Hi, so here we are at blog no 3.
Last evening my hubby Nick, myself our daughter Wooze,
(Sarah) and our two eldest grandchildren went to a Bonfire night event. Here in
the UK the nearest weekend to Nov 5th is usually given over to
‘Fireworks’, it’s a celebration of the thwarting of Guy Fawkes and the attempt
to blow up parliament in 1605, we had a great, if cold evening. The fireworks
were fantastic, the fire itself hot, the effigy of Fawkes burned beautifully
and the food was good. On our return home to cocoa and toast, as Tia was hungry, again! (where she puts it all I don’t know) and an alcoholic drink for the grownups, Tia talked of War Horse, a film she had seen
with her parents a few days earlier. I told her one of her own great, great
grandfather’s had been in the Royal Horse Artillery during the First World War
and been killed in Action whilst pulling cannon.
Later as I put the girls to bed Tegan, Tia’s younger sister
asked about how my Grandpa had died. I
felt quite ashamed as I didn’t know more than I had already said. So instead I
told her my maternal grandfather’s story. He and his men had been stuck in the
town of Festobert in France, everyone around them was dead and the shells were
still coming in. Hiding in a ruin behind a broken wall he went down on his
knees and prayed. In the morning, in that quiet still time before anyone
remembered there was a war on, he saw above his head a 6inch crucifix nailed to
the wall that had given he and his men shelter. He believed then that God had heard
his prayer. He brought the crucifix home and it hung over his bed until he
died. It now hangs over mine. I told the girls that one day I intended to take
it back to Festobert, and I intend too.
As I lay in bed after the girlies were asleep in theirs and with Nick
snoring gently beside me, thoughts of the conversation with the girls and the
corruption of both of our own world wars bringing our earth to its knees made me
think of my made up world, the world of Arotia. Personally, I don’t watch much TV
and when I do it tends to be history, natural history or total fantasy programs,
so I wondered, did I base my story, ‘The Tessellation Saga’, on us... on our
own humanity, with all of our freedom of choice, our quirks and our foibles?
I believe in magic,
powerful earth magic, like the magic of Jedadiah Green, to see an animal
through the birth of its young or to watch an African sunrise over the Kruger
Park and see a Giraffe a Water Buffalo
and an Impala drinking within feet of each other from a lake where crocodiles swim so freely. (I have to thank Lewis and
Francis for that!) I know our world holds as much beauty as my fantasy world.
We just have to open our minds to see it.
There is a way of escape for all the Lemba’s and Darnel’s,
as well as choice of future for all the Medim’s and Toby’s. Power comes from
within, know who you are and believe ultimately in yourself, lastly (for today
anyway) my daughter in law, Sally, told me she cried when she read Jed
(Gideon’s father)’s story. How many real life Jed’s, Lemba’s and Darnel’s are out
there and what can we do to help them?
As my children would say... later’s........ x
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