#cumbria festivals

[lehowa]

Something a little bit different this time. Please forgive some shameless advertising of my viking re-enactment group and our festival that is happening in a week in Cumbria! If you happen to be in the area please concider to come and say hi! All information can be found on the event page on Facebook if you search for Moorforge Althing Festival https://www.facebook.com/events/714821223711665/?active_tab=about

[explorerfloyd]

Band of Captives @ Keswick Beer Festival 2023

[julamusic]

Novablood played Borderlands festival last week..

[asgards-princess-of-mischief]

Last Updated: 2024-11-28

Disclaimer: I am not the author of these stories, just sharing my favourite Loki Odinson stories. Find the authors' links below. If you want your work removed, message me privately.

Legend: 〔E〕 ⇢ Erotic/Steamy | 〔F〕 ⇢ Fluff | 〔A〕 ⇢ Angst/Hurt 〔M〕 ⇢ Minor Angst/Hurt | 〔C〕 ⇢ Comfort | 〔H〕 ⇢ Horror | ♥︎ ⇢ Established Relationship | 𑁍 ⇢ Pregnancy/Children | 🚫 ⇢ Content Warning

❧ Lake, the by lokisgoodgirl • 18+ • 〔F᜶A〕 •

Summary: Captain Rogers, in his infinite wisdom, decided that a select team of Avengers required a crash course in basic survival. However, nothing the wilds of Cumbria can throw at you is more trying than the ever-present irritations & temptations of your recent ex, Loki.

❧ Beautiful Darkness by munsons-maiden • 〔F᜶C〕 •

Summary: You're scared of the dark, so the haunted house at the carnival isn't the best place for you to be. However, Loki is with you, and he knows exactly how to help you learn that the dark doesn't only hide evil, but beautiful things as well.

❧ Bump in the Night… [Demon!Loki] ⧫ by michelleleewise • 〔A᜶H〕 •

Summary: Tony dares you to spend the night in the resident haunted house, but will you make it through the night...

❧ Coffee and Cuddles by sserpente • 〔F〕 •

Prompt(s): "Imagine taking Loki to Starbucks on a cold autumn day, [and] introducing him to your favourite season-themed drink. Maybe he agreed to cuddle with you because of the caffeine..."

❧ Costume Party by sserpente • 18+ • 〔E᜶F〕 •

Summary: "Imagine Tony making you all dress up as each other for Halloween. Well, technically, Loki is an Avenger too now, right? So what will happen when the God of Mischief lays his eyes upon you wearing his shiny olden helmet and an impressive copy of his armour?"

❧ Dark Desires by sserpente • 18+ • 〔E〕 • ♥︎ • 🚫 •

Prompt(s): "Imagine asking Loki to fulfill a dark and naughty desire of yours on Halloween. Little do you know he's been planning on making it come true from a while now..."

❧ Don't Leaf Me by sserpente • 〔A᜶C〕 •

Summary: "Imagine having a leaf fight with Loki."

❧ Fall in Love by devilbat • 16+ • 〔F〕 • ♥︎ •

Summary: You and Loki have your fourth date at your home…

❧ Family Moments by sserpente • 〔F〕 • ♥︎ • 𑁍 •

Summary: Imagine Loki and you taking your daughter trick or treating on Halloween. Having dressed up as none other than her daddy, she is far from tired when you finally return home and you tuck her in, looking forward to a cuddly evening with Loki watching movies and eating Halloween candy.

❧ Festival in the Park by sserpente • 〔F〕 •

Summary: "Imagine taking Loki to a fall festival and picking out a pumpkin with him."

❧ Haunted Hearts [Asgardian!Reader] by munsons-maiden • 18+ • 〔E᜶F᜶A〕 •

Summary: "It's the night of [Samhain]—the night when the veil between worlds lifts and evil spirits roam free. You're [an] Asgardian priestesses guarding the realm [on] this night... [However,] you quickly... realize that not only the dead have come out to play... Someone is watching you. Someone... you thought you'd never see again, who's been... haunting your thoughts ever since a stolen, forbidden kiss you shared..."

❧ Mischief and Chaos by just-the-hiddles • 18+ • 〔E᜶F〕 •

Summary: "Stark is throwing a Halloween costume party.  You take this opportunity to dress up in order to garner the attention of a certain God of Mischief."

❧ Most Ridiculous Holiday, the by just-the-hiddles • 〔F〕 •

Summary: "Loki and Peter help [you] with Thanksgiving preparation. Although help is a strong word.  As disasters ensue, [you force] the boys out of the kitchen. Loki calls it a ridiculous Midgardian holiday, but are those his true feelings?"

❧ My Queen by baseballbitch • 〔F᜶A〕 • ♥︎ •

Summary: After reluctantly agreeing to escort you to Tony's Halloween party, Loki finds himself reminding you why he's your lover.

❧ Never Have I Ever by munsons-maiden • 18+ • 〔E〕 •

Summary: "You teach Loki how to play Never Have I Ever —and he teaches you something else in return."

❧ Pumpkin Patch by devilbat • 〔F〕 •

Summary: Bumping into Loki on your way to the pumpkin patch you decide to take him with you.

❧ Pumpkin Spice by sserpente • 〔E᜶F〕 •

Summary: "Imagine Loki helping you make pumpkin spice cupcakes with his magic."

❧ Pumpkin Spiced Laughter by fluffyfantasticducky • 〔F〕 • ♥︎ •

Summary: Loki and you have a date for pumpkin carving date for your first halloween together. But Loki's impatience and your indecivcess prove to cause a very fun distraction.

❧ Rain Falls and So Do I, the by the--sad--hatter • 18+ • 〔E᜶A〕 •

Summary: "It's your love of rain and the joy [of] feeling it on your skin that makes Loki realize what… he loves."

