~yule~

well how was your yule?

i admit that this year i have really struggled, really, really struggled.

for weeks now i have had problems with insomnia, i fall asleep easily but find myself waking around 3-4am and more often than not i get up instead of staying in bed and trying to get back to sleep.

boxing day found me up at 1am, wide awake, knowing my family were going to arrive later that morning and i had to cook dinner for the five of us.

luckily i made it but i am feeling so run down and exhausted. as i am off on holiday with my sister next week i really need to get on top of this.

the weather here has been grey and damp for weeks now with only a day or two of sunshine, a few days ago i was able to get washing on the line and magpie and merlin had fun playing in the garden

i was given some new books for yule which i have started already...

my neighbour Calv sent round some lovely ginger biscuits

and this morning i had a nice chai latte

choosing incense

and finally meet 'Gibson' our 1999 VW T4...

we finally sold 'Pretty Pagan' for something considerably smalller, something more of a pocket rocket. 

because we have lilith our crazy little french folding caravan we no longer needed a big camper with all the bells and whistles

 unfortunately a week or two after bringing him home some low life broke in and stole every one of swampys tools and so the spare money we had to turn him into a day van went on replacing all the tools, then he broke down and more money had to go on his repairs.

because it involved taking a lot of the engine apart swampy decided to replace a lot of the parts with nice new ones. we finally had him repaired and with his MOT the friday before yule.

once i am back from my holiday we will be slowly working on the interior~nothing fussy, just a seat than turns into a bed and a unit for the 'kitchen'.

this morning swampy put a hook up my my alter to hang my shaman drum from...although i just realised that in the new year we will be moving things around in our living room and it will have to come down again anyway!

~moongazy 2015~part one~

hello!

well i am back, we actually came home last friday but its taken me that long to slowly unpack, recover, move all my photos and recover some more.

so we packed up Pretty Pagan on the wednesday (complete with a for sale sign for the weekend!) hitched up Lilith and away we went in the sunshine.

we are lucky as we live within a 2 hour drive of avebury and it didn't take long, although setting up seemed to take forever.

the little original step to Lilith makes a good little table for my morning coffee.

on thursday we woke to very dark skies and high wind and despite the onset of torrential rain our friends started to arrive.

those who were lucky arrived before the rain, moongazy may another little folding caravan arrived and set up as our neighbours before the rain started but once the rain started there was no let up and those with tents took shelter in either Lilith or Moongazy May where they were given tea and biscuits.

finally as the day started to darken the rain eased off a little and we all realised that if we didn't get tents up people would have nowhere to sleep so it was all hands to the pump to get peoples homes set up.

after a gusty, wet night i woke to stillness and birdsong and opened the door to Lilith

the promise of a beautiful day!

and so it started

Lilith and Moongazy May

Solstice Cafe

kilts were a popular item of clothing

on the night we didn't have the big camp fire we set up assorted fire pits 

this was very moreish

toasting of giant marshmallows then led to marshmallows dipped in nutella, strawberries dipped in nutella and fluff

the lake was just behind us and i took some time to enjoy the sun and hope the ducklings would come close

of course staying near avebury means a trip to glastonbury...

~up, up and away~

things are getting busy here as we are less than a week away from the annual moongazy gathering.

Lilith has been moved from her garage over in burley~which i think is an appropriate place for her to live~she now sits five minutes away in my mums front garden.

we wanted to check for any damp or mould and give her an airing, plus swampy has constructed a new back box for her and a secure place for the leisure battery that is ferret proof.

as usual there s a lot to do, sort out clothes, slowly pack up the camper plus as my sister is cat-sitting i will be making her a cheesecake on tuesday.
 right now the house in in chaos with packing and given the slightly unstable weather here in england right now its a dilemma what to pack!

i have finished writing up the ritual and now need to find a few natural items to take to include in the sacred space.

of course swampy and i will be visiting Glastonbury and Avebury again~we always meet up with our friend the welsh wizard on market day in Glastonbury and as so many of our friends from the gathering will be there we usually end up in the blue note cafe or rainbows end for hot chocolate and cake.

