The Ghost Story

Mother had a dreadful fear of mice and rats, it was one of those things that as a youngster I could never fully comprehend, like her similar but less acute fearful reaction to the noises of bonfire night. I never shivered in an air raid, otherwise I might had more sympathy when she'd cower on the 5th of November. It took me longer to empathise with her fear of rodents, mother was a robust and muscular woman whose fear of those creatures seemed incongruous but whenever she'd encounter them her audible protests would make anyone believe her the epitome of a shrieking hysterical female stereotype.

Well one day, she explained the fear to me, it was something that made me shudder. "They're an omen," she said but not in so many words. She went on to explain about the death of her mother, she was living in London at the time, one night she'd dreamt of a rat. It sounded as if she was suffering from night terrors from her recollection of the experience, she couldn't tell if was real or not. The next morning she had telegram telling her of her mothers passing.

"Just a coincidence," I said.

"Yes but it had happened before" this aroused my curiosity so I asked when? she spoke of the night before her sister, my auntie Nora, died, the same thing happened. Something that was easy to dismiss as another coincidence, then she recollected a third incident that occurred when she'd travelled home to Ebbw Vale for her mother's funeral. There was a rat in the room and it jumped on the bed or so she thought, it could've been another dream, a little later she got the word that her first husband was missing presumed killed.

"I've seen loads of mice and rats, nobody died" she looked at me with the world weary resignation that is spawned when confronted with implacable scepticism.

"It's different for me," she said then she showed me, "Look at this" I saw the birth mark on her thigh, I couldn't make it out at first, it had obviously faded with age but as examined it closer, I saw the the unmistakable outline of a rat etched onto her living flesh.

The Mice

About this: Inspired by one of my favourite episodes of The Outer Limits, The Mice, watch if you can find it, it's spectacular. It's a bit iffy, might pay some attention to this one after it's stewed a while on the back burner

Update: Well I did tinker with it, took about 5 minutes (just goes to show what a little distance can do) still not quite there I think but this one needs simmer a bit.

Do you see mice in un-penitent line?
Head bowed not in obeisance but fear
Men without need and no weakness for tear
Neither remorse when our purpose is crime
Souls as hard as a hide slaked in lime
Yet still hearts stir as the fair one draws near
She harbours a light for those who adhere
She harbours light, lit for they that adhere
To the tally that is tendered in time
Of all that be here, alone she chose sight
Does see a man not a beggar nor thief
To see a man not a beggar nor thief
Do his legs still have the strength for that mile?
Slight limbs retain enough vigour for fight?
For this woman that lent birth to belief
That life can once more be home to a smile
Can he dare risk to lend birth to belief?
That in this world there is room for his smile

nursed his belief life to belief death to belief stile will their be a time to tender a smile will his belly hold back that no more bile hold enough bile There can be an end to this life of bile that fight not might The one he must run to capture that smile Should she be the one this life is lived for? The question asked when he witnessed her smile Truth is not told to the man without faith That he be alone in this life no more If need he'll run barefoot till they're bled raw Truth for a without faith is elusive Truth for a without con To the tribute that is paid out in time For her he'd spurn life while he adhere Yet still hearts beat when the fair one draws near The one he must run to capture that smile no more
terror
error
never
believe her
forever
s
Woud I spurn should I adhere
So dear
adhere
mere
queer
appear
To the tribute the price which is time
To the tribute which is priced with our time
For her I'd spurn freedom then adhere

The parochial rose garden

The intention was to make this crockery a bit chintzy but I have to say I quite like this pattern, oops.

Slight problem with this version, well several actually. Can't get the glass to throw a shadow, can't get my crummy laptop to process it at a decent resolution and  there are some quirky looking artefacts on on the high lights of the glass..

The place where there will always be a rose
The garden that is never home to thorn
No thumb be pricked no tender flesh torn
The domain of wit and urbane repose
The vulgar 'n'  the crude they will dispose
Here there will be no sheep that need be shorn
Will the world ever know that they were born
It's the fate of many I would suppose


Second draft
Reworked it into a sonnet (sort of - the clauses are too short) and changed the emphasis

The place where there will always be a rose
May you run risk of prick from briar or thorn
No thumb be prick'd yet tender flesh torn
The domain of wit and urbane repose
A vista crafted without spades or hoes
Here there will be no sheep that need be shorn
Will the world ever know that they were born
It's the fate of many I do suppose
For those who may find it too hard to fit
Will be directed to a large neatly tended
Quarter for discarded, the compost pit
Where weed and dross you will find are heaped
So high and weighty the earth be split


Third draft
Woah, the lesson illustrated above is that it's easier to write verse while drunk than with a hangover. This should be an improvement I hope.