❧ Silk and Leather by munsons-maiden • 18+ • 〔E᜶F〕 • ♥︎ •

Summary: "When your attempt to dress up as Loki for one of Tony's costume parties fails miserably, the trickster has his own idea of helping you fix the costume crisis...and things get heated."

❧ Trick or Treat￨Prt. II by sserpente • 18+ • 〔E᜶F〕 •

Summary: "Imagine Loki sneaking into your room the night before Halloween to scare you… only to find you… in bed moaning his name"

❧ Turkey Disaster by devilbat • 〔F〕 • ♥︎ •

❧ Unraveled by cleo-fox • 18+ • 〔F᜶E〕 •

Summary: It was all fun and games until Loki started wearing that goddamn sweater.

❧ White Queen by lov3nerdstuff • 〔F〕 •

Summary: "When Tony Stark throws a costume party, you need to come up with an idea. Quickly. So why not take the god of mischief costume shopping? He seems eager enough to help..."

❧ Why Him? by muddyorbsblr • 〔A᜶F〕 • ♥︎ •

Summary: An invitation to a Thanksgiving family reunion was sent addressed to you and Loki, and you're not exactly all that excited to face everyone after over a decade of no contact.

❧ Your Spell by munsons-maiden • 〔F〕 • ♥︎ •

Summary: "You teach Loki your favourite Midgardian Halloween tradition—and realize something beautiful in the process."

❧ An Odinson Halloween by lokisgoodgirl • 〔F〕 • ♥︎ •

❧ Candy [Jötun!Loki] by dyns33 • 〔F〕 • ♥︎ •

❧ Candy Apples by sserpente • 〔E〕 • ♥︎ •

❧ Halloween Night by dyns33 • 〔F〕 • ♥︎ •

❧ Movie Night by mostly-marvel-musings • 〔F᜶H〕 • ♥︎ •

❧ Our First Halloween by gaitwae • 〔F〕 • ♥︎ •

❧ Provocation by sserpente • 〔E〕 • ♥︎ •

❧ Raining Cuddles by lokisninerealms • 〔F〕 • ♥︎ •

❧ Treasure Hunt by lokisgoodgirl • 18+ • 〔E〕 • ♥︎ •

❧ Trick￨Treat by dyns33 • 〔F〕 • ♥︎ •

See Also: Navigation || Loki Odinson Master Index

Authors: @baseballbitch116 || @cleo-fox || @devilbat || @dyns33 || @fluffyfantasticducky || @gaitwae || @just-the-hiddles || @lokisgoodgirl || @lokisninerealms || @lov3nerdstuff || @michelleleewise || @mostly-marvel-musings || @muddyorbsblr || @munsons-maiden || @sserpente || @the--sad--hatter ||

[drarrymicrofic]

This holiday season, the Microfic Discord Server hosted a special Secret Santa version of our classic Wheel of Drarry gift exchange! Starting today and going until Christmas eve, we will be posting three of these anonymous gift fics per day! If you'd like to join the next round of our Wheel of Drarry exchange, dm us for a link to join the discord! 18+ only!

🎁 O, come, all ye @arminaa8, your Secret Santa fic is here!

Title: Draco Malfoy and the Unfortunate Incident with the Horny Potion Wordcount: 1.6k Rating: E Warnings/Content: Sex Pollen

Summary: It was not Draco's fault they were stuck in this hovel in the middle of nowhere, Cumbria; wandless, bound hand and foot with rope that dampened their magic, and doused in what Draco was slowly coming to realize to his horror was a crude Amortentia derivative.

All Secret Santa fics are available for reading now in the Ao3 Collection!

🎄 Your Festive Microfic Mods

[influencermagazineuk]

February 2024: A Recap of Key Events in the UK

February 2024 was a dynamic month for the United Kingdom, witnessing significant developments across various sectors. From political discussions and economic updates to societal shifts and cultural moments, here's a comprehensive overview of the key events that shaped the UK landscape during this period: Politics: - Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs): Every Wednesday, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak faced questions from Members of Parliament (MPs) on pressing issues, keeping the public informed about government actions and generating lively debates on topics ranging from the cost of living crisis to foreign policy. - Rochdale by-election (February 29th): This by-election, triggered by the death of Labour MP Tony Lloyd, became a test of public sentiment towards the government's handling of various challenges. The outcome will be revealed in early March and might provide insights into the public's mood ahead of potential future elections. - Home Office crackdown on illegal working: The government announced increased fines for employers caught employing undocumented workers, aiming to deter illegal practices and protect the rights of legal workers. This decision sparked discussions about immigration policies and the complexities of managing a dynamic workforce. Economy: - Cost of living crisis: The rising cost of food, energy bills, and transportation remained a pressing concern for many citizens. The government announced various measures to provide financial support to vulnerable households, while discussions continued regarding long-term solutions to tackle inflation and ensure economic stability. - Chancellor's budget speech (March 6th): Scheduled for early March, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt's budget speech will be closely watched as it outlines the government's economic plan for the coming year. This will indicate the government's approach to various challenges, including tax measures, public spending, and infrastructure investments. - Strike action: Several industries, including nurses, teachers, and railway workers, considered or took strike action to demand better working conditions and salary increases in response to the rising cost of living. These actions highlighted the pressure faced by various sectors and the need for addressing their concerns. Society and Culture: - Dark Skies Festival: Yorkshire, Cumbria, and other regions hosted the annual Dark Skies Festival, offering opportunities for stargazing, exploring celestial phenomena, and appreciating the beauty of light-pollution-free skies. This event highlighted the UK's commitment to preserving natural environments and fostering public interest in astronomy. - Brit Awards (March 2nd): This prestigious music awards ceremony, scheduled for early March, celebrates the achievements of British and international artists in the music industry. This event attracts attention not only for the awards themselves but also for the performances and collaborations it features. - Changes to TV licenses: The cost of a TV license is set to increase, potentially impacting many households. This change sparked discussions about the accessibility of media and the evolving landscape of content consumption in the digital age. Looking Ahead: While February brought its own set of challenges and milestones, the UK marches onward. March 2024 promises the Brit Awards, the Chancellor's budget speech, and the outcome of the Rochdale by-election, all set to shape the national conversation and offer further insights into the UK's trajectory. As the year unfolds, the UK can expect to grapple with ongoing issues while also embracing new opportunities and witnessing significant developments across various sectors. Read the full article

