"The Hazards Of Love 4 (The Drowned)"

Margaret arrayed the rocks around the hull before it was sinking,
A million stones, a million bones, a million holes within the chinking.

And painting rings around your eyes these peppered holes so filled with crying.
A whisper weighed upon the tattered down where you and I were lying.

Tell me now, tell me this, a forest's son, a river's daughter,
A willow on the willow wisp, our ghosts will wander all of the water.

So let's be married here today these rushing waves to bear our witness.
And we will lie like river stones rolling only where it takes us.

But I pulled you and I called you here,
And I caught you and I brought you here
These hazards of love, never more will trouble us

Oh Margaret the lapping waves are licking quietly at our ankles
Another bow another breath this brilliant chill's come for the shackle.

With this long last rush of air we speak our vows and sorry whispers,
When the waves came crashing down, he closed his eyes and softly kissed her.

But I pulled you and I called you here,
And I caught you and I brought you here
These hazards of love, never more will trouble us.
And these hazards of love, never more will trouble us.

Drop in for a Spell

This is me, my mum and my friend Emily 'blending in' with the Pendle Witches on a walk in March 2003, making us 10 years old :D

They were outside this shop, which was adorable and one of those interesting 'Curiosity Shop' types that you find in small villages such as Pendle/Barley.

A whistle stop explanation of the Pendle Witch legend is that in 1612, 13 people (both men and women) were accused of Witchcraft and Murder in and around the Forest of Pendle, and were tried at Lancaster gaol. Of those 13, 10 were executed there after being found guilty of both charges, 1 died awaiting trial but was posthumously found guilty, another who lived just over the Lancashire border was actually tried and executed in York instead, and the final witch, Margaret Pearson, was found guilty of Witchcraft but not Murder, and so was only sentenced to a years imprisonment. The story is claimed to be the most famous witchtrial in all English legal history!

AHHH I've just researched this a bit and it's actually really interesting, so I'm going to carry on explaining but I won't be offended if you don't read any further!!

The two witches at the centre of the trial were Elizabeth Southerns, who called herself 'Demdike' and Anne Whittle, who called herself 'Chattox'. They were once friends but had a bitter feud and became arch enemies, apparently forming two separate 'covens' in the area, based on their respective families. It's not entirely clear who belonged to which coven, but Demdike was the powerful matriach of the Device family, with her daughter Elizabeth and grandchildren James and Alizon Device all being executed alongside her. The second daughter, Jennet Preston, was the witch executed in York. They lived at 'Malkin Tower' and in his confession, James described several sabbats that occurred there...this is brilliant, all the names sound so fairytale, you just couldn't make this stuff up!

So much is known about the Pendle Witches because Thomas Potts, a court cleric, was so meticulous in his records, and so the statements of Demdike, Chattox, Alizon and James have survived intact. It's noted that they were not under duress or torture and so it has puzzled many why they were so willing and detailed in their accounts of their own guilt, however Demdike and Chattox appear to have incriminated each other ferociously and when Demdike died before being sentenced Chattox blamed her entirely for enticing her and her family into witchcraft.

It did not work.

There's a ton of gory info about what they did and all about 17th century witchcraft including the original confessions of several of the accused at:

http://www.pendlewitches.co.uk/

A Novel Idea

It's been awhile, and that wasn't really about to change because I just never seem to find the time/what to say on here :')

I keep up with blogs regularly and I enjoy reading my friends, but I found my diary which had been long lost, so I began to fill and finish that then begin another notebook, I missed it ^_^

Anyway the lovely Lou has said a few times she misses me writing blog posts, so I came up with an idea :D

In a few posts I've done that've mostly been text, I've included a random-ish picture at the end to break it up a little, and I thought I could post a random picture from my computer every day, and then update as I wanted from there ^_^

It'll keep my blog going and *might* be interesting :')

We'll see how it goes... XD

*edit, I've just spent aggges after this post trawling through my photos, laughing and thinking of captions...this IS going to be fun!*

So we'll start with...

Me and my Uncle Simon at my Grandad's 60th birthday in 2002...so I'm 9? The theme was 60's, and you can't see it very well but I'm wearing a leather bodycon dress :') Just got back from holiday so tanned and braided, I was assured that braided hair was 'very sixties dear'

I had fun!

Ev'rybody Wants to be a Cat...

I'm actually loving a cartoon Facebook, so many reminders of childhood and seeing who all my friends have chosen is hilarious, some are so accurate it's untrue :')

I wanted to be Velma as I'm quite alot like her and I dressed as her for two halloween parties this year, but a couple of my friends already had the Scooby Doo lot for their pictures, so I went with Marie from the Aristocats instead :D

A RINKY TINKY TINKY!

