King Pippin's Carcassonne Adventure - Mind The Meeples!

Carcassonne is actually a walled town in France that essentially looks like something out of either a fairy tale or the Middle Ages. It would seem quite normal to find Joan of Arc - The Maid of Orleans or some soldiers of the Knights Templar strutting around the vicinity.

There are other examples of walled cities - like York in England for example and there are some fine castles such as Skipton Castle in Skipton Yorkshire, that I personally find just as breathraking.

However Carcassonne does look to have history and mystery.

I remember our French teacher at school, Madame Cesbron. She had a particular liking for check clothing and her favourite item appeared to be a yellow and black check suit, which she seemed to wear a good deal of the time. Predictably she drove a Renault car and she always seemed to be in a bit of a distant mood, like there was a lot on her mind. We were given French names to use and one girl was called Carrine which the teacher pronounced Cah-hine in a very exaggerated way. We had to study the Marsaud family - Madame, Monsieur, their two kids and their dog, Bruno and go through just about everything they ate, wore, used, etc. Masses of French verbs were drilled in to us, like some military exercise.

Some people use the phrase 'My Dutch Uncle' and it really means something completely different and has nothing to do with a 'Dutch Uncle' at all.Well I didn't have a Dutch uncle, I had a French Great Uncle, though we always dispensed with the 'Great' bit.

I met him once on a trip to Boston Spa with the relatives - he was staying with my Great Aunty Alice, along with his wife Nellie, who was Alice's younger sister. They were over from France on a whistle stop visit.

Uncle Edward had a French mother and an English father. His father was a representative of a large mill called Lister & Co at their French office. He met Edward's mother, married her and produced Edward and Lillian his sister. They lived in France but Edward came to England to work in Lister's Mill's Manningham Bradford offices. He learned that Nellie was looking for someone to give her lessons in French and he eventually married her but not until he had served in the French army on the Great War.
When I met Uncle Edward he was an old man, but very pleasant. He was tallish, thin and bespectacled with a strong French accent and that late August afternoon we went round Aunty Alice's back garden together, though he was in poor health by that time.

So when Pippin expressed an interest in Carcassonne, who was I to refuse him? It would have been positively rude to ignore Pippin's requests to appear with some Carcassonne bunting - so here he is in all his glory.

There is also a game called Carcassonne which was produced in 2009 and uses 'meeples' and tiles for 'expansions' and people put the game tiles in wooden boxes. Er, yes - very nice, but Pippin isn't a meeple, people, - not yet anyway...!

Pippin's Easter Basket Outing AKA (Don't Forget The Carrots)

It wasn't the warmest weather in the world by a long way. In fact, the Easter Weekend Bank Holiday break was rather cool, despite there being a bit of sun. Undaunted, Pippin gathered his Easter Chick baskets together and went in the garden for a quick stroll. Guess what? Whilst they were out, Pippin and the chicks found a bunch of glittery carrots too! Now that was well worth getting outside for!

Palimpsest Pippin And The Spooky Brides Of St Ives, Cornwall

Imagine my complete delight when I found a supernatural fiction book which was set in St Ives, Cornwall. it was like having apple pie and custard all at once. I have read all the supernatural 'Haunted St Ives' and 'Haunted Cornwall' books. But to be honest, they are a bit dry and lacking any real entertainment.

The horse that waits on the beach for his master to come back out of the sea is probably the best of the worst of the well known guide book pieces (his hoof beats can be heard too, apparently) and the Jamaica Inn stories are interesting but constantly mentioned, so there is no real new stuff.

So when I found this quirky work of fiction (as shown in the picture, with Pippin, above), I was interested to give it a try. It has a really good map of St Ives in the front, even for the armchair traveller who uses astral, rather than satellite, navigation!

It was funny too and as I said, quirky to begin with because it was better than a guide book, but some way in to the story it actually became very interesting and cleverly done too - the story actually became quite a gripping supernatural thriller in its own right.

I really think that Pippin likes this book a lot too. I got the impression he was trying to get near to it and may even have been trying to take a sneaky peak inside!

See also:
Mona Steorra

Occultism On The Trail Of A Mysterious Temple

I have actually been inside the temple which is mentioned above. It was quite a long time ago and the temple now no longer exists as it was defaced and destroyed. However, when it was first discovered as a place of note, back in the early 80's, it caused quite a stir. These are not my personal written research notes as shown above but are some I managed to obtain from an old archive, back in 2009.

Many people (who are interested in this kind of thing) tend to be moving away from the heavy ceremonial ritual magick because it is not always practical or convenient. Ceremonial magick tends to be done for the love of the ritual and the honour of pomp and circumstance, perhaps to contact a particular deity in a group setting.It puts very heavy emphasis on doing every thing at the right time, including chants and hand movements.

A friend of mine is an atheist who believes in nothing - No Godhead figures or Supreme Beings. She doesn't even celebrate Christmas. It is quite a challenge being in communication with someone like that because it appears to me that life is too great only to exist the one time and for nothing else to be out there anywhere. But I respect that she is so replete in her security on the earth that she does not feel the need for anything other than what she can experience with her five senses that is right in front of her. Each to his own in every way, so to speak.

The television and media often portray what is termed as 'magick' or 'magic', as being linked to someone waving a wand and dancing round a cauldron and wanting lightening quick results from spells and potions.

Real occultism, in my opinion, is the genuine love of magick, occultism, the supernatural etc, for its own honest sake, not necessarily to gain any 'power' from it, other than real enjoyment, even from it just being there and yes, existing. To do rituals and enjoy doing them as a connection to the earth, sky, sun, moon etc and feeling that connection, can be extremely rewarding, whatever one's personal beliefs about who is actually 'in charge' up there. There is magick to suit virtually every religion and most circumstances, some good and some not so good, but choice is always the keyword.



See also:
The Hermetic Order of the Silver Luna Mist