CCC#29: Knight Vigil

Posted on May 30, 2019 by crispina kemp
Wacton church window

Crimson’s Creative Challenge #29

Yesterday a squire,
Tomorrow a knight.
And for this darkness between?
The wizard had told him to pray for a vision;
A vision would show him what he would be.
But now first light was breaking, and no vision granted.
So, what did he hope for?
To be the bravest knight that served a lord?
Or the most loyal son, to free his stolen family from their foreign enslavement?
He blinked against a blinding light.
At last his vision had come …

And headless, he collapsed at the feet of warriors from the neighbouring nation.

Written for Crimson’s Creative Challenge #29

Posted in Crimson's Creative Challenge, Mostly Micro | Tagged , , | 26 Comments

Of Oak Apples and Kings

Posted on May 29, 2019 by crispina kemp

A couple of weeks back (11th May), in answer to MariaAntonia’s #picoftheweek challenge, I featured an oak gall (The Very Gall). An oak gall is also known—incorrectly—as an oak apple. These are oak apples.

pale oak apple

An oak apple: 3 May 2019

Red oak apple

And another oak apple: 3 May 2019

It’s the gall’s immature form—the newly formed uterus, as it were—and it appears around this time of the year. Which explains why Restoration Day is more commonly known as Oak Apple Day.

However, for readers not steeped in British history, this might require some explanation.

Restoration Day, aka Oak Apple Day, dates back to May 1660 when Parliament passed into law—in its wonderfully convoluted language—that all British citizenry were henceforth to keep every 29 May as a public holiday.

Why that day? It was the day Charles II (son of the deposed and executed Charles I) rode triumphantly into London to restore the English monarchy and put an end to the Protectorate (think Roundheads, Cromwell, and the abolition of Christmas and all fun and games; the restoration of the fun and games was certainly worth celebrating). The oak was chosen because, it was said, after the Battle of Worcester (September 1651) Charles had hidden in an oak tree to effect his escape from the Roundhead army.

However, said public holiday was abolished in 1859. So, there you know. Is it worth reinstating? We could beat each other about the body with oak leaves!

Information gleaned from Wikipedia.

Posted in History, Photos | Tagged , , | 34 Comments

Crimson’s Creative Challenge #29

Posted on May 29, 2019 by crispina kemp
Wacton church window

CCC29

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:

  • An answering photo
  • A cartoon
  • A joke
  • A caption
  • An anecdote
  • A short story (flash fiction)
  • A poem
  • A newly minted proverb, adage or saying
  • An essay
  • A song—the lyrics or the performance

You have plenty of scope and only two criteria:

  • Your creative offering is indeed yours
  • Your writing is kept to 150 words or less

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)
If you tag it #CCC others should be able to find it by ‘Searching’ in the WP Reader (fingers crossed)

Here’s wishing you inspirational explosions. And FUN.

Posted in Crimson's Creative Challenge, Photos | Tagged , | 61 Comments

To Spin, or Not to Spin …

Posted on May 28, 2019 by crispina kemp
Spider's Web

Dew encrusted spider web, by yours truly

‘Listen,’ Kerrid said. ‘When you spin fibres to make thread, you do the spinning and the fibres are spun.’

‘Wrong, Wise-Woman.’ Huat shook his head at her. ‘I don’t spin. If I could do spinning, I wouldn’t need you to teach me, would I? You don’t know much, do you? Not for a wise-woman.’

‘Let me say this another way,’ she said, her patience hard-held. ‘When I spin fibres to make a thread, I do the spinning and the fibres are spun.’

‘Then I won’t need wood-bast to spin into a trance?’

Excerpt from Lake of Dreams, book two of The Spinner’s Game quint, currently in preparation for e-publication.

92 words written for Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt

Posted in Mostly Micro, On Writing, The Spinner's Game | Tagged , , , | 39 Comments

What Pegman Saw: I Revere Thee

Posted on May 27, 2019 by crispina kemp
Buddha at Sarnath

Buddha in repose at Sarnath (Varanasi); photo by Anuj Kumar, taken from Google Maps

To leave a life of wealth and power
And enter a sea of suffering and pain
To wander, begging bowl in hand
While its cause and cure to find;
Enlightenment at last beneath a tree:
For these reasons I revere thee
And would have your wisdom guide me.

Suffering brought by material wants
Torments by our hidden dreams
But quiet the clamouring body and mind
And a shining inner peace we find.

Welcome all with compassionate heart
And to all be kind
Find detachment through meditation
And eschew extreme’s exhilaration.

