Hippy child & hedgehog invasion

A lazy day today, real lazy, I slept something like five hours longer than normal and didn’t realise the time at all when I woke up – it’s frustrating because I went to sleep four or five hours earlier than I normally do because I want to get into a new routine!  Ironic really!

Though I think I’ve caught the cold Paul and Henry has, as I am achy and bleh!

If I could dress however I wanted to today how would I?

A light cotton dress made useless by a hugely thick knee length fleece cardigan, white dress potentially and rainbow cardigan – I want to wear large beaded jewellery, so I would probably have three different length necklaces on, wooden beads with copper or brass and bracelets to match.

It’s not summer and it’s not a warm day, but I am crazy enough to wear sandals with this because I know I will be warm with that cardy. 

As lazy as I feel I’d actually make more effort with my hair today and have them done with curling tongs, so I have a cute but scruffy rainbow dolly look to me.

I may even do something I really love and wear one of my knitted plaits in my hair and maybe attach a couple of feathers to it.

Basically I want to look like a child from Peter Pan’s lost boys or like something that fell out of my all-time favourite TV series, The Tribe, today.

It’s an OK day to be gardening, dry at any rate – so I’d have probably have been out there today if it wasn’t for the bad neighbour.  Especially as I seem to have window trained a great tit to befriend me in the last few days, I have a feeling he’d actually sit on my lap or something if I were outside he doesn’t seem afraid of me when I am at the window and he has come up to look at me within 3 inches and I move and he doesn’t flinch.

As I said before, when it comes to wildlife, I am a bit of a Disney Princess.

Talking of which I had a dream last night that six hedgehogs came into the garden one after the other and walked into the house and wouldn’t leave and as I was trying to encourage them to get out, they hid.  When Paul felt that they can’t live in the house, he went to chase them out and as he did so they all slowly morphed into porcupines instead and aggressively tried to defend themselves from being man handled. 

Paul was so upset in the dream he phoned up a specialist to get rid of this very problem, the man came and said that the hedgehog/porcupine problem is down to him not remembering things for me and not taking care of me properly, so the porcupines are trying to fill in his duties.

Paul sarcastically said what like doing the washing up etc?  This made the entire four little baby porcupines become bigger than their largest parent and they all chased Paul – I don’t know what happened to Paul in the dream after that, but I was confused and went into the garden.

I nearly trod on a frog and the frog was sitting in a crack in the patio looking at me.  When the hedgehog/porcupine specialist came out into the garden and was on the phone to somebody – he then turned to me and said that someone special has arranged a party for me and that they are going to be coming soon.

I was confused because nobody visits us.

So, when people started letting themselves into my house to set up the party in the garden I was amazed to find loads of people there, mostly celebrities, like Queen, Whitesnake and a bunch of others.

I never did find Paul again in the dream.

I woke up when someone behind me kiss me on the cheek and cuddled me from behind, whilst Brian May was about to start on his guitar for me.

Weird dream, but fun!

I think that the hedgehogs is something to do with my inability to do art because of my art table being used for other things – hedgehogs are one of the main animals I tend to paint and draw with confidence.

Thanks for reading!

I trust wildlife

One of my crows died this morning, Kerr.

I heard a hullabaloo outside and looked out the window to see their offspring mourning on the grass verge and the rest of the murder in the sky trying to dive bomb away the local buzzard which was trying to swoop down to eat the remains.

I liked Kerr, he was quite old.

It’s odd it should happen the day after I was talking to Paul about how I haven’t seen Scruffy for weeks, another crow I like.  A female, her mate is called the Sentinel by me, as he seems to watch the house and me more than the others.

Barbar was really distressed.

I’ve lost two of my crows in a short space of time as well as a magpie, which I believed was killed by his own family.

He was a runt by comparison, I called him Rocky.  He would sit on the window ledge and was so tame I could nearly stroke him when the window was opened.  He had an obsession with a pebble that he carried everywhere with him, he was unusually thin and although he was about a year old – he was still being fed by his family, sometimes forcibly.  I think they killed him as he was a burden, he never grew up and he was quite strange for a magpie.

I miss him too.

I am silly like this, I get attached to the local wildlife and name them and I will try to tame them when they come into my garden and care for them. 

A few years ago Paul wanted to take me to live with him in Canada, but our plans fell through due to my ill-health.  He always said, he could imagine me on the porch surrounded by bears and raccoons and hand feeding them berries, treating them all like pets!

I actually think that would have happened too, if we had gone!

I am rather shamanic and very brave around all animals.

I have nearly touched a real live bear once too – they were passive, I got within two inches of their snout before their keeper stopped me in my tracks.  You see I had found a way through the bars of a zoo cage to touch them.  It was a friendly bear and it sniffed my hand and tilted its head like it was going to let me stroke it.  That zoo made renovations very quickly after this happened.

I had a deep sense of trust it wasn’t going to hurt me, because I could read its energy. 

But that’s just me, a feral creature in her own right with a deep understanding for nature; humans are far more dangerous than any bear!

All I think about is love, I send love to the animal, peace, I don’t have a fleeting feeling of fear at all – I feel happy, content, loving, peaceful and trusting and say over in my head like I am talking to the animal itself – I just want to share my love, I won’t hurt you, let me touch you. 

Thanks for reading!

Feet to source

It’s a funny thing being me, especially with the kind of past I have had and the kind of life I have lived – if you can call it a life that is…

Especially if you’ve read me for a while, you’d know my life has been a life of mostly isolation growing up and it wasn’t much better when I got away from my abusers, I had three years of true freedom before I became bedbound sick for a number of years.

You’d know too, that I am getting better, not spending so much time in bed anymore and I am able to do a little more for myself, such as exercise a little and today in particular was the first time I ever cooked anything since around 2017.  Nothing big, we have a lot of pecans going to waste as nobody but me seems to like them outside of a pecan pie – so I decided to get people eating them I’d make them into candied pecans.

To say I did it though feels wrong, as I had too much help from Paul; help I really didn’t need, but there you go – I don’t have the heart to tell people to go away I’m fine, especially when I know that its touchy for him when I say things like that.

It’s also difficult to do it effectively where you wouldn’t burn the caramel you’re making when he is standing in the kitchen like a saw thumb between you and the nuts, so you have to communicate to him to pass them – only he doesn’t – he puts them in for you, takes the spoon out of your hand and completes the rest.   Making me feel like a privileged child as I spoon it all out the pan whilst he holds it onto a baking sheet to dry – it’s lovely he wants to help me, but it’s frustrating too as I am trying to be more independent around the house so I can move out.

It wasn’t how I’d like to do the candied pecans either, we don’t have brown sugar and had to use white cane sugar instead, not the same; also there was no vanilla in the house.

