last night Conrad dreamt of Eden Underwood, an apparently placid English country village, picturesque, tranquil, full of greenery - and evil to the core! Yes. There was a standing stone known as "The Barn Door", since it resembled one, set out in the fields. Cattle avoided it, and to walk where the missing second door would be was to invite terrible retribution. One winding country path around the village ran between earthen banks, and two bulging rocks at one point narrowed the path so one could barely squeeze past; and if you squeezed but touched one of the rocks - oops, soul forfeit, since they were sinister sacrificial rocks! Up by the canal was what seemed to be a - under-used - vertical climbing frame - actually a subtly-distorted copy of a scaffold where people had been hung, built in homage. And you couldn't trust all the villagers, either, since many had an unhealthy interest in "outsiders", who might be brought into the community - or sacrificed to their pagan gods. Conrad's character in the dream was warned by one of the non-pagan residents: "They're interested in you. Either for yourself, or for your girlfriend. Beware."
It'll teach me not to eat cheese before bedtime. Mind you, as a background for a story ...
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| Eden Underwood. Population |
How would you feel, getting out of bed in the dark to visit the bathroom, and THIS confronts you -
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| "Hello! No need to visit the loo any more, is there?" |
No, I'm not sure quite what it's supposed to be. We had to move it out of the lounge. The eyes seemed to follow you wherever you went ...
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| Eden Underwood. Population |
Our Word For Tonight
Is "Palimpsest". To even the most casual reader, this is clearly - clearly! - an Austro-Hungarian word referring to lighter-than-air craft dating back to the early days of the Twentieth Century, where dashing young blades from the KoK's air arm disported in the heavens over Vienna, charming young ladies out of their liberty-bodices.
Clearly.
Hang on, it's not?
Bah. Apparently it means "something - usually vellum or papyrus - that has been scraped clear and re-written upon."
I definitely prefer the BOOJUM! definition.
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| You can hear those liberty-bodices being thrown ... |
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| Eden Underwood. Population (163 of whom are human) |
Okay, I now have to go off and sponsor Anna, who is doing a half-marathon to raise money for desperate dogs. I swear, she cares more for those dogs than her fellow-workers. "If I don't feed them steak and salmon, they go into a decline!" she states. This is quite besides the parrots, piranhas, pangolins and pythons she has in her menagerie.
* From the film "Rebecca", a chick-lit forties flick you may not be aware of. Worth a tickle.
Tomorrow: Audubon's Book Of North American Werebirds
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