A Tale of Curiosity

Come closer and let me tell you a tale of foolish curiosity and monsters and madness.

It began with a curious young woman, nightmares and rumours.

The locals spoke in whispers of a creature hiding in the shadows, animals disappearing, howls in the night. Fear for their sanity kept them indoors when the moon was full, only one had survived having seen the beast, and she was locked away both inside her own mind, and behind bars.

But Alice wished to know more, what had happened to the woman, what had she seen ?

She had always been the curious sort, even as a child, always following rabbits into places she shouldn't, and with that same bravery she set off to visit the village witch.



"Come in young woman, take a seat and tell me why you have come to me?"

As Alice looked around and the lady's dwelling she wondered if perhaps she was in over her head, but she sat and began to tell the lady her reason for visiting.

She explained about wishing to know of the woman in the asylums tale, but also of strange dreams she had been having of noises in the dark, and a feeling of impending doom.

The lady listened, nodding sympathy when needed, and encouraging Alice to speak of her dreams.

"I know of what happened to the woman, and I can show you in vision if you wish, but are you sure you wish to know the truth?"

Foolishly Alice agreed, and reaching out to her the lady spoke "The take my hand, and gaze into the smoke and I will show you all you wish to know"

Tentatively Alice reached out and took the lady's hand.

And as she gazed into the smoke rising in front of her, her vision wavered and her view faded away until she no longer saw the lady's home.

Instead she was stood before a door to an old farm barn, the farm yard was abandoned and neglected.
She reached out and opened to door in front of her.

She entered the barn, which was as empty as the yard she had left, but felt odd, like she was not alone.

Walking further into the barn, Alice got a feeling she had been here before, had she been here in one of her nightmares, or had she been here for real? She did not know, but something on the dividing wall caught her eye, and she walked closer.

Getting closer she saw odd markings on the wall, as of someone, or something had been scratching, or clawing to get out. What could possibly have caused them.

She reached towards them to judge the size which the claws must have been to cause this. But as she did so, she got a strange feeling and an odd realisation came over her. This was no vision that the witch was showing her, this was a memory. Alice remembered, this was her memory, being here, being trapped, no way out.

As her fingers touched the scratches she heard another noise, close behind.

 A movement, and a low growl, slowly coming closer.

A warm breath on her neck, and a scream building in her throat.

Then, nothing but darkness.

She awoke in her cell again, same dream, same nightmare, every night since it happened. And she knew tonight she would go curiously again to the witch's door, one again to re-live the event.

Foolish girl.

If you enjoyed my tale, be sure to visit Vanessa and the other party's at: A Fanciful Twist Halloween party.

A quilt for autumn

Just killing time in the library while waiting to pass the shopping onto his nibs on the bus, then off to my meditation group for the evening.

It is absolutely freezing here in Orkney this week, winter has certainly arrived with bouts of hail and sleet already. I know we are forecast another bad winter here in the UK, but come on it is only October !

Still trying to draw out the Autumn season here for as long as possible (although secretly I can't get Christmas songs out my head most of the time), with the Halloween blog party coming up on Saturday, lots of preserve making and batch cooking and freezing for winter, but also with the completion finally of an autumn quilt for the lounge wall.

When we were south last month John treated me to some quilting fabric at a fab shop in Castle Douglas, most of the fabric is Red rooster fabrics I believe. Now I am not a big quilter, in fact this is only the second time I have made quilts so please don't look to closely at my corners.

We were in desperate need of some pictures for the rather large bare wall in the lounge. So instead of just buying what ever pictures we could find on Orkney simply to fit the space, we decided seasonal quilts are the way to go. We can switcheroo them round and can look forward to each one coming back out as the seasons change, and they mean something to us. Rather than some random print bought simply because it colour coordinates with the room.

Really pleased with the results, but patchwork is so blooming fiddly!

linking up to:

A Roof or a Colander ??

 Thank crunchy its Friday and the weekend starts.

This week has been one of getting back into a routine after john being off work for a fortnight and us off on our hols.

Of course our idea of having a holiday doesn't include two weeks in Spain, hell no, although we did head 'doon sooth' for a few days at mum's in dumfries, we spent most of our so called time off renewing the new sunlounge roof.

Last year John built a soundlounge to connect the cottage with the barns, ready for the barn conversion.

Unfortunately the plastic roof leaked like a sieve, was too hot in the summer, and freezing in the winter, in fact it was -4c in there over Christmas week.

Although this wouldn't normally be a problem, the room is currently serving as our temporary kitchen, not a fun place to cook Christmas dinner.

So most of last week was spent putting on a solid board and felt roof, even got me up there helping and I am not good with height, but needs must.

 This is the state the kitchen was in during the roof changing, yuk.  It decided to bucket down and everything got soaked. Of course the kitchen being a building site with bare barn walls, breeze blocks unrendered, and an old door as a worktop, doesn't really help.

The new roof is now leaking too, aaagggghhhh !!!

This weekend will be spent painting new roof with waterproofing stuff, not me though, oh no I've had enough, you'll find me in front of a log burner attempting to make a patchwork quilt.

I think I need a holiday :)

A halloween Party

I have been such a bad blogger recently, soo busy and no enthusiasm to post, but with the autumn weather and my new favorite season all that is gonna change, and to prove it I am committing myself to Vanessa's Halloween blog party over at a_fanciful_twist  to which you are cordially invited, and with less than 3 weeks to go I had better get my skates on, heehee.