A simple thing like making candied pecans in fifteen minutes is a battle for independence, I’d never thought I’d say that when I moved out of my mother’s in 2009.

Three years ago I used to love my garden, now I am getting to the subject that was the catalyst for this post; until the bad neighbour moved in next door and started sexually harassing me every five minutes, literally!  But of course there is no proof, no CCTV to show the police about it, so Paul just shrugs it off and does nothing – so the garden is no longer a haven or a means of exercise or joy for me anymore.

Paul hates gardening so he doesn’t really like just standing around like a sentinel scarecrow to make the guy keep away, because he won’t do anything when he knows Henry and Paul are around he is a coward!

I miss my garden a lot – my whole life I was raised in a garden, literally!

As a child I was sort of home-educated mostly between short bursts of mainstream schooling and when I wasn’t having the occasional lesson from my dyslexic mother, I would be bare foot out in the garden for hours on end, playing with the dogs, the neighbours cats and my rabbit.

The garden was my place, until my parents claimed it when I was around nineteen years old.  I grew things donated to me from lovely elderly neighbours who’d pass things over the fence to me for me to plant and care for, whilst telling me how to look after them.

Now you’d want to be deadheading those daffodils with a good pair of scissors, leave the foliage alone to die back naturally or the bulbs will be useless for next year!

Things like that.

My parents had a three room stone shed in the garden, they were big rooms too, and the middle room had its very own toilet, which meant I didn’t need to go indoors unless I was hungry or thirsty!

The room further into the garden was my dad’s shed for storing tools and lawnmowers etc. – but the room closest to the house was mine from late March to late October and was decked out like a Wendy House by me, I wanted a light out there but I wasn’t allowed, but I was gifted candles and matchsticks by people and sometimes used to sit in the dark windowless room by candlelight pretending it was my very own home!

I played in the garden all year around, but I lost my little house for those few months because it was a warmer place to store the rabbit – or so my parents said – out of the wind and all of that.

Paul was horrified that I had gardened so much and ran about barefoot, because I have never not even to this day ever had a tetanus shot!  My parents were anti-vaxers – I had my first ever vaccine two weeks after Henry was born, an MMR vaccine and I really should think about getting a tetanus shot someday too!

But until the bad neighbour moved in, I was out in the garden quite a lot and half of the time I was bare foot – I say half the time, because Paul was always moaning at me to put the shoes back on again as it isn’t safe… but I like feeling grounded to the earth and I am pretty sure it’s why I got sick – the lack of connection to the Earth, I was took from my feral habitat from a North London garden to the midlands where they wear shoes all the time!

I don’t think it’s good for me!

You can’t take a semi-feral nature’s child and put her in shoes all day and expect her to wear slippers even around the house, because of whatever nonsense notions you’ve got.  I like being barefoot and why can’t I be barefoot around the house? 

And what is wrong about dipping toes in the local lake, when you’re sitting on a pier watching the fish, swans and toads whilst you are scooping handfuls of birdseed into the beaks of ducks and geese?

Yes the water has algae but it doesn’t stick to my feet and its not toxic waste, so what’s the problem?  My Henry’s life is far too sanitary thanks to Paul and thanks to Paul; Henry has a phobia of all insects, dogs and soil!

Why soil, you may ask?  Because Paul has given him the misconception that all soil is some kind of poo or dead creature!  Enough to put anyone off touching soil with that tosh!

I feel so much like a fish out of water in this place you’d have no idea!

Yes, shoes are nice, I like shoes, in fact I am like a normal woman in regards to loving shoes and handbags and bracelets, more than any other fashion item!  Before poverty stepped in I had thirty pairs of shoes, I tend to buy for every kind of weather and every colour I can so I can match my clothing.

But its quite another thing to connect to the earth via your feet!

Also it’s weird wearing one colour entirely and then having completely different shoe colours – it’s ok if it is black, but if say you are wearing black and have red shoes that’s weird to me, or mostly brown dress and you have green shoes… to me it just feels wrong!  Unless you balance it off with the same colour hat or clutch!

But I digress… I have felt desperate for nearly three years to get into my garden to a cleared area and just stand there in my bare feet and soak up the energies of the Earth… especially since our house sits on top of an underground river, where my energies are regularly being taken down stream quite literally without any boost.

Despite how isolated I was growing up, I always had a strong connection to the Earth.  A feral child who practically learned the shamanic arts all by herself by sitting, observing nature in its entirety and befriending the wildlife like a Disney princess and absorbing everything… crazy I know, but I have a strong connection and understanding for animals and I believe they speak to me because I understand them… people laugh at me when I tell them that until they witness the most astonishing things!

You have bear and horse whisperers in the world; well I am one of those kinds of people, though I tend to whisper to everything… except most wasps, most wasps are highly strung creatures!

My neighbour in London thought we had a rabid squirrel once, when he was shrieking loudly clinging for dear life on the pebbledash walls of their house, screaming at our bedroom window – I explained no he isn’t rabid, he is just angry that it’s nearly 11am and I haven’t opened the window yet to feed him the peanuts I usually give him by 10am!

They laughed and called me crazy, so I told them, look up at the window now, I’ll feed him and he will be quiet until tomorrow… if I am late again he’ll scream, I will prove to you its why he is shouting – then the next day I will feed him the normal time and you won’t hear him at all.  They didn’t believe me until the squirrel reacted exactly as I predicted on all occasions!

The neighbour was amazed!  This same squirrel caused chaos for three months when I moved in with Paul, because for three months he was sure I’d be there and I weren’t.

Same here with Paul – my strongest spirit guide is a crow, raven or magpie in fact any corvid.  All of those communicate with me a lot and if they don’t see me for more than two days, it is like the owl scene from Harry Potter, only with crows and magpies around the house!

If I am going away for any length of time, I have to tell the local magpie or crows because of the chaos they will cause in the street I live if I don’t!

A crow saved my life once; I think I mentioned it in a previous post?  Funny really, because I’ve saved two in my life!

What’s even more funny is that it was only recently I was told by a fellow witch that crows symbolise the cross between alternate realities and worlds, I knew they were the keepers of secrets and messengers from the spirit realm, but I never knew they were known for flying between realities and that people who have them as their main animal spirit guide tend to be the strongest of shamans.

It would explain a lot really, as I am able to go into trances pretty quickly, my clairvoyance skills are very strong and I do live between realities a lot.  In fact, whenever I go into a new spiritual shop who don’t know me very well, the first thing the owners tend to say to me or other witches that are there is… you need to ground yourself love, we feel you’re not doing that enough!

That’s something a lot of people who knows me always think about me… you’re just not grounded enough, come back Tina!