[cmrosens]

Dark Folklore & Gothic Horror Short Films - Interview with Lucy Rose

Lucy Rose is an award-winning writer/director for screen and prose/nonfiction writer with an interest in gothic, girlhood, horror, and literary fiction. Her fiction and nonfiction have been published in Dread Central, Mslexia, and more.

Lucy is represented by Cathryn Summerhayes at Curtis Brown (Books)

Other enquiries to hello [@] lucyrosecreative [.] co [.] uk

Listen to the interview here/on your preferred podcast provider (search + follow Eldritch Girl: Weird Stuff and Nonsense) Read the transcript off tumblr here or here

Tip me if you can and you like this interview, it helps keep the podcast going!

Interview Transcript

CMR: Hello! Welcome back to Eldritch Girl! This is really exciting because we’ve got Lucy Rose who is a filmmaker, and we’re going to discuss the indie horror short, She Lives Alone. Lucy, would you like to introduce yourself?

LR: Hello, I am Lucy, I’m a filmmaker based in the northeast and I am the writer-director of She Lives Alone. She Lives Alone was such an amazing fun project to be able to work on. The development process was really fun. I worked really closely with my producer to explore the rural landscape of the place I grew up, which is a place in Cumbria. And I really just kind of wanted to bring a small facet of our Celtic regions and that tiny little culture to the screen and combine that with my love of Gothic horror and ghost stories and all the stories basically that I heard in Cumbria growing up that used to keep me up at night forever.

She Lives Alone has gone to some really cool festivals and it’s gone to some BAFTA and Oscar qualifying festivals, which is really intimidating but very cool. And then it ended its journey by winning best runner under 100 K at the Northeast Arts awards and getting picked up by Alter, which was the most amazing surprize in the whole world, because now it kind of finally gets to see its audience after a virtual festival runs so that’s lovely.

CMR: that’s so exciting I’m really happy, the whole film is about 15 minutes long and it is available on YouTube and so I’m gonna play a little bit of it I’m really excited about, which is kind of at the end, so I mean spoilers, but it is a ghost story, so you can kind of – I mean you can’t see it, you can just hear the audio. But we want to talk a little bit about the folklore behind it and a little bit of what’s going on, so we’re going to start from 11:41 so you get a sense of the music and the dialogue – it’s very much a monologue, isn’t it? A lot of it is a monologue because well… she lives alone.

[Laughter]

LR: Yeah.

CMR: it’s really dark and atmospheric and I think there’s maybe like two other characters in the whole film, which is like you know really cool. Okay, so. Let’s see how this let’s see how this works.

[clip plays from 11mins 46secs in: an adult woman with a low voice and Cumbrian accent is speaking. The line is “Bury you in earth, bury you in mud as thick as bark” over and over in hushed, desperate tones, with the tense score, whistling wind, and metallic clinking. There is a sharp scream and gasps at the end as the music swells ominously.]

CMR: Actually going to pause it there because that’s like a really good bit. I think the coolest image of that is the iron nail through the Bible through her hand which I was seeing as an exorcism ritual or part of an exorcism ritual, and can you tell us a little bit about that element and the little bit of dialogue that she’s got as a kind of mantra that is “Bury you in earth, bury you in mud as thick as bark”?

LR: And so I grew up in like the tiniest, tiniest village like. It may be had like six or seven houses. And it was so remote so if you wanted to go anywhere to like a shop you’re looking at least 25 minutes’ drive, and so the sense of isolation and because of that, like the Community, and what the Community felt like, and how we as people kind of used storytelling as a method within our like our tiny, tiny little culture that again – seven houses – I basically took things that I’d heard in my childhood and sort of morphed them and manifested them into this film.

I used to live by this woman who I will literally remember for the rest of my life, who was very superstitious, an extremely superstitious woman, and she was just the most incredible person and so like unashamedly weird. She was just so in touch with herself, which I think is so difficult in a small community, to be able to just like live your weirdness and like not care what people think of you, because everybody has opinions in those tiny little tight knit groups.

And she used to mess around with all sorts, but she you know she taught me like what ouija boards were and what voodoo dolls were, and she was really, really like spiritual and she often talked about like how connected to the earth and to the planet she felt was like a human, and I’d sometimes visit her after school. And I’d sit in a kitchen, while she was cooking dinner, for I was burned, and she just seeing these like really weird songs that she just made up herself like these little folk tunes. I just pulled phrases and lines and words that she was saying, because she did – she – I think she was just sort of… in hindsight, as a grown woman, I think I see her loneliness now, and how that connection to the earth and to nature was something that really, really kept her from going insane.

And it was a sort of gravity to her and that’s kind of what I wanted to give to Maud was this sense of like you might be without a person or people but you’re not on your own, and you can always rely on different spiritual things to sort of find your centre and in terms of the Bible, the nail going through her hand, I think it’s really metaphorical but I really just wanted to talk about the power that was kind of harnessing her, and the struggle between how her mum was treating her. So, for context, people [listening] if you haven’t seen it,  Maud lives alone that’s the “she” in She Lives Alone. Her mum’s just passed away and she’s basically like in this normal grieving period and she begins to realize that she’s haunted by the spirit of her mother and her mother left her one thing which was the Bible, and it was because the mother always thought she was a wicked girl.

