Sharing a Holiday Tradition by Helen Henderson

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In honor of the holidays, I’m sharing how they are celebrated in the series, the Windmaster Novels. You might ask why a fantasy world would have a holiday. Their world is different than ours as far as its history and heritage. There would be no president named Washington, no Christmas, no Fourth of July. Even in our contemporary world, despite differences in cultures and traditions, you can find annual celebrations. Some are secular, others religious. Traditional activities can pertain to a given time of year such as the harvest or the winter solstice.

Since annual traditions and celebrations are such a part of our world it made sense to me that the one I created should have some also.

Turn’s End is celebrated to mark the end of one year and the beginning of the next. Parties brighten the dark hours of the cold season and everyday work clothes are exchanged for more formal clothing. Entertainments include dancing and in some instances, newly composed music. Special food is another aspect and as evidenced from the snippet from Windmaster an enjoyable one.

“Ellspeth performed a fast mental inventory of what gowns were packed in the wooden trunks in the adjacent attic storage rooms. The green one she wore to the last turn’s end festivities piqued her interest. Eighth hour, she decided, should be just enough time to air the preserving leaves from the gown. No dallying or I'll miss the chilled crustaceans and the sweet bread will be soggy.”

While not every event in our world needs to have an exact correlation in the fantasy one, how we celebrate an event can serve as inspiration for a fictional one. New Year’s Eve helped form Turn’s End. The Lantern Festival in Windmaster Legend during which Lady Pelra tries to decide which of the two men her heart wants was inspired by two events, the Lantern Float held annually on Memorial Day on Oʻahu’s south shore and the sky lantern festival of Taiwan. In one, lanterns are set afloat on the water in a personal and collective moment of remembrance and offering of gratitude to those who have gone before. In the other, sky lanterns are released into the night sky with people's wishes written on them.

The one sky lantern launch that I’ve seen in person combined both water and sky. A grieving family sent a single lantern aloft over the water in memorial of a loved one’s passing. I couldn’t see if it bore handwritten wishes or if only a picture of the loved one was carried skyward.

While the emotion in that launch was somber, I wanted the one in Windmaster Legend to also have a counterpoint. So a festival tradition was added, “When lanterns fill the sky, a man—or woman, can claim a kiss from anyone they chose.” You’ll have to read Windmaster Legend when it is released (March 2019) to see whether Pelra followed the festival tradition… and which of the two men was the recipient.

From Windmaster Legend, an excerpt that includes the lantern set aloft by a couple celebrating wedding anniversary.

“One by one the other ships assigned as launching platforms slipped into formation until they formed a straight line of bobbing lights beneath the darkening skies.

To distract herself from the emotions rising at Iol’s closeness, Pelra read the handwritten notes on the sky lanterns closest to her. Some were thanks for a profitable year, while others were prayers for the one to come. Many were poignant remembrances of loved ones who had passed beyond the veil. The dream listed on one lantern clutched at her heart.

Air and sky together forever,
May our two lives be as joined.
With nothing between but a gentle zephyr.
Air and sky, bless our journey.”

To end this post, I’ll be sending a virtual sky lantern aloft with the wish that all your hopes and dreams come true in the coming year.

 

Meeting the Creator of Peter Rabbit

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Beatrix Potter, author of The Tale of Peter Rabbit and other beloved children's stories, grew up in London, England. Her family spent their summer holidays in the countryside, where she discovered that she loved animals and nature more than cities. The Lake District in England became the place of Beatrix Potter's heart. Last spring I came to understand why she loved that region when my husband Will and I spent a week in The Lake District. One of our many highlights was a boat ride across Lake Windermere to Wray Castle, which the Potters rented for several family vacations.

Wray Castle - Beatrix Potter's parents must have  had a fair amount of money to be able to rent such a large summer cottage. They were wealthy enough that they scorned working for a living. 

Rambling Wray Castle is now a tourist site, its rooms containing an eclectic assortment of displays. Some depict the life of the woman who built the castle, Margaret Dawson, an early feminist. Other rooms show drawings and scientific studies made by Beatrix Potter. There are a large number of playrooms for children, which include replica scenes from Peter Rabbit and her other stories. A friend told me she and her family spent a fun rainy day at Wray Castle letting their children run loose. 

Will steals cabbages from Mr. McGregor's garden

I join Beatrix, her family and their guests for dinner

From Wray Castle, Will and I walked the path along Lake Windermere. At a beach we met a friend, who wasn't shy.  

Beatrix Potter studied animal habits meticulously to make her character's actions realistic. We caught a ferry to the town of Bowness and visited The World of Beatrix Potter museum, which featured dioramas of Beatrix Potter's stories.

In 1905 Beatrix used income from her books and a small inheritance to buy a farm in The Lake District. Eight years later, at age 47, she married a local solicitor. While she continued to write, her interests shifted to country life. She bred and raised Herdwick sheep, a breed indigenous to the region, and became president of the Herdwick Sheepbreeders' Association. Some credit her progressive policies and methods for helping to save the breed from extinction. 

Herdwick sheep are born black and grow lighter with age. 