There is a friend my mum had once who had a dog who was cared for by someone whilst she went on a holiday to Turkey, my friend wanted to know why her dogs behaviour had changed so much when she got back!  I did my usual, looked into the dogs eyes deeply and I said, “What’s got into you”?  He kicked me, she said through her eyes… I said this out loud and my mum’s friend screamed out WHAT?  WHO?  I said who?  She named the person, because apparently there were three carers she had on hand.  She named them; I didn’t know the person but told the friend.

The friend was amazed that I got this information from her dog and how the blazes do I know his name?

I just pointed at the dog and my mum shook her head and told her friend, she never lives in this world I’ve told you! 

Her friend always referred to me for spiritual readings but she was amazed I could communicate like that with her dog!

Crazy… maybe… but I have stunned a lot of atheists with accuracies and Paul is one of them – he is a hard-core atheist, but even he admits that he can’t deny the things that happen around the house since I moved in!

The problem comes with how busy I am, the more busy I am the more disconnected I am to the source where I am able to be like this!  I remember before I got sick, it was the least spiritual time of my life – I was walking around with shoes on most of the time because of Pauls concerns for my feet – and I was too busy with everything that I was doing to even meditate and then CRASH – I got sick and I don’t think it was a coincidence!

I need a good long holiday somewhere where there is a lot of wildlife and nature, somewhere I can walk barefoot whenever I like, sit on the ground and dip my toes in a natural spring or running water, breathe fresh air, meditate and away from human noise – talk to some animals and the ancestors of the earth, have lots of sex and reconnect to my source in a big way!

Yes sex is important… more important than you think!  LOL I run on tantric energy!

Despite this… it sounds like I love being a solitary creature doesn’t it?  But no, I hate it in fact!

For me living in solitude is like a toxin… I don’t get that buzzing feeling I usually get when I socialise… I recharge alone to some extent, but I don’t buzz and become fully charged in solitude… I am not like that!

As I once joked on here before, I have the life of some kind of yogi.

But that should really be taken quite seriously.

As I am getting older I am sticking more to my instincts and intuition more than what I read in books and I am getting stronger spiritually in myself.  This is being seen by quite a few people.

For example, most books told me to use white light healing around me – this actually makes me ill and it isn’t good for me, so I told the people who suggested this to me and they said it’s because I am blocking the spiritual power, let myself go and continue.  But I got sicker.

For me, when I was spell crafting it was always electrical blue light for magick and dense gold light for anything else… when I ignored the white light and went with dense gold, I got results!

So much so, that now when I think of the dense gold light, I am actually visibly turning gold by sensitive onlookers, which gets a lot of conversations starting up in spiritual shops I can tell you!

My Henry for example was very startled by this a few weeks back!

He never believed his mother is a former witch, until he saw that golden glow in my face and palms of my hands whilst I was trying to heal a wound of his with reiki.  Weirdly enough, that mark he had would have been on him for two weeks, if I hadn’t of used the reiki on him that I did – the mark vanished within hours!

This post is getting a bit long now so I think I will stop here…

Thanks for reading! 

Food sustainability

My relationship with food is awkward, because although I am a fat woman, I actually don’t eat all that much.

I like the idea of sustainability and eating locally grown produce etc. and I even like the idea of a predominantly plant based diet, though not entirely a plant based one.  But I can’t ever go full vegan even if I wanted to because of my health issues and that’s not a cop out!  I have a protein metabolism and I have intolerances to soy and mustard as it makes my spleen swell and become painful. I also cannot stomach a high fat or sugar diet.

I have heard this puts me potentially into the “Flexitarian” bracket if I could afford the diet change, but I really don’t know! I know right now, my finances could not support my body on a flexitarian diet as we’re struggling to eat full-stop right now.

My health has improved vastly since I have started to eat a minimum of 75g of protein per day, any less than this and the following day I have problems with pain and lethargy.

I understand that other than vitamin B12 there are many foods out there for vegans which will give me a high protein diet, I am very aware of what is available.  However, my other problem is, I am a person who cannot eat big meals and I cannot eat too frequently.  

What I am saying is, I struggle to eat in quantities, I can’t eat more than a sandwich in one sitting and I need to stay immobile twenty minutes after eating, so the idea of having seven meals per day to make up for it is not ideal – because I will spend half my day on my bum!

What is frustrating is, I love a lot of veg and salads – really I love it a lot!  But, if I eat that, I won’t be getting enough protein.  Because I can’t make it up with the soy, especially on my budget!

Because I love sustainability etc. and I have been working hard for the past ten years to get abundant knowledge about how to have a sustainable life, I have learned a lot.  Some people really believe veganism will save the world, I am not going to say anything against that other than this one thing…

The thing that is killing the world is a farming system known as “monoculture.”

What is that?

It is where farms only grow one to three crops on several acres of land without including anything beneficial to the local environment and its wildlife, whilst stripping the land bare at the end of the year.

Veganism will work in regards to the fact that there will be less pasture for the meat industry, but it doesn’t solve the fact of monoculture being used to grow vegetables and fruits, does it?      

Now, I am supporting you guys, believe me!

But a lot of people have a huge oversight on this matter.

What people need to do is make more farming suggestions along the lines of polyculture farming or most ideally, food forest farming – where at least you can still have meat in your diet if you are so inclined.  Because chickens and other poultry, like ducks, geese, and turkeys can live in a food forest and will help with pest control whilst maintaining natural biodiversity.

We were never meant to create monoculture farming, it is not natural and as you can see, it is very damaging to our environment. 

What we need are food forests. 

Because vitamin B12 is virtually impossible to get in a vegan diet outside of fortified cereals and without it can cause a lot of damage to people’s health in the long run – the idea of having a food forest where you have poultry is ideal.  You can just eat the free range eggs and don’t need to worry about the meat factor if you really are anti-meat.

Orchards can have certain other creatures in them; in fact in ancient farming we always did, it has only really been since the Victorian period that people moved further and further into monocultural design.

Polyculture is where you have a multitude of different plants and flowers in the area; only thing is you need to get rid of the social mind-set of perfect food.  Food is food; it doesn’t have to be perfect, it doesn’t have to conform to a standard, just be edible!

It’s not our diets that have to change its our mind-set and our food industry that has to change, it has to be designed better, going back to basics, going back to polyculture and food forestry and becoming organic. 

Biodiversity is key to our survival and you are not going to do that with modern monocultural farming.

Another thing that is destroying our world is the idea of digging – I am a no dig gardener and that means I am a gentle gardener who understands that it’s not just what grows above the soil we need to care for, but what happens beneath it too!

The microorganisms that are in the ground are key to our soils health and the health of our soil will also improve the fertility of our land and our crops, making our food industry produce on average 10% more yields than those farms and gardens that dig.  Sometimes as much as 20% has been recorded!