The place where there will always be a rose
May you run risk of prick from briar or thorn
No thumb be prick'd yet tender flesh be torn
The domain of wit and urbane repose
This garden were crafted sans spade and hoes
Here there will be no sheep that need be shorn
Will the world ever know that they were born
It's the fate of many I do suppose
For those who may find it too hard to fit
I direct you to a neatly tended
Discarded quarter, compost in the pit
There be weed and dross in heap ascended
So high and weighty the earth be split


Fourth draft
Can something be 'tended' and 'discarded' at the same time? mmm probably not. Not so sure about this change, I like a bit of paradox occasionally.

The place where there will always be a rose
May you run risk of prick from briar or thorn
No thumb be prick'd yet tender flesh be torn
The domain of wit and urbane repose
This garden were crafted sans spade and hoes
Here there will be no sheep that need be shorn
Will the world ever know that they were born
It's the fate of many I do suppose
For those who may find it too hard to fit
I direct you to a neatly tended
Quarter for discarded compost in the pit
There weed and dross be in heap ascended
So high and weighty the earth be split

Just when it first happened I cannot say, neither can I recall how but I remember who it was. Her name was Elizabeth and her long hair lives in my memory as a vivid red flame. Being young and untutored in worldly ways, I found myself perturbed and bewildered at those feelings that surfaced whenever I caught sight of her. I kept them well hidden though, for I knew they could be used as a weapon against me and I was vulnerable enough in my tender youth. Alas, I never expressed that emotion to Liz and she disappeared from my life forever. Since that day I've lied on occasion to women and myself, in the hope that I might rediscover that emotion but those efforts bore no fruit other than the bitter tang of disappointment and regret. Only once did I feel something akin to that which I experienced in my youth. I didn't know her name but she called herself Annabel and she lived on the screen. What a strange world that she should be the font of so much joy and of so many of my tears.

The un-tempered sun burns in the sky, never moving in a land of unceasing daylight. As I turn about I see my footsteps fading in the sand. I recall my thoughts when I started this journey across this desert and I laugh, the man who died on the way was better and braver but he was a fool and fools deserve such a fate as he. It’s cruel to laugh at fools but cruelty is the burden of the desert, the lesson whispered in the sands. I took up the rote taught by many sage and oracle and set my voice to its metre. Thirst beckons, she demands a tribute paid in leather from the sole -- of a shoe, footsteps in the sand -- as I turn about.

West Wittering

After my recent post of some snaps I thought I'd dig some more out of one particular location featured in that post. That would be West Wittering, East Head in particular. There's something unusual about the quality of light on the Sussex coast, I think it's because the cloud tends break up over that region, so even on days with no shadow the light can still be quite beautiful.

Dawn breaking the cloud cover.

Not a brilliant snap by any means and I'll have to be honest I did monkey with the colour here to try and convey the real beauty of this particular sunrise. I'm up early because it's a Sunday during the holiday season and I'm here to do some Mullet fishing and the crowds are not conducive to such activity.

Water on Mars? no just low tide at East Head.

It can get a little scary with tides at this location and they do have the flags out most of time. You're safe as long know what to look for but complacence can be the undoing of anyone so stay focused. The Weever Fish make waders a necessity if you're spending much time moving through the water and such encumbrances make you particular vulnerable to rising water and quicksands in such circumstances.

Isn't the sky pretty?.

Yeah I'm like that, I'll snap anything that takes my fancy. This is a different day, I think, I took the opportunity to settle amongst the dunes for a few monuments and soak up a little sun and noticed this.

Verrrahhgwoooshhhhhh!

Just leaving a bit early, partly because the crowds were turning up but also a local Bass fishing guide had turned up, who's quite well known, and had spotting me catching Mullet. I didn't spot him until he hailed me while I was playing a fish, we exchanged a few words, the usual cordial fare between anglers but his ignorance on Mullet was apparent. Unfortunately he compounded his ignorance by shadowing me and thrashing the water with his fly rod, probably in the hope he could tempt a mullet from my trail of bait. I tried moving but couldn't shake him off and he killed the fishing stone dead, shame really I was having a good day till then. Anyway I was just leaving and I heard this sound like the ground opening up, they were moving really fast and came out of nowhere, I was lucky to catch this snap

Interesting tree

On this day, I just took some time to explore the area. This is the other side of the inlet to the salt marsh. You can see that the prevailing wind evident in the shape of this tree.

The loneliness of the long distance angler.

This is an example of that Sussex light I mentioned, I call it silvery in honour of McGonnicall's first Tay Bridge poem.

A neddy and some explanation

You might recall that quite some time ago I sort of promised I'd post something on linear perspective and you probably also noticed that it hasn't appeared. Honestly I'm not deliberately teasing, I have actually bashed out some words on the subject but after reviewing the first attempts I found them  hopelessly anorak orientated and filed those drafts under B. I'm in the middle of my latest attempt which is better -- ish and was hoping to post something soon, only something's come up that need my attention, a prospect of some regular illustration work. Normally I'm pretty dismissive of these prospects, I've seen too many of 'em of evaporate but this one coincides with a focus of my interest, so I'm gonna give it a go. Meanwhile I'd thought I'd stick up a picture up for entertainment value, this is a very old drawing that I used reference gleaned from one of those pony mags for. It's the pencil drawing for and piece of ink work, which I don't have. I had the inked version pinned to the wall of my studio (bedroom) for quite some time, till a colleague took a shine to it, so I gave him the drawing, which he passed on to his daughter.