Beatrix Potter wrote her greatest works before she settled contentedly into the life she was meant to lead. No doubt she was happiest in her later years, but fans of Peter Rabbit and her other charming characters can be glad for her younger days when she struggled to find her place in the world.  

Beatrix Potter and me in The World of Beatrix Potter

Everything's Coming up Snowflakes by Karla Stover

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Jericho is a little town of about 5,000 in central Vermont. It’s the kind of place where folks photograph the Truman Galusha House built in 1790 or the Old Red Mill and Mill House built in 1856 or to visit the Snowflake Bentley Gift Shop. Yes, an entire gift shop devoted to snowflakes.

First off, let’s make sure that we’re talking about the feathery ice crystal, typically displaying delicate six-fold symmetry and not the autumn-blooming Eurasian flower. Now that we’ve clarified that, let’s look at how the giftshop began.

Three steps were required. First: on February 9, 1865, with the birth of a baby named Wilson Alwyn Bentley. Second: on his 11th birthday, when his mother let him look at a snowflake though an inexpensive microscope. Third: when Wilson was given a compound microscope and camera for his 20th birthday, thanks to his mother because his father thought (and did so for all of his life) that it was an unnecessary extravagance.)

After that, and every winter for the next 50 years Wilson set his equipment up in an unheated shed, and as soon as the first flake fell began to capture/record them on glass plates. When a storm started, he stood in the shed's open doorway and caught snowflakes on a smooth, black-painted, square foot board which he held by wire handles. Then he carried the board inside, examined the crystals through a magnifying glass, and brushed the damaged ones away with a feather, all the while holding his breath so as to not melt one. The perfect ones he transferred to glass slides. Finally, with the camera pointed toward a window, he took each picture through the microscope with the light passing through the snowflake which became magnified from 64 to 3,600 times its size. The process involved an apparatus consisting of wheels, ropes, and other odds and ends. Exposure ranged from ten to 100 seconds. The last steps were to treat the plates to a fixing bath and then wash the plate in the ice cold water of his backyard spring.

Wilson divided his snowflakes into origins of high or low altitude. It was his opinion that low altitude flakes had the most beautiful designs.

During his lifetime, Wilson  captured and preserved some 6,000 snow "crystals." He contributed articles to The Annual Summary of the Monthly Weather Bureau Review, had his photographs used in science classes, included in encyclopedias, and numerous magazines. Artists and jewelers found and find inspiration in them. Three weeks before his death on December 23, 1931, Snow Crystals, his magnum opus prepared in collaboration with Dr. W.J. Humphreys of the U.S. Weather Bureau was published.
 

In Search of the Perfect Gift

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Books We Love and I are excited to offer you, our readers, a free collection of romantic short stories as a Kindle Exclusive. "Before Tomorrow Comes" will be free on December 8, 15, 22. Even if you aren't a Kindle Unlimited member, the book is only $4.99 to download. This special collection is my thank you for your loyalty which has provided me a platform for twenty novels. ENJOY!

Is it harder and harder every year to find a gift just perfect for all the people on your holiday list? Perhaps you've been looking in the wrong kind of store. I invite you to go shopping with Carolyn as she is "In Search of the Perfect Gift."

As numerous people converged on the single checkout lane, Carolyn began putting her items on the counter. Halfway through, she faced the cashier, realizing she was missing a key item on her list.

“Oh, dear,” she mumbled. She kept stacking the rest of her purchases on the counter, not noticing that Holly, the one and only cashier, was anxiously looking back at the line of people behind her.

“Ma’am, if you forgot something, perhaps we can put your other purchases aside so I can help the next person in line.”

Carolyn looked around, totally unaware that she was holding everyone else up. “Of course,” she rapidly scooped the glittering and twinkling items back into her basket. “I’ll just go see if I can find that one last item. I simply can’t do without it.” She turned her cart around and headed toward the back of the store. She glimpsed the line of customers. It would seem a tremendous number of people had found out about this unique store, which specialized in all things happy and joyous for the holiday season.

Carolyn glanced at the shoppers’ carts as she hurried along the line. Almost everyone had a twinkling box that contained just what she was looking for. How could she have forgotten it? In this day and economy, she supposed it wasn’t unusual for people to buy a little extra portion for the holidays when they could find it. This particular store, tucked in a small strip mall at the edge of town, was the only place she knew that had all the items she wanted for her Christmas gifts.

She slowed as she came to the cherish aisle. Among the different size boxes of affection, a small television advertised cherish with a short video of an older couple, celebrating their 75^th anniversary. How many people could cherish and hold each other in reverence for that length of time?

Next to cherish was a whole section of belief; more than should be there at this time of the shopping season. The aisle was almost dark; the boxes dull and lifeless on the shelves. Didn’t people believe anymore? Thinking over the latest news and the stories her friends had told her, she understood how hard it was to believe. One friend and her family had lost their house; another had lost a job and still another had recently lost a parent to a crippling disease. It was no wonder people quit believing in good things happening. Even though she already had a box of belief, Carolyn put another in her shopping cart. Her friends needed it.