I have learned all of this with the years of research I have been doing and through books written by various people, but most notably Charles Dowding. 

Another factor to our climate crisis is the trade industry – though it’s great for our economy it is not environmentally sustainable.  Though our diets need to be very diverse, it is nonetheless killing our planet.  You need to eat locally grown foods and I know I don’t practise what I preach here, because I am a huge lover of exotic fruits, vegetables and spices.  I eat a banana a day and they certainly don’t grow in the UK.

So with that being said – I can cope with a largely plant based diet as long as I can still eat in small quantities and still maintain a minimal protein intake of 75g per day – but I can’t go full on vegan.  I believe chickens can actually save the world!

Thanks for reading!

The wonders of technology

I have been learning a lot about what to do with the technological gadgets I have; I have always had various social media accounts, but never really got to grips with how to make the most of them.

I have only just realised that the “notifications” I get in twitter are not all messages the public give to me, but are actually random posts from people or subjects I follow.  It was very confusing for me for a lot of the time and my wires got crossed a lot!

I have since learned how to tell if something is actually for me or a random public post and it has destressed me a lot!

One thing I am still not clear on in regards to twitter is how to reply to thank someone for retweeting something without having to go to their actual profile page to do so?

I didn’t fully understand the value of twitter as a writer until recently either.  I was always told that as a writer you need a social media presence, but I didn’t understand why.

I realised it’s not all about self-promotion at all, like I was told by other writing friends – It’s all about your personality and who you are.  It’s fascinating to think that I have gained over sixty followers this past week, purely on a heated topic I took part in earlier this week on twitter about gender identity.

I really didn’t think that people really cared about a writer until they’ve read copious amounts of their work and then decided to become a fan.  I didn’t realise in this day and age, your personality accounts for a lot.  People are really into this “influencer” ideology and I have been behind the times for years it seems.

It’s opened up a whole new world to me, I didn’t know this was a thing until I actually bothered to research all this stuff as I am preparing myself for a career in art and writing and I am taking it all very seriously!

I was distraught the other day when I learned that Goodreads was taking away their ability to recommend books to friends option – but then, when mooching around the site I found that there are three little buttons at the top of every book I’ve read where you can share your book on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest; why get upset then?  I can merely click one of those buttons and do it another way anyway!

Although I had a Pinterest account, I had never really wanted to use it as a proper social media until Goodreads took away the recommendations options.  I have made new boards on Pinterest about the kinds of books I read, so my followers can go there and have a look and perhaps get inspired to read something that inspired me.

I have since learned that Pinterest can be monetised without ruining your follower’s relationships and it will earn you a passive income – this is something I will delve into more deeply later on in the month, to see if it’s something I may or may not do.

I have had an Instagram account for a few years now and have never posted a picture on it – but again I learned it can be monetised without affecting follower relationships too, again earning you a passive income each month.  I got an Instagram account because I was friends with a lot of artists who wanted to share their artwork with me and a couple of relatives who like to show their holiday pics up there too.

I have wanted to start doing short poems, art and wildlife photography to put up onto Instagram, maybe with a few inspirational quotes as well?  But not sure when I will take the plunge on that yet! https://www.instagram.com/tardycreative/

I will share my profile from Instagram but you will see its empty more or less.

I am @CreativeTardy on twitter these days.

My Pinterest is https://www.pinterest.co.uk/naturescreativecomrade/ it is called NaturesCreativeComrade because that is my account on google and will be the name of my up and coming YouTube channel.

I bought the webcam and microphone a year ago and still haven’t learned how to set it up; I really ought to get around to it! 

Why did I choose that as my YouTube name?  Because my YouTube channel is going to be about my journey as a writer and an artist, but also a gardener and wildlife photographer; I will also include pet care in the videos.  Writing is not my primary focus on this channel – it will be about my relationship with nature and how it inspires me to become creative.

I focus a lot of my gardening on permaculture, polyculture, food forest, no dig ideologies and completely 100% organic, I heard the bad neighbour is moving by the end of summer, so hopefully I can get back out there – saving the world starts at a garden a time, after all!

Thanks for reading!

The ramblings of a march hare

People say I am mad, and then I tell them they are probably right because my family herald has a hare holding a basket of red roses. 

I have never really particularly liked hares as a wild animal and never really disliked them either, yet they remain a major prominent influence in my life.

One of the stories I am working on has a hare as a main character and although they are very different animals, I have almost always had a pet rabbit.

As I am getting older, the hare is becoming more and more significant in my life and like the hare, in recent years; I have felt like running to the hills.

Last weekend I had finished a book about hares by John Lewis-Stemple called “The private life of the hare” and I realised that perhaps, unbeknownst to me all this time, the hare could have been the missing totem animal I had all along, as my behaviour is very much like a hare!

You see, I used to be shamanic, saying that is rather funny, because once you are a shaman, you never really not one ever again.

I knew that as a shaman you generally have three major totem animals and two temporary ones that come and go, or sometimes, in rare people, you have five all the while, I knew four of my animals, but the fifth one was always a mystery to me – I generally thought it must be some kind of animal I have never been acquainted with before or something I knew nothing about!

It could be a hare…

I don’t know, but my behaviour and the behaviour of the hare are very much alike, it wouldn’t be surprising at all.

I do know, that cows adore me and I am naturally very maternal to anyone I meet; I am very motherly and very nurturing.  But cows are only my second animal.  My shadow animal has been wild boar or pigs, for a while it was weasels, but it is mostly porcine animals these days.

But yes, as times goes on, the hare is becoming more significant in my life.

Thank you for reading!

Increased productivity

Since learning that ideas and character names cannot be copyright protected and that generally creative license as long as your idea is as unique it can be is unlimited in reality, I have found that I am starting to write at my old pace again.

This is exciting, because I used to be a workaholic in regards to my daily word count and the amount of projects that I used to do!

In the past eight to ten years I have been very stunted as far as creativity goes, because of false information that was given to me from non-professional sources.  I have in that time been unable to produce more than say, twelve thousand words per week and I could only concentrate on around three ideas at a time and I completely gave up the idea of short stories and articles because of this!

Now, I am back to my old self again and it has only been two days now!

I am now writing towards a vast array of projects once again and I am thinking about restarting my short stories for my blog again soon and I may even start up my online magazine articles again!

I used to write a lot for online magazines and article websites a decade ago, but due to fear of coming across as a rip off from similar subjects by other people I stopped!  I never outwardly copied another person, but the subject matter may have been similar.  For example, back in 2009 I read an article about the increasing population of wildlife in urban areas and I did an article based on foxes in urban areas in particular.  This had no backlash, but I was riddled with guilt for a while over it and a friend back then, suggested that I was copying too many themes from others (not theirs)!