This drawing has also been submitted to one of those on demand print sites. I was a bit naive about how those sites work and kind of expected to do some business. After a while it became clear that they're not much more than an exercise in vanity publication, so prompted by disillusion I put ridiculous prices on the stuff I submitted. Anyway here it is for free, albeit in a reduced resolution although if you right click on the pop up a higher resolution file should be available as a lossless png.

Gone fishing

Hampshire, it's not the most spectacular county in the land but there is at least one prominent geographic feature worthy of note. Watership Down is a finger of land that delineates the elevated chalk laden terrain of Hampshire with the plane of the neighbouring Berkshire. I've often travelled along the adjacent route and it's interesting to note how marked the difference between the terrains appears there, much more abrupt than the gentle transition on the A33 via the ever drab Basingstoke. You often find yourself descending from a pleasant day with a moderate level of sunshine into a gloomy damp one, laden with mist or fog.

Even Hampshire's coast is a meagre asset compared to the many beaches of the neighbouring Sussex and certainly inferior to those of Dorset: Bournemouth, the truly spectacular Sandbanks and the ever densely populated Weymouth. Not that Hampshire is completely bereft of coastal attractions, Lymington has a thriving pleasure boating scene and the beach at Milford is a pleasant echo of the shingle banks further west. Southampton too holds a certain appeal, for me particularly because it's one of my favoured venues for Mullet fishing, I wouldn't be venturing into the estuarine waters to bathe there though. So it was with a certain anticipation that I looked forward to my trip to Dorset's Chesil Beach.

The fishing trip had been arranged a few weeks ago but was postponed in the hope our intended quarry, the Trigger Fish, would turn up. Water temperatures are down this year from their highs of the last few years and there had been conflicting reports concerning the presence of these visitors to our shores, that have been turning up in greater numbers. Chesil is the location of a known shoaling spot associated with the wreck of the Royal Adelaide, close to the steeply shelving banks of the beach. We fished there a couple of years ago but were unable to get the spot on the wreck, even so we had reasonable luck, I managed to pull out a nice specimen after several bites that I failed to connect with and my fishing buddy had a couple of nice fish, including a red mullet but alas, he didn't manage to get a Trigger though. This year we managed to get right on the wreck, something that was apparent when my line came back quite heavily frayed after one of the longer casts, the natural shingle of Chesil is quite easy on line, unlike that deposited on the once Sandy beaches of Sussex, it's well weathered with few edges to cause consistent problems with fraying. We did quite well for the first hour or so, pulling out three Black Bream of a good size, sharing rod watching duties between us while we both attempted to temp Bass in the breakers with a lure rod.

After the initial success, things went quiet as the wind picked up and the sun disappeared behind some cloud, a few nibbles here and there with the bait coming back stripped but that was the end of fish for the rest of the day. Eventually the sun came out again it and on the whole it was a pleasant day. I took a break to get some refreshments from the visitor's centre adjacent to the car park, disturbing a hare as I descended the other side of the bank. The visitors centre has received a makeover it seems and the facilities have been upgraded from the simple cafe it once was, so of course the sandwiches were a bit pricey, nice though, Cajun chicken is a step up from cheese and Branston. While I was making my way to the visitors centre I took the chance to query an angler leaving the beach, "Any luck," I hailed, he replied in the muted tone indicative of disappointment, mentioning a token 'couple of Mackerel' as the measure of success, likely to fictional to my mind, at the risk of libelling a stranger.

So our endeavours in comparison to the efforts of others were not in vain, even if the Trigger Fish were absent. We called it day around 3:00, 3:30 not sure of the exact time, I was as tired as dog on Sunday when I got back and I still need to pack the tackle away properly. Didn't take any snaps this time but I do have some around from the last trip, so I'll update this post when I track them down, there is some video we shot this time, I might get a link up of that too.

Update
Unfortuantly I couldn't find a snap of Chesil Beach, I think probably we were using a camera that was my own for most of them, I did find one of the trigger fish though and some others that might be of interest.

A Hampshire beach -- mmm yes!

The salt marsh at Warsash, Southamton

Sandbanks

A Sussex beach

A Triggerfish

So do you see what I mean about the Hampshire coast now? to be fair Hailing Island is in Hampshire too so I'm being a little selective and while there is no trick photography involved in the photo of East Head at West Wittering, it really is that impressive, there are some hazards that need to be considered, like the abundant Weever Fish and the quicksands at some spring tides. Wrecks and hulks abound at Warsash and since most of Southampton was flattened during the war, I've occasionally speculated if any of them were wrecked in raids but it seems that most if not all, are simply result of accident or neglect.