'Ladies don't start fights. But they can finish them!'

I love the Aristocats :')

Disney's funkiest musical!!

A Pretty Good Time

So I went to Russia with college in July, yes I'm aware it's now December :P

I did promise to post my summer in installments...and even though I probably should have blogged much more since summer...I haven't.

Much has happened.

RUSSIA

I thought about doing the pictures in some sort of order, but I just cannae be bothered, this is the order they popped up, so this is our group cooling off in St Petersburg, it was about 30degreeeeees+, stinky hot! I didn't mind, but the boys complained bloody murder :')

The 'Supreme Seven' as named by Beckah outside...a palace in St Petersburg (seriously, there are hundreds of palaces in St Petersburg). It was Peter the Great's palace though, pretty important, the city's named after him :P

We have left to right, Baker, Adam, Ric, Beckah, Jack, Dave and I'm stood at the front XD

That garden was gorgeous, and full of fountains which was nice due to the insanely hot weather, apparently Peter the Great was somewhat of a practical joker, and jets of water shot suddenly from all directions, it was pretty awesome!

Me, Adam, Dave and Beckah on a river cruise in Moscow, I don't think I can explain my facial expression, although Adam did make this his facebook profile picture for awhile just because of it :')



Jack, Me and Ric in Moscow, sort of, next to Red Square. It's the next square over. We went to Red Square on the first day, but this is a couple of days after when we actually went inside the Kremlin, which was freakin' awesome. There was some sort of military parade with horses and guns and stuff! It was pretty impressive, but this picture was taken afterwards when we were getting lunch XD.
Yeah we went to Russia and ended up getting McDonalds twice. I feel ashamed.

Hard Rock Cafe Moscow!! Me, Ric and half of Baker's face. Me and Ric had a thing where we'd accidentally lean too far in, drastically underestimating the camera's ability to get us in shot. The cafe was nice, but because there were so many of us we had a set menu. First, a greek salad, not too bad apart from y'know, I hate salad. I ate what I wanted and just let the boys hoover the rest up, perks of sitting with 3 constantly hungry lads (Y). Then some weird broth thing which was disgusting but the boys lapped up, no surprises there. I may sound a little picky, but it really was horrible, literally nobody ate it apart from our table. Then the main meal, rice and a meat that I'm pretty damn sure wasn't chicken. I looked at Ric, could tell he was thinking the same. But we weren't gonna ask. We just ate it.

Supreme Seven in the Winter Palace St Petersburg, which houses the largest collection of art in the world, the Hermitage Museum :D Notice the boys' McLenin's t-shirts, on the back they said 'The Party, Is Over.' YAY History Jokes!

It was pretty darn awesome, they had some Leonardo Da Vinci, Matisse etc, and also just an impressive building, lots of ball rooms, throne rooms, extravagant staircases and entrance halls etc etc....very very large. We had about 5 hours and thought sod it, we're going for lunch. I had a ham sandwich which I saved half of for the plane, which we were getting later that day, but I left it in the Hermitage by accident :( poop, I ended up scrounging food from everyone else in Amsterdam, particularly Matty Nash and Jack who'd been to McDonalds, they got offered weed by the cashier :') Good ol' Amsterdam!

Gang in the bar of the St Petersburg hotel, on World Cup night. We did go down there with the intention of watching the match, there was a really good atmosphere as it was quite an international hotel with lots of Spanish/Dutch guests, and everyone else simply chose a side. Most of us decided on Holland, specifically for me because of Dirk Kuyt :D
But we kinda lost interest, we were having some really good discussions and were off to the side of the big screen so it was hard to see anyway. I think it's nice that we were more interested in each other than the telly, good old fashioned values!
Earlier that afternoon a bunch of us had gone swimming, but apparently that wasn't allowed and we all got in trouble :P But seriously, there was a water park in the hotel! It had tons of slides, a wave pool, a rapid river (which was hilarious XD) and a couple of hottubs. Well worth the rollicking!


Munira (awesome roomy! :D seriously, on the last night the Supreme Seven stayed up until reallly early, not entirely sure what time it eventually was when we went to bed, but it was after 4am :'), Munira didn't really fancy staying up that late so she went to bed muuuch earlier, but realised I'd left my key and left the door to our room on a latch for me! Jack wasn't so lucky, he had to phone his room from the phone in Adam&Ric's room and his roomate was most disgruntled :P So, yes, brilliant roomy XD), me and Rihannon on a promenade in St Petersburg. We'd just arrived that day, via sleeper train from Moscow, which was incredible!! The cabins were tiny little boxes, with two bunk beds and space underneath for suitcases, but otherwise you could literally not move, it was extremely tiny. We took the challenge, and managed 13 in one cabin, but it was freakin' boiling. Stayed up until 3-4am, and when we finally did get to bed, the partitions were so thin that all I could hear was a banging from next door, the boys' room. 4 kinda big lads in a box that small...recipe for disaster and hilarity! Adam's bed was on the other of the partition to mine, and he had trouble fitting in the space, so all I heard was a bang followed by and expletive, and then the body part he's bashed. A la...."*crash* $H!T MY KNEEEE!" I fitted in my bed perfectly and had one of the best night's sleep ever :P