I told them that although wildlife in urban places is a shared theme, it was not a direct copy because our subject focuses within our articles were very different, but she made me feel that it was too obvious and noticeable, though it was only in our minds at the time, for nobody else suggested otherwise.

I should have listened to an older friend of mine, who is more professional in the article writing industry that what she said was nonsense and there was a defined difference between each of our articles and that it was clear to him! 

These articles were non-profit anyway, but my female friend made such a do about it, that I decided to stop.

She even affected my ability to produce wildlife photographs too, because again, she claimed that my wildlife images, although I took them myself with my own camera, looked too much alike to other professional photographers that I would be in the same situation even there!  That in her opinion, I would find it very difficult to prove that my photograph is not the same as their photograph.

Paul being a professional photographer in the past said to me this is utter tosh and that I can of course prove it because of the time stamp on my camera and on the memory chip!  My friend retorted and suggested that those things can be easily faked or photo shopped!

Paul didn’t want me to give up my photography and articles, but I did anyway, as I was getting a bit too stressed out by all of it and other personal things in my life at the time!

But now, because these things are now confirmed or dismissed by professional friends I have been making it has lifted a huge burden from my creative shoulders.

Honestly, overnight my depression has lifted by at least 50%!  The tension in my back is much less; it is so weird how some kind of belief like this can actually physically manifest itself on your body like this!  I am beginning to wonder if some of my health may actually improve now, because of this too?

Hope so!

So it has only been around two days since I learned this and my writing amount has increased dramatically.  In the past two days I have written approximately 6k of words towards projects, a nearly a 5k increase to my usual amount when trying to work hard, from how I have been for the last five years in particular! 

Anyway, Happy reading all!

Poetry sneaks in

I know I write poetry and this blog used to be known for that; but I seldom read poetry personally.  I read Byron, Christina Rossetti, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Wilfred Owen, Pam Ayres and silly kid stuff like Spike Milligan and Dr Seuss; but generally, besides these, nothing else. 

I read Wilfred Owen purely for GCSEs and I think I have read some of Sylvia Plath too, but those were for studies only. 

I have been recently reading a lot of country and wildlife journals and I keep seeing another poet mentioned a lot in there with quotes; this has spurred me onto wanting to read more of him and I got Paul to get a book from the library for me of him.  “John Clare”, this could be a new influence if I am honest.

Also I consider Neil Gaiman to be a poet too; I love some of his short stuff sometimes more than his long stuff, he is another influence of mine.

Upon reflection, I think perhaps I read more poetry than I take for granted.  A lot of the novels I love are crammed packed with verse and rhymes, like Alice in Wonderland etc.  See poetry sneaks into funny places; it’s easy to take advantage of it and not notice it when it wafts in front of your face.  Anyone who says they are not particularly fond of poetry are liars, even street gangsta types and chavs who gets embarrassed by the notion that they even pick up a poetry book – sorry to say it to you guys, but you love poetry.  Every song is a poem and that means rap IS poetry too!

See the world with fresh eyes and you will see it’s so true!

Happy reading!

What is luxury to me?

I have always loved reading books about cosmic ordering and creating your own reality and yet still I haven’t mastered my own mind enough to make the realities I want – happen.  I am not at all surprised at my financial status for two reasons, I am sick and don’t work and therefore live on benefit handouts, I do try and do something to help change this, but sometimes it can become too much to handle with all the daily symptom managing – also I am not at all surprised at my financial predicament because of another matter… the fact that I find money one of the biggest evils in the world, so therefore, it keeps away from me because of that mind-set.  Well that is what cosmic ordering experts would say anyway.

So it is my own fault for two reasons.  One I believe that money is a source of evil and two I am too sick therefore can’t work, therefore the universe adds more sickness to keep me in that reality.  It is pretty screwy stuff, but I actually believe it to be true, which makes it all the worse for me I guess?

I am in what I call a ground-hog day of sickness and poverty and I have the knowledge that my own beliefs can change that.  So, why can’t I favour money in a more benign light?  Because I would be lying to myself, that is why and for me, lying to my-self is an even worse evil.

I have always been by nature a very philanthropic person, therefore I have tried to think about who could benefit from my future wealth, when I get it?  There is always someone in need and I always want to help, but I am not a sucker for a sob story unless there is evidence for it first.  So I have tried to concentrate on benevolence regarding money, because as evil as money is, in the current social climate it can be a blessing for many.  I have another belief about finances too, whether or not it contradicts my former belief that money is evil or not, remains to be seen.  But I have always lived by this financial code of conduct (before benefits came into my life) that 33.3% of my earnings go to me and my needs, this includes bills and essentials and fun, 33.3% goes into savings and 33.3% is invested in some way.  Now to me an investment doesn’t have to go towards a personal gain for me, it can be an investment for a charity of which I will not benefit from – to me, it is a social investment, bettering the society I live in, I deem an investment.  Not many people can understand where I come from stating this, but to me it is quite simple, the more money you put into your local charities and amenities, the more you will benefit and future generations will benefit.  It is a shame people recoil so much from taxation and donating, they just don’t see how it can benefit their local area, and they can only see what benefits them, unfortunately they don’t always see it as a positive circle which could include them eventually.

Currently we live in a world where the idea of a no money system is a non-starter; as much as I hate it, I have to come to terms with it and work out a system for my-self which will make me and others around me happy.

I have never really wanted huge extravagances, but I have wanted comfort and happiness – I mean, who doesn’t?

To me a luxurious life would come across very basic, plain and simple to a lot of people of today.  My main desires for a happy and indulgent life is determined by how big a piece of land is that I will personally own in order to grow my own food, raise my own chickens and geese, build an adventure playground for my children, entertain guests with lovely BBQs or alfresco dinner parties, a very large area for rewilding, as I love wildlife and want to save it.  I have thought if I ever became rich that I would buy woodlands just to make them a nature reserve, stopping logging companies and housing from using the land. 

For me a luxurious life means I would be able to afford natural fibres for my clothing, I dislike all the plastic in my clothes.  I would be able to afford a very healthy allergen free semi-paleo diet – why semi-paleo?  I like legumes; I like vegan cheeses and gluten free grains that’s why.

My idea of true happiness is the ability to care for animals too.  To have the pets that I desire, though I will not be one of these horrific pet hoarders like most people who know me personally think I could be if my finances were better, I am not like that; I will never take on more than I can manage.  Despite my dreams about running a small holding or a farm, I know and realise it is just a dream, even for when I am better off, because I know my physical limitations, and unless I can afford staff to help me run things, then I can’t live exactly how I want to.

