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Simon & Chrys

Goals & New Experiences for 2015

By Adventures, Books & Authors, Creativity, Gigs & Shows, Happiness & Joy, History, Life, Nature, Paganism, ThinkingNo Comments
goals-and-adventures-large Goals For Throughout The Year
Unticked Box Read & Review 30 books.
Unticked Box Watch & Review 12 films.
Unticked Box See a show/gig.
Unticked Box Give up smoking for good.
Unticked Box Write, Edit and publish a Novella.
Unticked Box Arrange & Have a Holiday.
Unticked Box Study Something Pagan/Druid with Chrys & Simon.

New Experiences for 2015 by month:

January
Unticked Box To start Writing again.
Unticked Box To write a series of blog posts with a ‘Mental Health Focus,’ publishing one a week throughout the month.

February
Unticked Box Try Yoga. Take a Yoga class.

March
Unticked Box Visit a Museum.

April
Unticked Box See a Sunrise.
Unticked Box Visit a new place. A city or town that I’ve never been to.

May
Unticked Box Celebrate my birthday. A night out to celebrate in style. Possibly in another city or town.
Unticked Box Visit a Castle or a Pagan site.

June
Unticked Box Spend time Walking in Nature.
Unticked Box Take time out to celebrate Litha.
Unticked Box Watch Jurassic World at the cinema.

July
Unticked Box Attend Mum’s events. Birthday, etc.
Unticked Box Watch Minions at the cinema.

August
Unticked Box Visit Chester Zoo’s new Islands exhibit.

September
Unticked Box Learn to Knit.
Unticked Box Donate to charities.

October
Unticked Box Celebrate Samhain.

November
Unticked Box Take some time out to relax.

December
Unticked Box Watch Star Wars: The Force Awakens at the cinema.

Blog soon,

Antony

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Sunday 28 December 2014

My Yearly Review – 2014

By Friends & Family, Happiness & Joy, Life, Nature, PaganismNo Comments

This year I did very little in the Spring, a lot in the Summer, bits in the Autumn and Winter. Here’s what I’ve been up to this year, click on any photo for full size image:

March

dame-edna-march-2014

Sye & Me at Barry Humphries Show

 Sye and I went to see Barry Humphries: The Eat, Pray and Laugh Farewell Tour. We had a great time. Here are some photos:

dame-edna-march-2014 dame-edna-march-2014 dame-edna-march-2014

May

Penrhos Cottage near Corris Adam and Andy's cottage

Simon popping his head out of The Lovely Cottage

 Simon and I went to Mid-Wales to The Lovely Penrhos Cottage for the weekend. While there we took the time to relax. The Saturday it was gloriously sunny and hot, so we went to Aberdovey Beach. On the Sunday we went to King Arthur’s Labyrinth.

I published my short story The Good Teen. The Good Teen is a modern-day telling of The Good Samaritan parable, with a hint of magic. I wrote it after I saw a call for submissions from the BBC Radio 4 ‘Opening Lines’ programme. Unfortunately it wasn’t accepted, but it’s still a good story – even if I do say so myself.

June

Rivington-June14

Rivington: A Gorgeous View

 I spent several days walking around Rivington. I feel fortunate to have such a beautiful and gorgeous natural place close by.

My at-the-time boyfriend and I went to Blackpool to the Sealife Centre and Madame Tussauds. We saw various fish and waxworks respectively.

Steve and I went watching The Lady Boys of Bangkok in Manchester. We were both slightly disappointed with the Lady Boys to be honest, but it was still good to get out and we even managed a few alcofrolic drinks afterwards.

July

Manchester Museum Gorgosaurus Skeleton

Gorgosaurus Skeleton

 I watched After The Dark (The Philosophers), which became my favourite film of 2014.

My at-the-time boyfriend and I went to Lancashire Science Festival 2014 which was both educational and intriguing. Plus it had free parking!

My at-the-time boyfriend, his housemates and I visited Manchester Museum. I loved the dinosaur exhibit.

August

light-michael-grant-book-cover I had my blog Theme Redesigned by TRH Development. I started Being Creative Everyday and sharing some of the results on the blog.

I felt saddened at the unexpected death of Robin Williams and began thinking about the importance of good mental & emotional health.

I read and reviewed Light by Michael Grant, which was the last book in The Gone Series. I thoroughly enjoyed The Gone Series which was about kids being trapped in a Dome without adults and developing powers.

September

Wales animalarium lemur

Animalarium: Lemur

 I got some Amazing Illustrations from the Talented Sye Watts for my blog. I am so lucky to have such a talented friend.

A friend and I went to stay for a weekend at Penrhos Cottage and visited the Animalarium, which is Borth’s Zoo on the way home. There where some lovely animals there that looked well cared for.

