The Winter Solstice and I seek a suitable photo both for that and for Maria’s #2019picoftheweek challenge. And have to flip the calendar back to summer…
The common field poppy: 4th June 2019
The vibrant red of the common field poppy, *popped* against washed-out grey foliage, makes me think of the Solstice’s promise of new life at this grey and weary time of year.
Pop of Colour, one of the titles in #2019picoftheweek challenge. For details see MariaAntonia
image by Gerhard Gellinger on Pixabay
Dead Dame of the Solstice, rise from your coffin
Shine light in my heart, your heat on my skin
Rise from the southlands, rise into the heavens
Fill me with light though cold winter begins.
Daughter of Dawn, your bright light inspires me
Your light in my heart, your heat on my skin
You, I would have to light up my dark days
Though you scowl in the winter, you smile in the spring.
Pleasing indeed the light you cast on me
Your light in my heart, your heat on my skin
Mistress of Day, be my inspiration
Light up my dark thoughts as a New Year begins.
Mistress of Dawn, Queen of the West Lands
Your light in my heart, your heat on my skin
Bright light of day, I’ll sing a song for you
For you light me without, you light me within.
Wishing all my readers Peace at this Turn of the Year, and an unfailing Torch to see you through the coming winter nights… and a couple of songs to spin you on your way.
Crimson’s Creative Challenge
Sedge ran his finger across the shiny surface. Strange, despite it was wet, it wasn’t cold. He knuckle-rapped it. And neither had it the sound of ice. Yet there was his wren-stone visible within it, and someone’s lost arrowheads.
He twisted his lips, pulled on his beard, and humphed.
Had the magician erred? “Join me again to my wren-stone axe,” Sedge had asked. And here without doubt was the axe he’d lost in the reeds by the water. But here too was a strange land. Had the Travel-Fungi took him astray? Yet how so, when without a doubt, his wren-stone was here.
Noises. Voices. Sedge hid beneath the wood jetty that held the strange ice, not to be seen by the strange men.
Men? He spied them, wearing strange garb in flower-bright colours. No, demons they must be. Indeed, a strange land.
142 words
A selection of the mesolithic and neolithic tools and weapons found during the making of Whitlingham Broad. Quarried for aggregates for the Norwich Southern Bypass, it was subsequently allowed to flood; nature has since reclaimed it along with its environs.
#CCC58
Welcome to my weekly challenge—open to all—just for FUN, FUN, FUN
Here’s how it works:
Every Wednesday I post a photo (this week it’s that one above.)
You respond with something CREATIVE
Here are some suggestions:
You have plenty of scope and only two criteria:
If you post a link in the comments section of this post I’ll be able to find it
If you include Crimson’s Creative Challenge as a heading, WP Search will find it (theory)
by ‘Searching’ in the WP Reader (fingers crossed)
Here’s wishing you inspirational explosions. And FUN.
Archaeology finds featured as insets in the tables (outside) at Whitlingham Country Park. Photo taken on a very rainy day.
Freycinet National Park, Tasmania, by Jimmy D of Rats on Google
It wasn’t a massive boat. But neither was it small. A trimaran… claimed safe in all waters. And by the looks of the clouds that now amassed on the horizon, that claim was about to be tested.
Me, wimp, wanted to turn around, to put into shore, to wait out the approaching storm. But the rest of the party said no, we’d go on.
The wind whipped up. We furled the sails. I was glad of the lifejacket as the sea turned heavy and tossed around us.
“And up there,” said our local guide, his sun-dried head nodded towards the storm-clouds, “is our famous Tasmanian Devil. Rageowrapper.”
107 words written for What Pegman Saw: Tasmania, Australia.
Rageowrapper is a Tasmanian devil of many guises. He might appear as a towering black man, or as the darkness that arrives on a strong wind; but he’s also a malevolent spirit that takes possession of the sick and dying.
At a distance — i.e. while standing close by — these look like any other mushroom-formed fungus.
Found in a churchyard: 15th October 2019
Ah, but when we move in close…
Wow!
Undeniably a fibre cap!
Ivy in flower and wild rose in hip: 15th October 2019
Not quite opposites, but one’s in flower, one’s in berry so… Together they clamber through the hedgerows and climb the trees. While the photo was taken in October, the combination of red berries (hips) and ivy leaves are suggestive of Christmas, which makes it a suitable seasonal photo.
Opposites Attract, one of the titles in #2019picoftheweek challenge. For details see MariaAntonia
Crimson’s Creative Challenge #57
“Jim, pull over,” Joyce shouted as if Jim was away in a field and not at the wheel beside her.
Jim ignored her and drove on.
“Turn around, turn around,” she demanded, grown aggressively agitated.
Jim sighed. “I’ll turn if and when I find a place for turning. These country roads aren’t made for driving. And what’s the fuss with you anyway?”
“That sign back there… didn’t you see it?”
“Sure, there’s a stately house up ahead.”
“No. PROPER milk. We haven’t had proper milk since the Greys landed and did those foul things to the cows.”
97 words written for Crimson’s Creative Challenge.
CCC#57
Welcome to my weekly challenge—open to all—just for FUN, FUN, FUN
Here’s how it works:
Every Wednesday I post a photo (this week it’s that one above.)
You respond with something CREATIVE
Here are some suggestions:
You have plenty of scope and only two criteria:
If you post a link in the comments section of this post I’ll be able to find it
If you include Crimson’s Creative Challenge as a heading, WP Search will find it (theory)
by ‘Searching’ in the WP Reader (fingers crossed)
Here’s wishing you inspirational explosions. And FUN.
photo by H. Hach, on pixabay
We numbered only a third of when we started; the journey had eaten us, taken our strength, yet strengthened our purpose.
As we crested the hill, we saw our destination. A planned town, built in cruciform, four gates opening to the cardinals… four gates that would open to us, to allow us to take shelter within its wall, away from the beasts of the wild; to find soft dry places to sleep; to find fresh food to nourish us, and clean water to refresh us.
As each crested that hill, the excitement was high, yet none could find spirit to let out a whoop.
In formation, backs straight, heads high, we marched down that hill and approached the first gate… and inspected the first of the barricades raised against us, a force feared to destroy them.
Written for Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Barricade in 136 words