The Eight-Fold Path indeed is noble
A recipe for peace that’s global.
May we all awake to Buddha

Wordcount: 109

Written for What Pegman Saw: Varanasi, India

Posted in Poems (Some Silly), Thoughts | Tagged , , | 44 Comments

Sunday Picture Post: Fluttering By

Posted on May 26, 2019 by crispina kemp

While I usually feature flowers, recently East Anglia has enjoyed what I call Butterfly Weather. See how they settle with wings outstretched to soak up the sun, an invitation to my camera.

Comma butterfly

The Comma: 16th May 2019

This little beastie inconveniently settled upside down. No problem. I rotated the image. But that leaf was bang-centre of a patch of nettles, so I couldn’t get close.

Speckled Wood butterfly

Speckled Wood butterfly: 23rd April 2019

The Speckled Wood has to be one of the best-camouflaged butterflies. I only spotted this one when it alighted upon the bright green leaf.

Posted in Photos | Tagged , | 28 Comments

A Light Amid Dark

Posted on May 25, 2019 by crispina kemp

“I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.”

Marilyn Monroe

“I devotedly believe that the essence of my being – my spirit – is not truly a part of the universe, it is a part of Chaos. My spirit is a fragment of the Hidden God beyond the nutshell we call the cosmos; thus being trapped in a human body is only a prison in my eyes.” 

Vexior 218

Vexior 218 is a Swedish writer of Old Norse religion and mythology; the dark goddesses (Gullveig, Lilith, Hecate); runology; and Chaos-Gnosticism.

Marilyn Munroe needs no explanation.

This post is in an answer to 3-2-1 Quote Me Challenge which was started at TeleportingWeena. I was tagged by Susan Zutautas at Susan’s Place to take part in this challenge.

Here’s how it works:

Thank the selector:  My thanks to you, Susan. I don’t often accept tags, but this one looked a fun challenge to do.

Post 2 quotes for the challenge of the day (above, A Light Amid Dark)

Select 3 bloggers to take part in this challenge.

My choices are:

Dale

Sammi Cox

Padre

Your mission if you choose to play along is listed above.

Posted in On Writing, Thoughts | Tagged , | 21 Comments

Where Shall I Sit?

Posted on May 25, 2019 by crispina kemp
Wacton Sedlila

Sedilia at All Saints church, Wacton: 17 April 2019

I’m claiming this photo for #2019picoftheweek challenge title: All in a Row which I’m sure you’ll agree qualifies.

[For details of #2019picoftheweek challenge see MariaAntonia]

But what, you ask, is sedilia?

It is what’s otherwise known as the Priests’ Bench or Priests’ Seats, and is where the officiating persons sat (when not needed) during Mass. The celebrant occupied the highest seat, nearest the altar, the deacon took the next and the sub-deacon the last. I find the sources tangle into confusion where there’s a fourth seat. That sould be that the fourth seat wasn’t a seat at all but, as here, was the piscina (or sacrarium if you’re RC). The piscina was the place for washing communion vessels; the sacrarium being the drain.

It was a particularly English feature (although it is also found in Europe) and flourished during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

If you look at that floor and fear for the priests’ hips, bent at such angles, I might just add that the floor of most chancels were raised to set it apart from the nave during all the back-and-forth ideas that erupted during the Reformation and beyond.

All Saints church, Wacton, lies just southwest of Long Stratton in Norfolk

Posted in History, Photos | Tagged , , , | 22 Comments

CCC#28: The Paint Job

Posted on May 23, 2019 by crispina kemp
Outbuildings at Hethel

Crimson’s Creative Challenge #28

Major Marjoram was a trifle discombobulated to find a young man in his garden with palette and easel.

‘And who the blinking blighty are you?’ he bellowed across the hen-pecked yard.

‘Me?’ the young man looked round to see who was calling. ‘I’m Danny. Daniel Crisp. Your wife commissioned me to paint the outhouses. I said I’d do it for free if you grant me permission to sell it on. Biscuit tins, jigsaws, greeting cards …’

‘Bah!’ the major choked on a stream of exclamations. ‘I wanted them painted, not PAINTED.’

Posted in Crimson's Creative Challenge, Mostly Micro | Tagged , , , | 36 Comments

Crimson’s Creative Challenge #28

Posted on May 22, 2019 by crispina kemp
Outbuildings at Hethel

CCC#28

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:

  • An answering photo
  • A cartoon
  • A joke
  • A caption
  • An anecdote
  • A short story (flash fiction)
  • A poem
  • A newly minted proverb, adage or saying
  • An essay
  • A song—the lyrics or the performance

You have plenty of scope and only two criteria:

  • Your creative offering is indeed yours
  • Your writing is kept to 150 words or less

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)
If you tag it #CCC others should be able to find it by ‘Searching’ in the WP Reader (fingers crossed)

Here’s wishing you inspirational explosions. And FUN.

Posted in Crimson's Creative Challenge, Photos | Tagged , | 45 Comments