October

pagan-stone-circle-large Chrys, Simon, others and I celebrated Samhain!

November

harry-potter-studio-tour

Various Magical Creatures.

 My at-the-time boyfriend and I broke up.

I made small Charitable Donations to JDRF, The Human Rights Campaign (US), The Brain Tumour Charity (UK) and to make a film about the sell-off of the NHS.

Mum and I went on a Trip to London where we shopped and visited The Making of Harry Potter Studio Tour.

December

wrapped-christmas-presents-2014

Some Presents I’ve Wrapped for Christmas

 Christmas has been relaxed, enjoyable and fun. I have celebrated it with family and friends. People have kindly bought presents for me:

christmas-presents-2014

Presents Kindly Bought For Me.

But the best thing was the opportunity to spend time with people that I love.

Next year I’ll be spreading out activities, experiences and goals throughout the year. So keep an eye out for my Goals & New Experiences for 2015 blog post.

Blog soon,

Antony

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Friday 26 December 2014

Happy Samhain!

By PaganismNo Comments
pagan-stone-circle-large Happy Samhain! For pagans, Samhain is about more than just trick-or-treat and scary films. It’s about ancestors and is the time when the vail between the worlds of the living and the dead is at its thinnest. I’m spending the day and evening with my good friends Simon & Chrys.

If you want to know more about Samhain, or any of the other pagan festivals, see my Pagan Festivals blog post.

If you want to to Making a pumpkin lantern for Samhain, click the link for instructions. Remember that the insides of a pumpkin can be used to make many delicious things, such as pumpkin pie or cookies, so don’t let the insides go to waste. Recipes for pumpkin insides can be found online.

Blog soon,

Antony

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Friday 31 October 2014

PaganCon 2013 Review: The North West Pagan Community Come Together

By Friends & Family, PaganismNo Comments

PaganCon 2013

PaganCon 2013 On Saturday (13th July) the pagan community of the North West of England came together for PaganCon 2013. It was a glorious sunny day; the pagan community descended upon Preston Grasshoppers Rugby Club for a day of workshops/talks, stalls, music and dancing.

The venue was easy to find and had great parking. I went along with Simon & Chrys, excited to attend my first ever PaganCon.

The day started with a what I’m told was a beautiful and touching commemoration ritual for recently deceased Wigan High Priestess Joan Withington.

Doors opened at 10am, but a lack of a programme in advance made the day very difficult to plan. It felt very hit or miss and in my case there was so much I missed.

PaganCon 2013
PaganCon 2013 When I arrived just after midday there was a programme that revealed that I’d missed Joan’s ritual and a talk I would have liked to have heard.

The programme showed that Damh The Bard & Cernunnos Rising – one of the reasons we’d booked tickets were on at 7:45PM which would have made it a very long day.

There were a good variety of stalls selling a variety of items including: books, wands, staffs, ornaments, altar cloths, incenses and the sort of things you’d expect at a pagan event.

The talks were given by experienced and well-known pagan community members. However in the exceedingly warm hall they felt more like lectures – having no element of discussion or debate like I had imagined. It would have benefited speakers to have split-off rooms with smaller groups to enable debate and encourage real peer learning to occur. More practical workshops would have been beneficial to those new to the craft.

The programme gave little information about the speakers or their topics. I listened to a talk entitled ‘Storytelling’ on the programme, only to find it wasn’t what I thought it would be.

PaganCon 2013

Outside the sun shone and the heat beat down with thanks to Apollo & Ra. People relaxed and tended to know one other. While it was great to see, it did get me wondering how a solitary practitioners would use PaganCon as an opportunity to meet and get to know others. I choose to work alone more often than not, but still like having pagan friends for support and to celebrate Pagan Festivals with. Organisers could have arranged opportunities for solitary practitioners to get to know others.

Simon & Chrys stayed to see Damh The Bard & Cernunnos Rising and said they were fantastic. I felt like I’d really missed out, but it couldn’t be avoided as my painful back couldn’t of tolerated the six or seven hour wait. Plus I had some other plans for the late evening.

Overall PaganCon 2013 was a chance for the pagan community to come together. I imagined that the talks & workshops would leave me feeling inspired, with plenty of questions and new ideas to contemplate. This didn’t happen, but I’ll be definitely going back next year.

Next year I’ll be attending in the late afternoon/early evening to catch the stalls and Damh The Bard, unless the programme is released in advance and has a talk/workshop that catches my fancy.

I’ll leave you with some pictures of these brilliant morris dancers, who kept the outside folk entertained with their wonderful music and dancing. Definitely a highlight of my day:

PaganCon 2013 PaganCon 2013
PaganCon 2013 PaganCon 2013
PaganCon 2013 PaganCon 2013

Blog soon,

Antony

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Sunday 14 July 2013
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