Basically, at the end film she casts out the spirit of her mum by bonding herself to this Bible, like physically binding herself to it, and I think it’s in part a metaphor about… I think in terms of discussing themes like trauma, like that trauma is always going to be a part of you. You can’t separate them, like, they’re together, and that’s horrible, but I don’t think that that’s a bad thing. I think it’s like an acceptance that like it’s just one of the bags you’re carrying with you in your life, and one of the items that you keep with you, and it doesn’t make you an awful person, it’s just something you’ve got in you.

And in a more sort of physical sense like, for me, like one of the staples of rural life is cast iron. You see it everywhere, you see it made making the gates, making the beds, making the keys, the locks, everything.

So I think it’s just bringing that industry and that sense of objects having a space in our community, and it sounds ridiculous, but one of the other things is the red stone and you constantly see some stone in in Cumbria, it’s everywhere you go and all the houses are made out of it.

And everything is red and orange and rust and copper coloured so it’s just one of those things about like bringing the identity of the land and the place and the people, whether that’s the minerals, the materials and the industry and embedding it in the world of the film, so that it feels real and also acknowledging the spirituality of the place so like, the folk song that is in the film…

Acknowledging that however small the culture is, it doesn’t mean it’s not important, and like that folklore, I think is a hugely, hugely important staple of that place and I just really wanted to like bring that to life in this in this film.

I think it works really well like and I also like the detail when she draws, um, so she has the Bible in the palm of your hand and then she draws a diamond on the front of the  Bible around the Cross. Is that from something or is that a detail that organically came about, or is that based in folklore?

LR: And so, one of the things that came from, that sort of like rhombus square shape, is the woman who used to live next to me – again this incredibly spiritual woman who I, like, everything I learned about our tiny culture I learned from this person.

 And, and she used to make these like… they were like twigs that you’d like put into squares and then you put different twines around them.

 You know one day it’d be like fishing twine that she … her husband used to fish a lot, so she’d take some of his fishing twine, and she’d make these little rhombus shapes, I can’t do it like that. [shows me with her fingers in a rhombus shape]

And, and she put little flowers in them and she used to just leave them around house, I was never quite sure what they were, but she always used to call them wishing hexes.

She’d just leave them around and they were to bring good fortune and it was really beautiful, it’s really beautiful.

CMR: Oh that’s really interesting I like that melding of that kind of folk tradition and then Christianity and then like, different spiritualities is that you get kind of melded in a place like that.

LR: And I find that that’s a truth though, isn’t it, I think a lot of people find spirituality and no one person’s version of any faith is the same, and that’s something that’s actually quite beautiful and that’s born of our experiences.

CMR: Yes, and I think it’s a flavour of folk Christianity as well because, like I think it’s become… from outside perspectives I think it’s a very homogenous religion or a very homogenous spirituality and I think a lot of that is due to, you know, perceptions of modern evangelicalism and that kind of thing. But I think you’re right, in different enclaves people still do have their own traditions.

And it’s really – it’s really cool to see that because it’s a period drama as well, this film, so it’s linking back to a kind of earlier age and an earlier kind of expression of Christianity and folk Christianity, but also, I mean, did you have a year that it was set in, or was it just general?

LR: So I imagine it’s set in mid 1850s but, like the year is quite vague.

But I think like one of… actually, speaking of time, one of the really fun aspects of the film is that where it’s based has such an interesting relationship with time. Cumbria, when you look into its background, it’s wild. It’s been constantly fought over, so its identity is like a complete mishmash of different cultures from like Norway to Roman to old Old English, to everything. There’s Germanic in there, and it’s absolutely insane.

And so I think that sense of time, and even though it’s a period drama, one of the things we tried to create was the sense of timelessness to it so it almost exists in its own pocket?

CMR: Yeah.

LR: And that was like really crucial for us because we just wanted… What we kind of imagined when we sat and we thought of as a creative team, we were like maybe this is what it felt like because it was so disconnected and its culture was so constantly changing and evolving and adapting new ideas from like people who came and left or people who conquered and then were defeated and… yeah.

CMR: I think that works really well in the film because you’ve got it centred only on two locations which is her cottage which is miles from anywhere so a friend from the village actually comes to visit her, but you never see the village and you don’t see it through her eyes, you don’t see it through her friends eyes, you don’t see any other people at all. you’re in, and you have a sense that the village is quite a walk away so she has to travel to get in there, however long that takes and it’s just this idea of… there’s no civilization that kind of thing, and even the civilization, that there is it’s obviously not urbanized and it’s obviously like quite far from any kind of urban centre so you’ve already got that kind of thing going on, and the cottage itself is this is where the horror is. That’s the locus of the domestic horror, because the spirit of the mother is haunting her in the house.

And so the other place you see her is just on the moors or you know that ring of standing stones isn’t it that she’s in.

LR: In yeah. The standing stones were actually based on a  real place. We really, really wanted to shoot in the place, but we couldn’t because it’s an active spiritual site and it just wouldn’t be ethical to shoot there.

But the standing stones are based on a real stone circle called Long Meg and her Daughters.

And, which is place I used to visit all the time, and when you go now it’s just the most beautiful place, it’s in the middle of nowhere, there’s like ribbons in the trees, bells, and it’s just stunning, but I mean that sense of isolation is like. I think, with it being a short film, you can, from a boring technical perspective, you can explore those worlds, but I wouldn’t want to do that anyway, like I think it’s I really like just as a personal preference to how I approach things, again, going back to that word like pockets, I really like to capture like small pockets of hidden histories, quiet tragedies that don’t necessarily get written down in the history books, because they’re not deemed important enough to write down.