*****

its going to be good to be away from the bricks and mortar, although i will miss my cat-kids so much but my sister is cat-sitting so will be in good hands.
i like nothing better than to sleep in my little crazy french caravan and drink my morning coffee sitting out in the grass with a view of friends bell tents and campers and the distant hill with its ancient barrows and knowing i am greeting the day in such a sacred area for it is easy distance from stonehenge, avebury, silbury hill, west kennet long barrow and glastonbury...plus more sacred sights.

so you can imagine what the energy is like. 

~heatwave~

this heatwave we are experiencing is really getting the better of me at the moment

the heat seems to be relentless and making even the smallest thing difficult to do~as a result i have not had the urge to even turn on my laptop.

all i have been doing, or so it seems, has been to mop my brow almost continuously and have lots of cold wash downs with a flannel.

its also been making me grumpy and all i have wanted to do has been read in a cool, dark room...although the rooms have not been cool at all!

we did have the most explosive thunderstorm just over a week ago~the kind of storm i have nver witnessed in my whole life. the thunder and lightning was right above the village and there was no gap between any of the thunder or lightning. we just had continual noise and light and finally our power went out until the next morning.

it did not however make things any cooler-it just became hotter...and hotter.

two days ago we had a small, daytime summer storm and today it is cloudy and hot~so we are both hoping for some cooling rain.

***

i have had to start to get organised for the new forest fairy festival which is now only two weeks away~this morning i was packing up some of my hand blended incense and ordering some of the resins i am growing low on.

***

little merlin is now very at home with us and while magpie accepted him quite quickly it has taken leveret a lot longer, but she is slowly getting there and i hope she will have settled down well enough over the next six weeks to enable me to go to busfest with swampy. in 15 years i have only missed it once and this year i want to go mainly  to have 8 whole days camped up in 'lilith'!

swampy has had some small minor repairs to make to her over the last few days and he has overhauled the breaking system with all new parts so it is nice and safe when on the road. we have been able to source a garage in the next village to store her and all our assorted camping equipment. 

luckily we are camping for two nights at the fairy festival so at least i will get in 'two sleeps' for now and keep my fingers crossed for cat-harmony in september!

***

~a short break~

 

i have had a bit of an enforced break from blogging.

 

the first thing that caused me a break was the arrival of a new member of our family...

 

 

meet Merlin~the nephew (yes really!) of Magpie and Leveret.

 

 

and now i would like to introduce you to

 

Lilith

 

she is a French 1980 Rapido Export folding caravan!

 

from trailer to this!



funky dinette...i love the word dinette



teeny kitchen



sofa converts into our bed



tea delivery hatch!

 

loo/storage

 

at our recent Moongazy gathering we were introduced to our friends folding caravan and fell in love immediately. it was the same as this, the largest of the rapido folding caravans that had a teeny kitchen, dinette that converts to a bed, a sofa that also converts into a bed and a little loo/storage/changing room with all kinds of funky little shelves and cupboards that all pack away into a trailer.

we were particularly taken with the serving hatch between the kitchen and dinette...swampy is very taken with the idea of being passed mugs of tea and bacon sandwiches through it!

 

we had not intended on getting one until the autumn but ones of this size are like hens teeth and when this one came up for sale only a couple of hours drive away we could not let it pass us by.

we collected it last Friday and since then it has been sitting on my mums drive way and we pop round every other day to practice putting her up (its very easy) and clean and sit and think ahead to our first trip away.

tomorrow i shall go and take off the cushion covers and wash, today a lovely vintage throw we bought from a certain auction site arrived to go on the sofa.

 

later this year our beloved pretty pagan will be going up for sale and we shall buy a smaller van to convert into a 'day van'.

 

i have also been looking at stickers on our friends website with which to decorate her~we have agreed that i can sort Lilith and swampy will have the day van to 'pimp'

 

our first trip away will be one night when we go to the new forest fairy festival in the guise as the wylde apothecary in august and for me it cannot come soon enough!