For me, luxury is being able to go out to town and choose something to eat without worrying about the cost.  Without worrying that my trip to town on a bus and a lunch would actually take half of my week’s food bill away – which it currently does, hence why I rarely see the doctor, despite needing to see them more often than I do.

Luxury also means that a zoo trip won’t be negotiated with Henry about whether or not, if we go to the zoo, we may not be able to go to the Severn Valley this year or have a birthday party, and to me luxury would mean that we can do it all that year and go to other places too, such a beach – we’ve never been to a beach as a family before.  I haven’t been to a beach since I was fifteen years old!  I have only visited the beach twice in my entire life!

I have never had a proper holiday, the only thing that came close to it was a four day camping trip in Yorkshire with some spiritual friends, but that is the only real holiday I have ever had.  I am curious about a few places in the world, but I wouldn’t say I have a strong desire to travel; I am very boring regarding this.  I get home sick by day four; I can’t be away from home for more than four days at a time.  I am a home stayer and lover.  For some reason people think this makes me a recluse?

Unfortunately the places I would like to go to are so remote, it will take four days to get to them, I have researched, and so by the time that I would have got to those places, I would be pining for home again.  I find it a struggle to be in hospital for more than three days.  I know that isn’t exactly a holiday, or a hotel, but the ten day stay at hospital when I was having Henry was very emotionally difficult for me that they felt the depression was postpartum and very nearly kept me in longer because of it, until I had almost broken down and burst into tears explaining how I have never coped being away from home for too long.  Then they had to release me.

I think I know why I am like that.  In my past when I have been away from home for more than four days, I have come home to big changes that were always uncomfortable.  Also after around two weeks of being somewhere something strange happens mentally, where I feel like that new place is a new home and unless I leave that place quickly, I will start to pine for that too.  There are many places in the UK I pine for, even to this day, because of stays longer than four days.  Not holidays, family visits that were prolonged.  I don’t include a six week stay in Cheshire with an aunt as a holiday, funnily enough.  As a child being sent to this person and that all the time for varying lengths, I guess I have a nomadic heart, but I have always been bought back to base as it were.  I get itchy feet, but I don’t like to stay away for long.  It is all rather difficult to explain.

But generally the longer I stay somewhere the more I will pine for my actual home, then the longer I stay in that place, the more likely I will start to pine for that, like home.  Basically going somewhere new will be difficult for around ten to fifteen days, and then I readjust and think that this new place is another home.  I have homes everywhere in my head, but none of them are actually my homes.

Shrugs* I am mad I guess?

But yes, I miss a lot of places.  I miss a few places in London – Burnt Oak, Hammersmith, Hendon, Brent Cross, Wembley, Barnet, Finchley, Whetstone, Enfield, Northolt, Kingsbury, Edgware, Portobello Road, Camden Town, Kentish Town, Swiss Cottage and Kensington.  I miss Luton (I know who misses that?  Well – me), Dunstable, Aylesbury, Leighton Buzzard, Wickford, Basildon, Margate, Crewe, Leeds, Market Drayton, Telford, Manchester, Halifax, Sheffield, Sunderland, Scarborough, Derby, Seven Sisters, Maidstone, Barnstaple, Battle and whatever that little village on the Welsh border was (I never knew I was a kid when I was there for a while) same as a small village in the Scottish Highlands too, Crawley, Radlett and Slough.  Imagine if I did have houses in all those places, I would need to be rich just for them!  It would be ridiculous to purchase houses in places like these though and selfish.  But for me there would need to be three homes in specific locations, because of how long I know I would stay in specific areas for, because to me they are too much like home.  A house somewhere in Barnet or Hammersmith & Chelsea, London; and a house somewhere in West Yorkshire or Cheshire, as well as something suburban or semi-rural around Rugby, Warwickshire.  I could stay at either of these areas until I start pining for the other, then, instead of constantly pining for places I can’t even afford to visit for the day, like I do now.

I make do with wherever I am put though.  I get on despite my pining’s.  I don’t mean to sound depressing or down-hearted, but I have got used to disappointments and discomfort, as my mother always made sure I never felt settled in any regard in life.  Therefore, she has made me resilient to change and adaptable to most hurtful and life changing situations – by making certain things happen so regularly I eventually became numb to certain types of sentimentality.  In a bad way too, in one particular thing; that I have learned that nothing is permanent, I must always expect things to change drastically and quickly, things such as people dying.  Don’t get too attached to organic things such as people or animals, because they can die.  I will mourn an animal more readily than a human, despite how much I may deeply love that human and I have always been afraid of losing Paul or Henry, because, I am not known to cry for human passing’s.  It could be because my mother was very aloof about it all when I was growing up and if I was to shed a tear she would berate me and make me feel humiliated for being sad about a person’s death.  It could also be because I am clairsentient, a strong clairvoyant.

I don’t usually talk about that part of me.  It weirds people out, but it is a true part of me.

Some people when they die can take ages to visit in the spirit world, some people don’t understand that.  There is a cleansing process for spirits when they first die, some can visit us literally within minutes of dying because they don’t have that much baggage, others can take years before they start visiting the living again.  My grandma, Dolly, took nearly nine years before she started visiting me, whereas grandad only took a few weeks.

But generally to me, luxury is comfortable natural fibre clothes, the ability to travel across the UK whenever I like without financial strain, to eat a healthy diet, to have a lot of family time, gardening organically and for wildlife on a large scale, the financial ability to fund continued learning in desired subjects, charities and pets.  That’s all I really want.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Considering non-fiction

A common piece of advice in the writing world is “write what you know” and although I do like to write a lot of things for research and so forth I have never really completely considered writing non-fiction before, but now I feel I would like to, for magazines eventually.  I have contemplated writing for a couple of specific hobby magazines because I have extensive knowledge on their main subjects.  I am going to list what I feel I know a lot about here and I may or may not share posts in the future of these subjects just to give you a taste of what I know.

Gardening

More specifically no dig, organic, permaculture, poly-culture style gardening.  This also includes wildlife gardening and creating mini-ecosystems, building a pond and dry stone walling.

I am also very knowledgeable in wild food foraging, where plants originated from and native British species, this also includes an interest in garden ornithology, and I wouldn’t say I am a bird watcher, but I pay too much attention to the wildlife and bird life within my own personal property that I have gotten to know their numbers as well as their habits.

I would also say that regarding garden pests and flora disease I am also a very knowledgeable biological warrior, using only nature against nature, nothing man-made, to benefit my plant-life, this means I will sometimes grow things I don’t specifically want, simply to provide my garden what I call “Sacrificial” plants.