And when we think about period dramas which we think of like glitzy giant polished glossy manor houses, sweeping romances, like you know, especially with like the massive Bridgerton fad that’s going around at the minute, you don’t think of the real people and the very real lives and consequences and events and you know, there’s hidden pockets of laughter with one person to another and realizing that ‘oh my God that’s my that’s my partner and I’m going to spend my life with them’ or, you know, ‘I hate my sister because she’s the worst person in the world’, but they had to share a bed, because they had no money.

It’s those like really tiny moments that I tried to catch on to because they’re just not explored enough, but I think it really serves horror because horror’s everything we fear as a society.

And I think you know, I think, in some ways, like rural communities, the way that they’re treated within our society is odd. You often hear them referred to as sheep shaggers or whatever, or like farmers, and that comes with the added like a sort of thing of like well they’re not clever enough to have an opinion on this or that, but then on the flip side, though those communities are also beloved for their influence on things like literature, from like every genre you know from you Beatrix Potter to you know, everyone else, so it’s a really – I think that’s sort of push and pull, and those two opposites can create real conflict, which is why it serves horror so well, because you kind of have to address those conflicts within the subtext of whatever you’re making.

Can’t remember where I was going with that. Just monologuing about justice.

[Laughter]

CMR: Yes, but that’s it isn’t it, because you’ve got like – rural communities do have those polarized perspectives, that they either idealized and it’s like this pastoral idyll before urbanization when everything was perfect, or exploited because of the natural minerals you know, so you’ve got things like the South Wales coalfield, which is where I grew up, and there’s huge chunks taken out of the landscape there’s massive scars on the mountains from the quarries.

And then dying communities exist because they were only there for the mines and now there’s no mines and there’s no reason for those communities to exist.

And people are like, well the community just shouldn’t exist, you should all just go somewhere else. Where are they going to go? You know, I get very annoyed about that because, yes, it’s you know, there are communities that exist and they have their own identities, they have their own deep roots in that place and that sense of place both traps them there and anchors them there at the same time.

I think you get that in this film as well, that sense of both entrapment and anchorage comes across in like she won’t leave the cottage because you haven’t got anywhere else to go. Like, that’s all she’s got, she’s not going to… what are you going to do, move to the city? With what money?

LR: You know it’s true it’s I mean everything you’ve just said it like chef’s kiss, by the way, five stars.

I was just like, yes.

I would listen to a podcast just about that, but you’re so right, and I think you know, I was talking about this.

But I think it’s that split thing we have as humans, where our bodies want to be connected to nature but that’s what we want in our bodies, in our bones, in our fibres, but our brains are like … I want capitalism!! So you’re stuck in the middle, like I don’t know where to go, and I’ve already said this, [laughs] the middle ground is Animal Crossing, because you get that like relaxed beautiful countryside, but you’re doing it through capitalism.

[Laughter]

CMR: yeah it’s difficult as well to see it from a 19th century working class perspective which obviously we are so divorced from now that we have to see it through the filters and the lenses that we bring to it, because everyone sees things through the lens of their own culture, whether you think you do or not, right, so it’s a really interesting exercise in just looking at a little bubble, a little bit, like a pocket of time.

And, and what I love about it as well, is that that quiet domestic drama that we haven’t seen, but you start to fill in the gaps for yourself, because a lot of it is the silence and the things that she is not saying, and particularly in the dialogue when her friend comes to visit her, and it’s like Oh, where have you been and she’s like Oh, you know I’ve been here, living my life. Except she hasn’t been, because she’s been stuck in the house on her own, her mum’s dead, and then I think that’s when you get the sense that that space of grief and absence is the time when she’s actually starting to realize how shitty her mother was to her.

When you’re going through it and living it and you don’t have any other options but to stay in your situation, you can’t go anywhere because there’s nowhere to go and you have no means to go anywhere and everyone in the village in a community like that anchors you to that community, because they’re the only people that you know, but also you feel like you have these senses of duty and responsibility to your mother. But that sense, as well, is imposed upon you by other people who think that you do [have a responsibility/duty], right.

[People] that you’ve grown up with, and so you have to answer to everybody in that community based on your choices as well, and she obviously doesn’t want to do that later on.

Not for any bad reason but it’s just she’s like seems like a very introverted kind of character, who doesn’t have that ability potentially to stand up for herself. And you kind of get the impression that’s very much the mother’s fault.

But yeah, and this idea that she’s wicked as the mother is constantly telling her that she’s wicked and then at the end you get that realization of “you always said I was wicked but it wasn’t me it was you”, and the only time she could have said that is when her mother is dead.

LR: I know it’s sad isn’t it.

CMR: Yeah. Just crying here [laughs] like oh my God.

LR: Yeah. It’s like justice but it’s not the justice she deserves. I think. And that’s… which is what makes it horror, and it’s also what makes it true, right, like it’s so sad, and I think it’s – do you know, one of the things I always talk about this, but I think it’s so, so true and I think if we all just looked at this and acknowledged it, it would really change the way we think about how we express ourselves as humans.

I think, obviously, as a culture, as a society, as a civilization, we’ve picked up bits and pieces of our history and we’ve those are the bits that survived that’s what we are now, and I think the bedrock of what we’re doing at the minute is extremely Victorian, which is why I call it a Gothic piece, even though it’s not got the big manor house and, like, the two orphaned children.

But I think that’s why I call it a Gothic piece, because I think in terms of what it’s trying to say about us as humans now, like we are most directly linked to that time where Capitalism became everything, like mass production, science, medicine, industrialism, all of these new things that started changing the way we experience the world.

