Some pictures must be taken, some things must be blogged. Photography and pop culture.
Step 1: Order yourself a nice pair of shoes.
Step 2: Receive the shoes in a neat box in the post.
Step 3: Take the shoes out of the box.
Step 4:
Step 5: Put the shoes on and enjoy wearing them.
Result: Both you and your cat are happy.
Pic is from my trip to Crosby in June.
Something very gothic romance about it.
I think of a young man in 19th century, perhaps a newly qualified lawyer with good prospects, coming to Liverpool to meet the woman he loves, who is to arrive on a ship from America. He buys a bouquet of roses, of course, for roses are her favourite flowers. The ship docks, the passengers disembark, but his beloved is not among them. Heartbroken, the young lawyer suspects she fell in love with another man. He dumps the flowers on the sandy beach and swears never to love again. To escape his disappointment, he leaves for an expedition to West Africa, where he meets his death.
The young lady, his beloved, has in truth not fallen in love with anyone else. She never boarded the ship. Her best friend has had an accident and the young lady rushed to be by her side, as this friend was like a sister to her. She wrote a letter to the young lawyer, explaining she would make the voyage as soon as her friend recovered. How was she to know the young man never read her letter, for he had left before he could have received it?
When she finally arrives to England, she hears of her young man’s death in West Africa and cries many a tear. She vows never to love again, converts to Catholicism and becomes a nun.
Luckily, there’s another version of this story, where the young lawyer has a sister, who tells him he’s being an idiot and that he should trust his beloved–if she was not on the ship, there was probably a good reason and no doubt soon some news would come. Which it does. He reads the letter and it makes him love his beloved even more. “Isn’t she just the best, look how she cares about her friend!” he gushes to his sister. The sister wears her biggest told-you-so face.
Some weeks later, the lovely lady at last arrives on another ship, he waits for her with a fresh bouquet of roses. They get married and live happily ever after.
You are invited to Heaton Hall, the country seat of Lord Ballingdon, for a weekend of good old fashioned fun.
The house is imposing and painted cheerful yellow.
After dinner, the host informs his guests he prepared a fun murder mystery game. It kicks off the next morning.
And so the next morning, after breakfast–rich, delicious full English–Lord Ballingdon gives his instructions.
You are to find the dead body.
It is no easy task. The grounds are vast and the body could be anywhere.
But that doesn’t discourage you. Let’s start!
Careful it gets steep!
You think the body might have rolled down this hill. But there’s nothing at the bottom.
Ooh look, a bench! Not very comfortable sitting on that stone. You reckon the victim must have sat here at some point, before they were killed.
Careful now!
Were they pushed off the ha-ha? If so, the murderer must have moved the body because it is not here.
You check under the ferns for clues. Nothing here.
Aaah, look, a folly. You bet that’s where the body was hidden.
The folly is locked. You peer through the windows, but the only thing you see is a broken electric heater.
It occurs to you that the body might actually be inside the house. Your host never said it was on the grounds.
Hmmm, your host… This is the first time you’ve been invited to Lord Ballingdon’s party. You’ve heard of him a lot, of course, everyone gushes how entertaining he is, people leave his gatherings with smiles on their faces. And he’s so charming! “He’s the biggest prankster I’ve ever met,” says your cousin, and coming from him, it means something. Your cousin has been playing pranks on people since he was eight.
Prankster. Of course!
You got it. Murder? Here’s the murder:
Lord Ballingdon bursts into booming laughter. You win the game.
Pictures are from Heaton Park in Manchester. The house is indeed called Heaton Hall, but it is not a seat of any lord, as it belongs to the city council. Lord Ballingdon is a fictional character. No murder mystery games take place at Heaton Park, however the place does share initials with the great Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, so make of it what you will.
I’m pleased to announce a new blog for my writing, called Some Writing.
It’s just some short pieces of fiction (usually flash fiction) I felt should be released to the world. It’s only appropriate to make a post about it here.
I’m looking forward to see what I can come up with. I’m no writer, I may sometimes have an idea or two, that’s all.
This blog will continue with photography.
Some Halloween-themed events took place in Manchester City Centre, for which they displayed these props. So I took some pics of the said props.
And, because I occasionally have ideas, I added some lines to them.
“I went to the market and it cost me an arm and a leg.”
Ethel was excited to show her friend Richard her new discovery: “Hey, Richard, come and have a look at what I found. Richard? RICHARD???”
“This is what happens when you sign up for Strictly Come Dancing with only one foot.”
“And then he said there was going to be a new 50p coin to commemorate Brexit.”
“BAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
The End
Happy Halloween!
In last week’s Gloomscapes post, I was initially going to add one more picture of a broken window–the one I am posting now. But as I was looking at it, an idea started forming in my head and I concluded that not only did it deserve its own post, it deserved its own piece of fiction.
This is not meant to be a regular thing, I just got inspired. Enjoy! (Or not, as I say.)
Nobody knew how Zara got that stone.
The girls were kept in what used to be a convent. An imposing, forbidding stone building, newly installed security cameras in each corner. Thick walls, windows high and narrow, with bars on them. Little sunlight got through; the residential wing faced north. Inside, all the rooms were identical. Floors of dark hardwood, walls painted slate grey. A bed in each corner, metal-framed, with a thin mattress and an old worn-out blanket. No pillows. One single lightbulb hung from the ceiling. Heavy black doors were locked every night at nine o’clock by the guard on duty, unlocked again at six in the morning. The girls wore long grey dresses, starched white blouses with high collars and black shoes. The oldest ones were no more than sixteen years old. Those were the only ones who still remembered books, music, films and TV, videos, photographs. Now, all they were allowed to carry around was the Party Manifesto pamphlets. As if they didn’t know it by heart already, as if it hadn’t been engraved into their minds. To build and protect our homeland, be prepared. Always Prepared! Yet they carried it, every single one of them, dog-eared, covered with greasy fingerprints and doodles, here and there quotes and passages highlighted in neon colours, from the time before even neon highlighters were banned. Desperate attempts to mark their own individuality.
Afterwards, Zara’s roommates swore they didn’t notice anything unusual. Zara was a quiet girl who kept to herself. It seemed she had wandered off behind the gardener’s shed, the only place where such stones could be found, during the afternoon break, when even the strictest of teachers couldn’t deny themselves the indulgence of little rest. She hid the stone in her sock, at the back of her calf, no doubt thankful this time for the long skirt. She kept it there throughout the afternoon activities and dinner, until it was time to return to the rooms. Half an hour after the lights went out, she slipped out of her bed, clutching the stone in her hand, tiptoed to the window and with all the force she could gather in her sixteen-year-old body, smashed the glass.
#KeepOnGloomin’
Some Photoblog 