She turned down the next aisle, not because she needed anything but she couldn’t resist the children she heard. As she walked slowly among the happiness and laughter holograms, she was caught up in their merriment. Regardless of where they were from -- and it looked like there were children from all over the world -- they played as if they had not a care in the world. Perhaps it was a case of innocence; that small children could forget about the cares of the world and be themselves – happy and carefree, if only for a short time.

Finally Carolyn came to the aisle containing the item she had neglected, although how she could have, she really didn’t know. As she gathered up box after box of hope, she counted her blessings. Hope contained the joy and faith of the season. When mixed with love and the faith and belief of good things to come, hope made a powerful mixture that could not be denied. Hope helped people survive the day to day trauma that at times was overwhelming. They found hope in family ties and community efforts.

As Carolyn hurried back into line, she realized she wasn’t the only one hoping for the best. Glittering and twinkling boxes of love and faith, among other wishes, had brought these customers to this magical store and each and every basket glowed with light. Customers in line had a special look about them. Eyes twinkled and lips tipped up in various stages of smiles. Every person’s face held a memory from some past, happy holiday. Carolyn hoped that regardless of the problems people faced, her small wishes would help them have a better holiday.

Wishing you and your family the best of the holidays with...

            Belief

            Happiness

            Laughter

            Joy

            Love

            Faith

            Cherish

            Hope

Connections by June Gadsby

While doing some research on my family tree and coming up with quite a few surprising connections, it struck me that ‘connections’ came in all shapes and sizes and were not necessarily those of relatives or ancestors.

I have one non-family connection of which I am immensely proud. It goes back to Captain Robert Falcon Scott, CVO, RN, who was a British Royal Navy officer and explorer and led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions: the Discovery Expedition and the ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition. A famous explorer who took a group of men to the South Pole in 1912. They discovered, during this expedition, fossilised plants, which proved that Antarctica was once forested and attached to other continents. Unfortunately, the return journey came to a tragic and unnecessary end. Scott and his companions died only 11 miles from a depot that would have saved their lives. 

So, you are wondering, what is my ‘connection’ with the famous Captain Robert Falcon Scott. It was with his only son, Peter, later to become Sir Peter Scott, famous naturalist, writer and artist who founded the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust. Peter had been many things before becoming a naturalist, including an Olympic ice skater, yachtsman and, ironically, a hunter – which he soon gave up when he discovered his love of wildlife, especially birds. When I met and married my husband, Brian, he worked for Sir Peter as Manager of the Washington branch of the WWT. [The original Washington in the north-east of England, rather than the Washington in the USA, where our mail very often ended up.]  HRH Prince Charles, whom I have also met twice, was at the time President of the charity, which has been and still is largely supported by the Royal Family.

My first meeting with Sir Peter and his wife Lady Philippa was a memorable occasion. They were not only visiting the wildfowl park that my husband managed, they were to have a meal in our house on the edge of the 100-acre piece of land that housed 1200 rare species of wildfowl. I rushed home from the hospital where I worked in order to smarten myself up and prepare the meal.  I was in my slip when I heard a huge crash coming from the kitchen. A cabinet full of my collection of Bronte pottery had fallen from the wall, knocked a tea-caddy and a kettle full of water onto the floor making a terrible, brown gunge. Sir Peter and Lady Philippa were due to arrive in a few minutes, and, in fact, we were still clearing up the mess when they joined us. It was a very embarrassing situation, but bless them, they were sympathetic and we eventually enjoyed a good meal together. It turned out to be a lovely social occasion. [1] 

Sir Peter had a great sense of humour – he loved playing practical jokes on his colleagues and was famous for his odd choice of brightly coloured socks. Lady Philippa was charming, which is how we found all the VIPs we met during this period of our lives. 

One memory I have is of Sir Peter walking into our kitchen while I was painting a bird portrait. I had heard how he had a habit of altering other people’s paintings. This was affectionately known as ‘Scottying’ and I held my breath, waiting for this to happen to my work. However, he was extremely kind in his praise for my little bird [2] and didn’t offer to change it in any way. I was both thrilled and disappointed. I would have loved him to ‘Scotty’ my painting. Sir Peter Scott’s paintings now sell for thousands of pounds. Unfortunately, we only have signed prints of his work and no originals. However, we did have the honour and the pleasure of visiting his studio and seeing many of his original paintings – mostly of geese flying across beautiful skies. [3]

We were invited to Sir Peter’s 80^th birthday party down at HQ Slimbridge and were so looking forward to it, as were many other people. Sadly, dear old Peter died two weeks before his birthday. Philippa, who continued his work for a few years has also now left us and we are no longer living with 1200 rare birds in our ‘front garden’, but enjoying life in rural France. My husband, now approaching his 84^th birthday, is just as passionate about wildlife and nature and is never seen without camera in hand. I still paint animals, among other subjects and write books that take the reader to the far ends of the earth – like my favourite novel set in the wilds of Patagonia, which is not all that far from the South Pole; and while I was there among the icebergs and the glaciers a few years ago, it was almost like walking in the footsteps of Robert Falcon Scott.

[1] Lord Brassey, June Gadsby, Sir Peter Scott & Lady Philippa Scott.

(2) Greenfinch

 

 

3] “In Winter Dusk”  Xmas 1984