could not post the ATC's I had made as I wanted to be sure they had got to my friends first, so that their first view of them was not on my blog. The series for one of the swaps consists of three cards, on the theme of gardens. This first card is Night Garden, showing the moon helping the plants to grow.



The second in the series in called Poppy Garden. The poppy fairy is is on this one surrounded by the poppies she guards and looks after. The poppy fairy makes her dresses out of the fallen petals of poppies. At first when I started making these ATC cards I found it difficult to say all I wanted to say in images on such a small area. The cards only measure 2.5inches by 3.5inches. The size is a challenge in itself.



The third of the series is just called Fairy Garden. It took me a long time to be able to fit into the card size the image I had in my mind. Another time I will upload the other set of three cards that I had in the swap. I managed to find a packet of brown luggage labels in the Post Office the other day and a packet of white plain postcards. My next experiment is to try some postcard size altered art and make some altered labels.

Just before I go I must tell you there was a beautiful moon shining through my bedroom window when I went to bed in the early hours of the morning. Large and yellow with threads of indigo clouds running across it, just like a painting. When I was lying in bed it was shining on my pillow. I love going to sleep in moonshine.