Things that kickstarted technology to a new level, things that opened the door to expression, conversation, like newspapers were selling more, books were selling more, people were experiencing new perspectives whether they liked those or disliked them, you know, and I think it’s that thing of expression, like now, when you put a parallel to that.

And you talked about like how quiet she was how she never said says what she thinks, and I think, you know, like especially like we didn’t make that film in lockdown. That was a pre COVID film, it was written years before COVID and it is just by chance that, like, everything that we experience when it comes to human expression was just absolutely amplified during the COVID lockdowns. So like, when we look at how we communicate our lives, especially on things like social media, I know it sounds corny, but we never say what we really think.

I think, you know, when people are getting… even when people appear to be saying what they think when they’re being reactionary on Twitter or getting triggered by an opinion and saying something because they just need to get the anger out, like I think they’re not saying what they actually think because they’re reacting to something that’s triggering them and they’re not talking about the trigger. They’re talking about why they’re angry about the thing that they’ve been triggered by.

And likewise, on the other side of that spectrum we’ve got like you know people who thrived in lockdown: I’m doing this, I’m doing this wellness masterclass, but really we were all struggling you know, and I think that’s what Maud’s experiences is just that, like, a journey of learning to express herself, learning to get the words out, the real words, the ones she’s actually thinking and not just what she’s been told is acceptable to put out there and to let out of her mouth, and you know, I think that that really links to the Gothic because it’s all about you know repressed desire, whether that desire is for like a person or expression, you know.

CMR: Yeah definitely and I think…Yeah there’s so much, I mean that there’s that kind of sense of Gothic isolation as well, like we talked a lot about that and also like the… I guess the fracturing of your identity and the rediscovery of your identity, which Maud kind of goes through on this really short journey, but it’s a very intense journey that we kind of go on with her and you’ve got that sense of that really intense time of grief and coming to terms with, not just the death of her mother, but also grieving for potentially the person that she could have been.

LR: yeah.

CMR: Which she’s only just coming to terms with, and that’s also kind of like a haunting for Maud as well, that kind of the you know, that the spirit of the mother is what we decide is haunting her and then at the end is like the reveal of the you know the actual spirit itself that you see, just very kind of Woman in Black-esque which I love.

But you also get like this… I love the fact also that she was also in mourning dress, the mother and presumably you know her husband’s dead and that’s why it’s just her and her daughter but you get this dour woman who was sunk in her own grief and that has been haunting Maud also, like her mother’s emotional absence, you know, through her life.

But what’s actually haunting Maud isn’t just the mother.

It’s a lot of things.

And so you get that kind of rejection and you know that that she tries to reject all of that and bind herself to something positive, and cast out that spirit, but it’s not easy to do and I keep coming back to The Babadook in my head because it’s something that you can’t get away from.

LR: Yeah.

CMR: The babadook as a metaphor for grief, you can kind of lock it up somewhere in a room and look at it and kind of acknowledge it’s there and make sure that it doesn’t hurt anyone else, and that you don’t… you know, you don’t lash out and you don’t let it escape and damage or fracture relationships, and you do that by acknowledging its presence and dealing with it in a mature way, and by communicating with other people about it. Otherwise it gets in the way of your relationships. Which, for me, was what that film was about, in particular, between the mother and son [in The Babadook].

Here it’s Maud. Almost as if there’s like a hint at the end that she doesn’t succeed in that, because it almost overpowers her. So I’m going to spoil it a bit, but I think these aren’t spoilers, these are more like reasons for you to watch the film.

[Laughter]

I think if I could explain the whole film and then you wouldn’t want to watch it, like, I don’t understand you.

[Laughter]

So yeah. So there’s a bit… so after she’s sort of nailed her hand to the Bible, the nail then comes out of her hand, and it sort of levitates, and it’s almost like the iron is… it’s almost like a rejection of her or a rejection of what she’s trying to do, that, that bond doesn’t work.

And that’s kind of like, oh is she a which you know, because that sign of cold iron not being compatible with the person of a witch or a fairy or something like that you know you’ve got that kind of link to it, which I thought was really cool, but you also have the mother standing there, the mother’s ghost is in the frame behind her where she can’t see it, but kind of looming over the proceedings, and you’ve got this sense of like what exactly is…[happening]?

Is the mother causing the rejection to happen, and is it the rejection this you know the physical rejection of the nail, but it’s that kind of… that [haunting/grief/trauma] isn’t going to be healed by a ritual.

LR: yeah.

CMR: That whole thing is not going to be healed by a moment in time. Even, no matter how grounded you are to the place you’re in, no matter how well thought out that ritual is, no matter how desperate you are, that is a process that is going to take years and she is always going to be haunted by numerous layers of things that have come out as a result of her relationship with her mother, so, in a sense, her mother is always going to be there, whether her spirit is physically present or not.

And that’s kind of the end of the film, it is very ambiguous and quite chilling, because you get that sense that it’s not – it’s not over, it’s not going to be over and that Maud’s haunting is kind of something she’s going to have to live with – or not – and that’s… that’s the difficulty of living with grief isn’t it, that for me that was very kind of relatable and very powerful and I really appreciated the whole tone of it, and I was like oh God yeah that was very upsetting as well, really upsetting to think about.

But I think that’s like you say there’s not a lot of space in a lot of kind of glitzy period dramas that are more about the romance and the upper classes, to look at working class tragedy, and you know, the ordinary people and those pockets of normal domestic drama, and how they deeply impact someone.