Along with this I have had an avid interest in flora folklore/superstitions and ancient medical uses and my flora Latin is quite good, almost Carol Klein like.  I keep up to date with the gardening world as much as possible and before my health and benefit cuts happened I was a subscriber to four of Britain’s most renowned gardening magazines amongst other magazines I was interested in – bit of a magazine addict I was/am.

I have a huge amount of experience gardening a lot throughout my life (not professionally) but in the past three years specifically it has been only in dribs and drabs and the garden is looking a mess to put it lightly, namely because of health complications.

American professional wrestling between the years 1990 and 2003

I was an addict of watching wrestling when I was 10yrs old right up until I met an ex-boyfriend who didn’t approve of how much I loved wrestling.  I watched every kind of wrestling that was available to me, I bought every VHS and DVD I could afford at the time and I was even planning to go to America to learn how to wrestle – upon reflection it is a good thing I didn’t considering my career would have been over aged 30 because of these health problems!  I read a lot of wrestling magazines and body building magazines because I was so into it, then aged 21 I kind of grew up and loss contact with wrestling almost completely until last year.  I now sparsely watch TNA and AEW.

I am not sure I could write very much about what I knew from that long ago because it would be considered too ancient for anyone to care, I suppose?

Dogs, dog breed histories and dog training and grooming

I have been considered by people who know me as being the female British version of Cesar Milan as I seem to be a dog whisperer and have helped several people understand their dog’s behaviour!

I know it sounds absolutely awful but a few weeks ago on TV there was a show on it called train your baby like a dog and I have to say it is absolutely true – I see no difference whatsoever in training a dog than I do a baby and vice versa, it is very similar!  Every social creature has an innate desire to become dominant within its social circle and this usually is the worst during infancy, every social creature eventually learns through infancy and good guidance from its elders that it has to follow rules or there will be ramifications, it is not different to humans at all.  Humanity has to get over this silly idea that humans are different to animals.

You get a neglected child and they tend to grow up off the rails and they attack authority at all costs in many cases, you get a well nurtured child and they are more likely to fall in line and be a good citizen.  I know from personal experience not every child who is neglected grows up to become an anarchist, because not every child in the world has the desire to control others.  Children like I was simply wanted the world to be a lovely peaceful place and this in turn, made me quite a submissive and quiet individual.  My brother on the other hand was the type to go off the rails and fight authority all his life.  My other brother was nurtured pretty well because he was a love child and was wanted, unlike me and the other brother, consequently he is a neutral person who has a good relationship with his mother and is socially stable with very little emotional problems.

It is the same with dogs in my opinion.  You nurture that dog like it is your personal baby and depending on how much discipline you demand of it, it will either take advantage of you and become a nasty biting little dog, or it will grow up a stable individual who loves his mama and will obey at all costs.  By discipline I don’t mean shout and yell or kick and hit, that is disgusting behaviour which will eventually become a habitual behaviour in whatever creature you are nurturing as it will become a normality for them.

With a dog, like a baby and a toddler you command and teach with as few words as possible that you repeat regularly so not to confuse them, so it sinks in and you give them infinite patience no matter how you feel.

Superstitions and folklore around the world including cryptozoology

I have had a massive interest in all things supernatural and all things strange and unknown since I was around seven years of age.  I have studied extensively as many books on the subject as possible, particularly witchcraft and vampires, but there has been other creatures and situations I have been interested in hugely.  I have also been interested in peasant folklore and their beliefs, such as talking to the bees, bowing and saluting magpies and being aware of what colour and type of flower you bring to a person or a house.  I am interested in the Victorian art of the language of flowers, something I should have mentioned above in the gardening section.  I have been gifted beautiful bunches of flowers and often hide a laugh behind my polite thank you smile, when I notice I have been gifted red and white lilies as in some superstitions around the world red and white denotes death as well as lilies being the flower of death.  I don’t hold with the superstitions myself, but I love learning about them.  For example, I have bought lilacs and hawthorns into my home as part of my cut flower display for the dining table, many superstitious people would say that my health is my own fault then, because those plants bought into the house will make the head of the house sick and even kill them within a couple of months.

World History primarily European and Chinese history

This is another subject that I am interested in, particularly my own personal genetic history and the history of aristocrats, royalty and gypsies, also ancient warfare and combat.  The history I am interested in is vast, I also love reading about architecture too and fashion from the ages.  I have a lot of useless information in my head if I wasn’t a writer, but as I am a writer these so-called useless bits of information that seem to serve no purpose are actually polished gems which will help me create real feeling worlds in my novels.

Food is another interest of mine

I am knowledgeable in vegan and vegetarian dishes (but not a vegetarian or vegan myself), the paleo lifestyle and the diet known as The Wahl’s Protocol, Mediterranean diet, Indian and Chinese diet, as well as desserts and pies and so forth.  I love cooking and baking, sugar crafting and making homemade sweets, cakes etc. you name it, I love it.  Despite my allergies, which adds another skill to my list, all these things above I can do gluten and lactose free!  I don’t just research recipes and share them either, I am so interested in the world around me and how to keep healthy (because let’s face it I need to try and stop being ill) that I can tell you the sorts of vitamins and minerals you will find in each piece of food you eat as well as tell you the best way to grow it and it’s best companion plants in the garden to grow it next to and the type of soil it needs for the highest of nutritional benefit!

I make compotes, jams and chutneys, soups, pies, pastries, cakes, bread, I am just very versatile in the kitchen, but I must warn you… I am one of these strange people in life who can’t do anything simple like omelettes or frying sausages, without burning them or myself, the more complicated the recipe, the better I am!

Chickens too

Yes you heard it; I am knowledgeable about keeping chickens and how to keep them healthy, including any plants you must avoid around them and using their chicken manure as well as making excellent homemade chicken stock and soup.

Gemstone healing

I used to be into this big time, but lately I am so ill with so many things going on that unless I lay down for three hours a day I really don’t benefit much from these anymore, simply because I can’t lay down for more than 3 minutes on a bad day without choking.

But the stuff I know seems to work for others.

Religion and religious history from around the world

Despite being renowned as a person with humanist leanings and having no precise religion, I am actually quite obsessed about learning about religion in all its forms and researching intensively.  I don’t have a religion because I don’t like to commit to something which could actually be what I call a “deceivers religion”, I am paranoid about getting it wrong.  In a lot of my research material I have discovered amazing things that have surprised me so much I have been absolutely stupefied at how little so-called pious people know about their own faith and its origins.

I try not to preach to people when religion is bought up (only inform so they can make their own decisions about things) but I am shocked about how little they know of their own faith, it is hard, but I have made a point that as far as religion and politics are concerned, I can air my beliefs online on social media but I will not engage on any debate about it, because once you commit to something like that, it will become a never ending argument as neither side tends to relent.  For some religious people, when I simply state “each to their own and lets agree to disagree” they simply won’t leave it at that.  I have extensive knowledge of Judaism, Catholicism and Christianity in all its forms as well as Hinduism and Buddhism; I haven’t much knowledge just yet on Islam or Sikhism unfortunately.  But I also know a lot about ancient religions such as Norse, Greek, Roman, Egyptian and especially Sumerian beliefs.