Me and Rihannon, I'm pretty sure this is St Petersburg, we stopped off somewhere on the way back from somewhere, but the place was closed, so we went for a walk round a little lake. Specific I know, but it was a while ago now, cannae believe how long ago it actually was!

So we spent a few days in Moscow, then took the sleeper train up to St Petersburg and flew home from there. It was honestly an unspeakably awesome trip, I made some new friends who I'm still really close to and got to know old friends better :)

Some of my friends like fashion blogs, and I ought to really have done a 'what I wore' or something, but it was honestly so hot that it was literally shorts and a vesty top every day. I did have one wardrobe disaster though, the button on my blue stripey shorts popped off just before our Moscow river cruise, extremely embarassing and I ended up clipping it together with a bobby pin until we got back to the hotel where Beckah, total babe, sewed it back on for me!

So that was your fashion fix :P Otherwise I'm more interested in the people and the experience!

Low & Pixies...

...some kind of conspiracy?

Last night, Monkey by Low came on my ipod shuffle, which contains the lyric 'Tonight the Monkey dies'. It was immediately followed by 'Monkey Gone to Heaven', a Pixies song.

I thought it was adorable!

My summer will be posted in installments XD

• Russia
• The White House (Shropshire style)
• Summer Impact
• Rhodes
• Cornwall
• Staffordshire

I also went to Wales to see some old family friends, and to Plymouth with my bestie and her family, but I didn't get any pictures :(

In the meantime, here's a picture of me and my sister at Avenham for her first Easter, we're instructing her in the skill of egg rolling XD

Oh and my UCAS is looong done, I'm getting emails from universities now telling me they're processing my application...eeeek!

Yay, a Tag!

It's my first one, and I'm overexcited about it :D

Lou tagged me to answer a few questions...sounds do-able!

1. What's a perfect styling for you?

I like lots of things, and I don't think any of them are particularly perfect :) I usually just wear hoodies and jeans out, and in summer just switch to shorts and t-shirts, I dress pretty simply :P I'm not very fashion-minded, so I don't tend to be adventurous at all :') I don't even have a wardrobe, I attacked mine with a hammer so now I have sort of a rail type thing. And other types of styling are virtually non-existent with me...I barely brush my hair, don't wear make-up and my converse are my favourite shoes. I have 4 pairs, and that's extravagant for me :P

2. On what do you spent most of your money?

I'm a saver not a spender :P I don't really buy clothes or magazines, most of the money I take to college/out goes on food :') I buy CD's and DVD's more often, but not regularly. Although I've been to Iceland and Russia (which I havent't got round to talking about on this blog yet, but it was utterly amazing XD) this year with college and I've paid for a portion of those trips, so quite a bit of my money went on those. I guess I go to the cinema alot, but honestly, I'm not usually short of money because I just don't spend any!

3. What's your favourite song at this moment?

I listen to bands and artists that no-one's really heard of, but I've been listening to a comedy trio on YouTube recently who make parodies and originals, and if you've never heard of them, I definitely recomment Youtubing 'The Midnight Beast', their songs are all hilarious! My favouites gotta be the Tik Tok Parody, and Lez Be Friends :D

But I also just discovered that 'Go First' by Damien Jurrado has just shot up my Top 25 Most Played to No.2, when it wasn't even charting before. I don't need Radio 1, I gotta my own ;) Although if anyone can knock 'Monkey' by Low off the top spot I'd be incredibly impressed.

4. Which excellences do you think you have?

Ahh that's a lovely worded question, 'excellences'. I'm excellent at eating twirls and remembering song lyrics, especially if they're musical theatre (mostly because they were drilled into me in 8 hour rehearsals :P). I'm excellent at making my face look like I'm sucking a lemon in most pictures taken of me, or vastly underestimating the camera lense's ability to get me in shot (resulting in me leaning over far too much and thus looking rather idiotic).

5. And what are your failings?

I can't ride a bike very well. I've got the balance thing down, it's just the steering that's giving me problems. I mean, I'm sure I'd have been fine if that big white van hadn't been just where it was and I'd remembered I had brakes. I panic, and my legs go sideways :')

...I have no idea who else to tag...can I tag everyone that reads this? Basically...if you want to, I tag you!