LR: For sure. I think more like more biggest tragedy is that it’s… You know, the ghost is never going to go, she’s just going to learn how to live around it, and you did that thing, that’s kind of how that grief and that trauma works, and I think another thing that’s quite sad about these experiences, is that, like, you can look at something ugly, whether that’s an experience or person and it’s really hard to accept that person as a complex human being with their own troubles, because I think one of the hardest things to admit, and it’s something you touched on, actually, is like, when you think about the mother’s character and how she’s in mourning dress, she’s lost her husband, she’s got a lot going on in her mind, and I think one of the things that Maud can look at is the fact that, like it doesn’t make it okay, and it doesn’t make it acceptable what this woman has done to her, but like pain recycles into pain so often. It’s horrible and I wish it didn’t do that, but it does, it punches down and it punches down, and it keeps going, and keeps going, until someone strong enough to go, Nope, not anymore, and it’s so hard.

Whether Maud does that remains to be seen at the moment because I think it’s that’s another journey. Just looking at it is the first step isn’t it, and then dealing with it in in all its complexity, in everything that it carries with it that’s like a whole other beast like it’s just so much.

But I think you know, like in terms of like the working class aspect like one of the things that just became so apparent to me when I was doing my family tree. So I grew up in Cumbria, but my family are all from Yorkshire and I realized, none of us really had left Yorkshire since the 1500s, that’s what I discovered, and we’d always been in like areas like Sheffield and Huddersfield.

Well, I think what’s so sad is when you look at some of the family trees on like all of these research websites, they have photographs, they have items, they have diary entries they have pieces of those people.

And I still think I’m lucky, a lot of people don’t have names, but I just have a list of names. I don’t have church records, I have a couple of sentences that I found.

And I just think that’s so awful that like, we’ve deemed that some people are worthy of being remembered, some people are not, I just find that like horrifying and that’s, you know, like, oh God.

CMR: yeah I taught a family history course a while back, and it was it’s really hard when you’ve got like very limited things to go on.

And one of those things is the access, which people I think take for granted now and don’t realize, but the accessibility of things like photographs.

You had to save up for those and maybe there was only one you know one shop in the town that was like three towns over so that’s a whole day of it and you have to take that day off work and you can’t take days off work because that’s not how it works.

If you’re running a farm you can’t just go off.

LR: yeah.

CMR: You know, never mind about the cows today, love, we’re having our photograph taken like.

LR: You can’t just book in some holiday.

CMR: yeah so it’s like it’s a very… It becomes a very lower middle class – aspiring middle class – kind of thing, but a very middle class kind of thing to have a photograph taken.

But also at least in Wales, you had to pay for a church service but you didn’t have to pay to have your relationship blessed on the church steps. So there was a lot of… so you won’t have parish records of those blessings for the relationship, because those relationships were not technically legally “marriage”.

LR: Wow.

CMR: So in Wales like I know somebody was doing his family tree, he’s retired and he was doing it as a thing you know, and he realized, he was the first legitimate child in about 200 years.

LR: Oh my gosh, that’s insane.

CMR: And the reason was that it was just too expensive for people to get married so they would that they used to do a thing, where they would take take on the name, Mrs., the epithet and say that they were Mrs Jones. But they never legally changed it and they never legally had the marriage certificate to prove that. They just had, you know, they just moved in with their partner took on Mrs as an epithet and then had the children and the children will have the husband’s name and everyone just worked around it as if they were married, and that that’s a lot more common than people think. It was, you know, a lot more widespread, especially if you were poor. And that’s why it’s really hard to find a lot of the records, but also just the accessibility of things like weddings, things like, you know, things that would leave that indelible mark.

LR: You know it’s honestly insane to me like I think it’s it’s just I think that’s where a lot of load my characters come from even like I don’t have any family called Maud, but I look at a name on a piece of paper, and all I have is letters, and I’m like, who are you? What did you look like? Was your hair brown like mine, did you have the same sense of humour as me? Like, just trying to really untangle something that you have no information on, and I think it’s just that…it’s just that thing of, like, there are so many humans on this planet, many like millions millions millions, and you know, and just trying to find a way to like honour every life, even if it was small, and I think… God what you’ve said blown my mind.

CMR: I’m not sure how prevalent it was in England or different parts of England, but um yeah that’s certainly the case in a particular area of Wales anyway.

[Takes a breath to get back on track!]

CMR: I wanted to talk about the aesthetic of it as well because you’ve got this it opens with that and see and see if it opens with her on her knees on the moors digging earth up. You use such a lot of muted colours and muted tones is that, like,  was that a conscious decision from the standpoint of we want this to be Gothic and we want, we want it to look like this, or was that something organic or how did that kind of work out for you?

LR: And so I work super, super closely with my DP [Director of Photography], Lizzie Gilholme, she was amazing, I think she’s the best cinematographer in the world, I might be a little bit biased, but I do I think she’s incredible and so a lot of the time you give a script to a DP quite late on, but I literally from the conception of the very idea before it’s written down I WhatsApp Lizzie, and I’m like “Hey, I’ve got this idea, I want to know what you think”.

So she’s there from day dot and she, bless her, like she shouldn’t have to, she reads so many drafts and she really does see a project folder from like you know, bare bones to like the fully fleshed form that it ends up in.

And, but me and Lizzie like we talked for a really long time about how we wanted this film to look we watched loads and loads of different movies that we really loved.

But I think the main, in terms of like creating an aesthetic, building a world, like our main thing was like we want this to feel like it felt for Maud so.

The muted colours and the sort of like the mauves and the browns and the muted greens, like those are all colours she would have experienced and those are the colours of her world.

And even down to like how much light we use so this film it’s very dark like extremely dark and you’ve really got to watch what’s going on, but it’s because they didn’t have that much light. If you got up in the middle of the night you’d go to the embers of the fire, you’d light a single candle, and that’s all you had to see in the house, especially if you didn’t have gas lamps, so we really wanted to bring that sense of her world and her, her everyday experiences, in terms of what she saw what she felt.

