My Pictures - One

With the launch, yesterday of http://joseffsphotography.blogspot.com, I thought I would share one or two of my photographs.

Newborough Beach on Anglesey

Anthony Gormleys Statues on Crosby Beach

Bardsey Island / one of the places suspected to be Avalon?

Snippet: The Stone Giving

Nebo was still with Seren when without any kind of announcement she started to talk but not in her own voice she sounded more grown up and not at all herself, "The youngling is very special, she holds the key."

Back in the crucible room the unnamed man asked, "What is the purpose of the key?" "Everything will show itself at the Connecting and she will then understand, you and only you will understand until then." she said and as her image started to unravel he replied, "Who are you?" As the image disappeared, not so far away in the school room Seren's wings opened and started to hum to life and Nebo heard one last word before Seren sat back in her chair and went still, "Glenfa"


The images back in the crucible room faded completely and the room was plunged back into the flickering glow from the flame torches around the walls.  The Oracle was first to say something by making the suggestion to Seren that it was OK for her to return to the school room and back into her own consciousness.  As her projection started to fade away and sparkle back to an empty chair a lingering strand of light came away and danced around the table getting the attention of the gathered, as they all watched it finally drew the revealed face as a small image in the centre of toad stool pulsed and gave a last bright flash before a glittering ball solidified into an weighted stone, standing stark upright on a needle point with bulbous perfectly rounded head.  Standing only one inch high, spinning like a child’s toy and singing a steady note as it spun, it glittered as in was spinning slowed and both the spinning and the glittering stopped as the stone stood still unaided in the very centre of the table but the singing never stopped and continued it’s solitary note.


Savage Willengham, Harriot Dee, Frances Gift, Elsie Wrighton, Mr. Jeremiah Dooples, Mrs. Gwen Dandiflower and the unnamed man all stood and stared at the singing stone on the table. The Oracle lent forward and grabbed the stone and held it in his hand.  It never changed and stood upright in his hand when it made a small vibration a dug it’s point into the hand of it’s holder and drew a small bead of blood that seeped into the stone and the wound it had inflicted was then healed.  The Oracle made no sound when this happened but simply said to it, “Thank you”


Everyone around the table except the unnamed man looked at the Oracle and the unnamed man said, “I have never seen one before, how does it feel to the touch.”  The Oracle replied, “I can’t be touched by anyone but the one that it belongs.”


“Ok” said Mr. Willengham, “What is it?”  The Oracle said, “It is the key, people don’t actually know what it is even the one to whom it belongs as there is no way that they are able to describe it.  It has been rarely recorded in ancient scripts as being a fly pod. Because it sings like a firefly’s egg does just before the egg hatches.”


“Flypod's don’t sing?” Exclaimed Miss Dee, “No they don’t sing but the baby firefly makes a humming sound just before it hatches to unravel its wings.” Mrs. Dandiflower said with an air of knowledge.  Miss Dee continued towards the Oracle, “Why did you thank it?” and the Oracle looked up at her gaze and said, “Because it accepted me.”


Mr. Willengham broke away from the huddle and took his seat again and as he sat back into his allotted seat, huffed as though he had eaten something he didn’t like and said without breathe, “So you are trying to tell these intelligent people who have been gathered in the most sacred room in our world that a little spark, that came away from the projection of an twelve year girl who might or might not be going into arena one of the Changing, that turned into a stone that is able to stand itself upright on it’s point, has accepted you, doesn’t this mean that an inanimate object has intelligence?”

The case of an unUsual mind

This one was not so much of a case but more likely Holmes had slipped back into the over use of cocaine and other narcotics he picks up the those dens he sometimes frequents down by the docks.  It was a very rainy early morning when I had a knock on the door of my room, "Watson, are you awake?" and with continued knocks and exclamations, "Watson, Watson are you awake?"

I opened my door as he almost fell through it trying to knock harder, "Watson you are awake, good.  I need to talk to you about something very unusual."  Holmes looked drawn and long in the face, his eyes were darkened and sunken into his skull and he said, will you share some tobacco with me, here sit next to the fire and we will talk."

On the few occasions he has done this, by talk he means that he will talk and I will listen to him, it helps him get things straight in his over active head.  I sat next to the fire and decided not to call Mrs Hudson for some coffee and I lit a cigarette.  I had almost finished smoking before Holmes started to talk.
"Watson, over the last five year I have been consulting, with a gentleman, who has been sat in that very chair that you are on no less than 7 different occasions, he is a very interesting man and has told me some very, very unUusal stories."  Holmes stood up and tapped his pipe on the palm of his hand, walked over to the fire and threw the bits of tobacco ash into the fire grate.  He put the arm of his pipe into his mouth and puffed air whilst taking a pouch of shag from his pocket, filling the pipe and lighting it he started to wander around the room leaving smoke trails in his wake.

"I am sorry Watson I was a long way from here.  This man, THE man with the unUsual mind, lets call him Paul for sake of giving him a name.  He first of all came to me five years ago and all he told me was that in four days time I will be engaged in a case that will take me to the Reichenbach falls and everything that entailed in The Adventure of the Final Problem, that you so wonderfully chronicled.  Since my return two years ago he has come back to see me 5 more times and we have talked and talked about all manner of things."

I watched as he blew out smoke time after time and enquired, "Holmes you said he has been to see you on no less than 7 occasions but you have only mentioned 6." And Holmes turned to around to face me and he looked to be in deep thought, "Well done Watson, well spotted I will make a you a consulting detective out of you before you know it.  He met up with me just before I went to see the Maharajah in Calcutta.  He seemed to know that I was going to be there before I knew I was going to be." Holmes walked around a more and his pipe smoke lingered in the air and showed that he was walking in a figure eight around the room. "On the last occasion he told me this, he told me that both you and I are actually fictional characters that are penned by an English man called Arthur Conan Doyle."

I cut Sherlock off in his obvious drug induced state and said, "Fictional, that is obvious rubbish he is feeding you and you seem to have fallen for it.  Tell me Sherlock are you feeling OK? You don't seem yourself, have you been down to the docks again?"  Holmes replied, "I thought exactly the same thing but he told me there was going to be a knock at the door and I was going to tell Mrs Hudson to show up the person who knocked."  I interjected again, "And the knock, who was Mrs Hudson going to show up, this mysterious person is obviously the person who has made you think more about this unusual mans outrageous comments."

"Watson, I met and talked to the man, not the unusual man, but the author, Arthur Conan Doyle.  I do think I have finally burst a blood vessel in my head, I met an unusual man 7 times, which as you know is not like me to meet someone more than once unless it is on a case, except of course that buffoon Lestrade.  But I talked to him 7 times and then I talked to the man he says is the author and creator of Sherlock Holmes the consulting detective.  I talked at length to him for almost two days solid in this room whilst you were up in the Lake District fishing.  All of this has been too much for me and I am now thinking of retiring to keep bees on a farm I brought on the Sussex Downs."  Watson replied to this revelation, "What about your consulting, what will the police do without your incredible skills."

Holmes then said, "You know my methods Watson, you can carry on where I have left off, besides since the death of Moriarty the cases I have been dealing with are missing sisters, a dowry being claimed by a parent other mundane things I am not being stretched anymore."