Samhain 2024

Here's what is going on in the Great Hall in Hogwarts this Halloween👻💀 

Hope you have a great weekend.

Arilx

Hubble Bubble

 

Thank you so much for all your good wishes for the 'All Hallows' event. I am so pleased to say that the weather dried up for us and it all went off so well that we've already been asked to do it all again next year. We sold out quite a while ago, but there was huge demand for tickets still so I'd felt quite a bit of pressure these past few weeks. It's been all systems go this past few months as we also launched a brand new Viking story at the Butser Farm Equinox Boat burning we went to last month too. However, we have all lived to tell the tale. For me the magic was being up on top of the South Downs with the famous ancient Cissbury flint mines ahead of us and undisturbed Neolithic burials behind us as we called to the ancestors. Spine tingling stuff. 

Despite this being my working Monday I have still stumbled across my own little piece of magic today with this fabulous homemade Halloween decoration just round the corner of GBT. It looked even more spooktacular in the wind and rain❤

Arilx

Souling

 Whether you're a fan or not Halloween related talk abounds at the moment. Much of what we do now is imported from across the pond....when I was a nipper we did apple bobbing and maybe draped a white sheet over ourselves to turn ourselves into ghosts [homemade dressing up was very much the order of the day in the hard-up 1970s]. I'd never seen a carved pumpkin and we certainly didn't go to the bother of doing the same with a swede as our forefathers did....they're a devil to cut and take forever. In the main [bar the trick or treating which I personally detest] I enjoy it, but what I take from it is the focus upon the ancestors and where many of our own customs originated.

It has been a hectic time for Mythago this past few months as we've undertaken several new creative endeavours. The biggest project is tonight when we're holding our own All Hallows event. It's our first ever ticketed event and we shall be holding the fort for 2.5 hours. Part of what we're doing is reviving some of the folk practices which are in danger of dying out, so people will be able to take part in a call and response to the ancestors and we'll be introducing the new Hooden Horse as part of our soul caking ceremony. Many will rightly associate the horse with Kent, but it is very likely that similar would have happened here in Sussex. At the end of the day people will have marked this magical time using what they had lying around and animal skulls mounted on poles were common. You may never have heard of soul cakes Pre Reformation soul cakes were given to the poor, but in later years groups of children knocked on household doors and sang a song in exchange for one. The idea of the soulcake is that you break it in half...eat one portion and then leave the other piece out as an offering to the souls of the dead. Having eaten a few this past week or so they are absolutely delicious...bit like a rock bun, but more biscuit like in texture and form.

I am currently swinging between nerves and excitement....🤞. Wish me luck!

Arilx

Batty Scaremaker

 It was another of my precious Mondays off and I was due to be in London, but my lovely friend was called for a very important NHS appointment so understandably needed to postpone. Despite the weather not looking very promising I donned my waterproofs and boots and took myself and my inner four year old over to Nymans to enjoy their Halloween themed trail. Thankfully it's still term time here which just left me and a heap of toddlers spotting the spooky sites. As ever the National Trust staff have done a fabulous job and, as if all that excitement wasn't enough, I then decided to drive on to the next village because they always have a cracking new topper every time I get over there. I wasn't disappointed👻🦇❤👀💀😈

Having had a wild old morning I sat down like a sensible adult and got on with the tedious task of finishing my new dancing mask which I am delighted to report is now done thank goodness! 

Arilx

Traffic Cones

[Image from Pixabay]

For those of us who like a geeky fact or three an American street painter by the name of Charles Scanlan first came up with a prototype traffic cone in 1940. His motivation was to warn motorists of the wet paint upon the road and to prevent them from driving over it. By 1943 he had patented his design and ever since it's become an important part of road safety so much so that most of us probably don't give them a passing thought. The first ones were seen in the UK in 1958 when the M6 first opened.

For a brief period as a student in Winchester way back in the 1980s I may have had a traffic cone in my room....I may have had a couple of small sweet sherries one night and dragged the dratted thing back. I do vaguely remember that it was a lot heavier than I had expected it to be and it had a yellow flashing light on top [which is what happens when you remove such items from a road working site] which kept myself and my room mate awake a lot. It wasn't that long before we returned the wretched thing to where we had taken it from and there ended my brief flirtation with cone 'ownership'.