It is interesting to read the origin of Christianity too; a lot of the original beliefs are not upheld in Christian communities of today, a Christian from the time of Christ’s death around the time it first started, would have a problem digesting a lot of what goes on in Christian communities of today.

For me personally God is gender-less, they do not have a name simply as being known as a creator or more specifically the creator, I cannot give them an image nor assume that they are in human form just because I am, I will not presume what he deems is good and evil, but I do believe he will give me the innate instinct of knowing what he thinks about certain things I am pondering before I do them.  If I think I would feel bad or remorseful after doing something, I generally consider that as a sign I must not do it and I have had this belief for nearly 18yrs.  It is naughty to presume anything about God or the creator, no one must think they can speak for him or make laws based on what they believe he wants – because I do also believe there is a deceiver who works against the truth and that is the evil in the world.  If anything hurts or kills or hates or does anything remotely negative, it has been influenced by the evil in the world or the deceiver as I call them.  I will also state that I do believe billions of people can be wrong, because billions of people can be duped, look at the concept of fake new for one thing – fake news is not new.  I must admit I have been planning a book on this, but I am scared I will become the new Salman Rushdie with death threats and so forth.  Paul believes he has never met a more pious person in his life, pious but without religion, pious but without an explanation to the world and he would never dare call me religious in a mainstream sense, because that would be very wrong, there is no religion in the world which is remotely pure enough that it cannot be tainted in some way and I believe I am by far from perfect, no one can be perfect in a world where evil resides so freely.

Some people in the past have considered me to be a Satanist, simply because I quoted something that Satan was reputed to have said once.  I am trying to remember the source where I read it from, but he was quoted in saying “I do not hate God, but I hate the God of man”, which in my opinion tells me a lot, it tells me that the God of man is what man has made for himself either by humanities own design or by the design of a great deceiver, which also shows me that Satan is not someone who is at war with God if I were to believe the Judo-Christian concept – it means there is a different devil at work, someone who has cleverly kept his name unknown and has spread bad media against those of the truth, whilst endeavouring over the centuries to conceal, hide and destroy the truth, to confuse humanity with false knowledge.

It is very deep stuff, but it is worth thinking about.

I believe wholeheartedly that there is a balance in the universe and at present the balance is tipping hither and tither good and evil, there is definitely a power struggle and I have no idea why humanity is key in it all nor whether or not humans are the only creatures on earth who have a religion, because I am not Dr Doolittle.  But we can’t presume that animals don’t have a religion no more than we can presume what the truth is.

You can find the truth in a lot of lies, because a liar can never remember their own lies and will often slip up.  If you read many conflicting religious ideas over the centuries you do begin to see a pattern of both inconsistencies and consistencies.

I know I am religious in my own way because five years ago a person in the street yelled next to me at some Jehovah Witnesses in Birmingham this “God is dead”! and for me, that was a knife through the heart and stomach and it made me feel quite ill, it affected me badly enough that Paul had to stop me ranting at them about how wrong and evil they were to state it.

I know some of my poetry seem to attack God directly, but you have never asked which God I am writing about.  Usually when I write about God so venomously I write about the God of man or the deceptive God and I will tell you something extraordinary and you may not be inclined to believe it.  But when I was 25yrs old I spoke a lot about my beliefs on four religious and spiritual forums and I was researching for the truth, I discovered many things, many so-called secret societies and secrecy in general, I was shocked to find in my private message box, a message from the Vatican telling me that what I say may or may not indeed be true, but I must stop talking about it, lest I have problems from them.  Thinking nothing of it, for a short while in my life I noticed I was stalked, primarily by priests and nuns which is unnerving and a strange coincidence.  When I decided to stop vocalising about it all, they stopped following me.

Now is this a coincidence?  I was never really sure.  But it is food for thought.  Coincidentally, seven people I knew from the forums that refused to be quiet on the same subjects, died in accidents in less than two years after my silence and a further two people were arrested for apparently nothing and was never released, weird enough their families and friends are unable to visit them which has caused big stirs with the authorities.

It is a strange world out there, stranger than you think and more secretive and deceptive than you think.

Arts and crafts

I have a  broad scope of knowledge regarding arts and crafts, from doing 1000 piece puzzles, to knitting, sewing, embroidery, decoupage, greeting card making, scrap-booking, felt making, making Christmas and Halloween decorations, you name it, I have probably done it for a time. 

Learning languages and having an interest in the origins of words and names

For some of my friends I can come across as a bit of a Susie Dent from Countdown to them, I will explain the name and origins of their chosen names for their babies and I will bring up words they’ve never heard of before because they have recently been removed from the English dictionary and I am vainly trying to popularise those words so that they can get back into the dictionary once again.  I had a huge debate three weeks ago with a bunch of online friends about the new username I have on a game site we use, the word was Eventide, a lot of people misunderstood this as being Eve as in Adam and Eve and some others thought what does ide mean?  Because they thought I meant event ide as some thought perhaps I loved fishing!  Well no, eventide is old English for evening and they can’t understand why I just didn’t name myself Evening instead.  How boring.  A lot of people are forgetting the use for the words dawn and dusk and even twilight, you say the word twilight now and they instantly think shitty teen vampire movie.  Twilight by the way is my most favourite time of the day, it is so beautiful sometimes and I have often thought about naming a daughter Twyla because of it, though the meaning of the name Twyla is old English for two or double, usually given to a twin daughter a lot like the name Thomas for boys, which also means twin.  I know quite a bit of Latin, I am currently a level 3 Italian students, fluent in French, tourist ability in Japanese and Spanish and I have learned excellent methods of learning languages at an incredible speed.  If I practise a language an hour a day I am usually fluent within the year at most, regarding languages I am a fast learner, astute, adroit, you name it!  It can be difficult to speak in all the words I know because I still have that working class way inbuilt into me, but I can shift the manner of which I speak very well to whomever I am talking to at the time.  I don’t mean my voice, I don’t mean my personal mannerisms or accent, I am simply talking about going from tabloid to broadsheet whenever the situation needs it!  I often sit there, with my semi-working-class accent talking to people of upper middle or high class talking to me, they think working class, OK, I use some big words here to make myself sound smarter and I sit there and grin because I can use big words too, it is a lovely feeling to have, smarm.

That’s about it really.   That and general literature, but that is mostly useful for quizzes or recommendations rather than being a piece of worthwhile knowledge.