Fast forward many decades and I got far more excited than I should have done on one tedious car journey when we were stuck in a traffic jam on the motorway for there before me were not only orange cones, but to my delight I realised that sometimes they can come in other colours...that day I saw them in purple💜, green💚  and blue💙. Mr GBT is well used to my batty self by now, but even he was a bit perplexed by my excitement on this particular occasion. There had been no more thrilling cone encounters since then until recently when I saw this.....

If I say it was outside a very famous studio and shaped like a wizard's hat that might give you a clue as to where I went for my birthday treat at the the beginning of the month. Once I've rifled through the pile of photos I'll write up a post about my visit which I'm happy to do now Halloween is looming up fast on the horizon. In the meantime I hope everyone enjoys a peaceful weekend. I have some spooky plans of my own lined up👻

Arilx

"Rainy days and Mondays don't always get me down".

Am going for a slight twist on that famous Carpenters' song with today's twitterings. Yesterday's client was away so an additional day off....pouring here all day so what shall I do with myself. There are always chores to be done, but having decided that I'd done what I set out to do the walking boots and waterproof jacket went on and I went out to see what a rainy Monday might have to offer me

You may very well be wondering why on earth you're being shown a picture of a slug....I was very excited when I encountered this first thing lurking about in our compost heap. I believe it's a Green Cellar slug and rather a glamorous slug with those markings.

Despite it being sopping wet the colours really stood out on this foliage and the hydrangeas. Such vibrancy is one of the many reasons I love the season even if the weather doesn't always play ball.

I found a new topper....blackbirds, baby hedgehogs, cake, a frog and a witch. Indeed a Halloween tea party.

Anyone know what this three wheeler vehicle is? My knowledge only extends as far as the Reliant Robin and Google isn't being any help either. Looking back to last year I realise that I've actually featured this one before, but it was the colour of a tangerine last time I saw it! At least with such a striking pink you'd be able to spot it easily in the carpark.

With a few Aril pleasing things to spot upon my return I finally sat down and got on with painting my new Mythago mask. The old one has served me well, but there are cracks appearing and I fear that half of it may just fall away mid performance and leave me looking like I'm wearing one like in the Phantom of the Opera if I don't get on with it. I've been twonking about ignoring the new one for months now as I always get in a bit of a two and eight if I have to design and paint anything, but it wasn't as bad as I'd feared. Now it's done I can get back to reading the second Robert Galbraith book....am always fashionably late to the party, but am really enjoying the different side to J K Rowling's writing. 

As always this is nothing like the post I was supposed to be writing [well where's the fun in that], but sometimes it's fun to put out more of a natter for a change.

Speak soon.

Arilx

'I do like Mondays'

 Unlike the Boomtown Rats' song I most definitely do like Mondays. For the first time since lockdown I have now got my day off every other week back which I initially gave up to be able to give a new client a weekly slot back in 2020. My logic back then was that my work rota was bound to change again soon and that I'd get it back. However, I was wrong and it was only a matter of a few weeks ago that it finally happened, but where it used to be on a Tuesday it's now a Monday. Already I've used my time to get up to mischief with various friends [more plans are pencilled in] and even on the weeks that I'm still working I've taken to building in a small local detour sometimes to fit a quick spot of nosing around to get that off work feeling. If it all goes well, then the plan is that I will finish for good next summer, but for now I'm just enjoying getting a bit of practise in 👏👏

Seeing as the weekend is fast approaching these are a couple of highlights from my most recent forays....titter ye not😆

I have passed this road sign a few times, but have never worked out exactly where it was so it was a complete joy to happen across it very much by chance. A knob in this context is, of course, a small and roundish hill.....

You will be pleased to hear that I didn't encounter any scary hamsters on this particular Monday....am not entirely clear as to what the consequences might be if you do meet it🐹🐹

This sign is on the perimeter fence of the parish church in the local village of Shipley....it made me smile, but I have also seen the evidence for myself on previous visits if you leave the gate open as my final photo shows. Nowadays it's less of a problem because the graveyard has been closed off to our woolly ovine friends🐑 

No doubt there are very valid reasons for not letting the sheep in now, but I do rather miss them. Have a magical weekend.

Arilx