Even the music, that was like… The woman I worked with was called Die Hexen who is an incredible Irish composer just has the most beautiful mind, and it was super important for me to go to find somebody who lived in a Celtic region, because obviously, Cornwall through Wales up through Ireland and then like at the top strip of England and Scotland, like those are the Celtic regions, and like I don’t want that piece of that culture to be lost on the film, so it’s really important to me, to find somebody from those regions.

Die was, you know, luckily she was like I really like this project, and I want to work with you and I was like, amazing, and the first thing I said to her was,  I wasn’t super particular in terms of what I wanted. I didn’t send her any music I liked I was just like, this is what you need to know about this film. And I said it’s about trauma and I really want that to be present in the score.

But, most importantly, one of the main sounds that you hear in Cumbria is the sound of the Helm Wind, which is a specific type of wind crafted by the shape of the valleys.

And it’s this really high pitch whistle, but it is so strong it can like literally pull the roofs off of houses, it’s just fierce. And I just said to her that I want that, like I want that sense of like, it’s, it’s flowing past you, and you just have to keep yourself standing up.

And, and I mean she came back with the most incredible score that I’ve ever heard in my life, and I literally think I heard one note, and that was it, and then we were done, and I don’t – I don’t think that happens.

But um, you know there’s some – even in the quiet moments where like the score isn’t central to the scene, you hear that whistle. And that’s something that’s all the way through, and it is just that sense of creating Maud’s world.

I love the Gothic, and folklore, and I’m obviously influenced by those things, but it just so happens that they were central to Maud’s day-to-day existence, and that’s why it came through in those creative choices, because she demanded it to be that way, and I couldn’t say no.

CMR: I think it really works I love it, I think the music is so good, it really adds to the drama of it and also like it’s just got that right balance. It’s creepy but it’s yeah and that whistle tone-!

LR: It’s chilling.

CMR: Yeah, it is chilling yeah, it very much… yes, that sense of isolation and nature and just being buffeted and existing in this kind of world that she – because she’s very much on the cusp of that industrial world in the mid 1800s but also she’s embedded in the past as well, and like where you get that sense of the Standing Stones scene and the wild moors and that kind of thing, that she’s trapped by the past of the landscape as much as by her own past, as much as by her family’s history, and yeah I think that and the music just works so well with it and the colours and the, the, you know, just that sense of darkness.

LR: very dark very, very dark.

[Laughter]

CMR: I really loved it and I would recommend everyone watch it and I’m gonna put the link in the transcript so everyone can see it, I might actually embed it in the blog post so everyone can watch it.

Do you have anything that you want to plug while you’re here or any other projects that you’ve already made that you want to tell people about go for it.

LR: So I’m currently in post production my next film, which is definitely more identifiably Gothic with the big house, the big spooky house, creepy hallways and I’m really, really excited by it, it’s kind of honestly I’ve been working on this short film script for years so it’s really nice to see it actually exist and we’re really, really excited about it, where we’re on we’re really, really, I think we’re really close to picture lock it now, but my producer will slap me on the wrist for saying that.

It’s looking so, so good, we’re so fucking proud of it and and everybody who worked on it just worked so hard so I just they are, they are the best. Thank you if you’re listening to this.

But other than that, we’re developing our feature film as well, which is very …

CMR: [gasps and claps]

LR: I know and it’s somewhere between like She Lives Alone and, like the sort of more Gothic leaning “Taste”, which is the film that’s in post-production, so it’s kind of like a nice little lovechild between those two which I’m really, really excited about and it’s also based off a local folklore called the Croglin Vampire.

CMR: Oh, my God.

LR: I know, I’m really excited, so if anyone’s listening, please manifest like crazy, so that we can make it.

CMR: Is there a kickstarter any kind of… can anyone contribute or?

LR: No…

CMR: You’re doing it via grants and things right?

LR: Hopefully, yeah so. We’ve just finished a talent lab called Edinburgh Talent Lab Connects, which was a year long program with an amazing woman called Kate Leys, and also we got a mentor who was incredible.

And we’re hoping to move from treatment stage to draft stage next and it’s quite a slow process because with larger projects it just takes so much longer to really refine the story, but I think you’ll really like it, I hope you like it.

[Laughter]

CMR: I’m pretty sure that I will like it.

[Laughter]

LR: But other than that I’m just vibing you know, and manifesting like hell.

CMR: I think that’s enough though isn’t it. Like pre production and then a feature film is a hell of a lot of work.

Yeah I’m so happy I’m so excited for that. I can’t wait. So everyone watch the space. Go follow Lucy on Twitter.

LR: Please do, I post hilarious memes.

CMR: Yeah.

LR: Oh thank you so much for having me on, I’ve genuinely loved this conversation.

CMR: Feel free to come back anytime.

LR: I’ll be knocking on your door.

CMR: Obviously excited to watch the films that you’ve got coming out. Just really, really thrilled for you, so yeah lots of manifestation.

CMR: And that’s all we’ve got time for, so thank you very much for listening and we will see you again next week bye now.

LR: Bye!

[thepastisalreadywritten]

Almost every holiday comes with its own accompanying foodstuff.

For Thanksgiving, it is turkey; for Hanukkah, donuts filled with a thick plug of sweetened jelly, or latkes.

Many Muslims break their Ramadan fast each day with dates; people in Japan greet the New Year with mochi and soba noodles.

Easter treats seem self-evident: chocolate, eggs, chocolate eggs.

But for hundreds of years, the English ate something entirely different at Easter: a sweet, herbal concoction—somewhere between a pancake and an omelette—known as a tansy.

Tansies took their name from the herb tanacetum vulgare, which grows wild across the United Kingdom.

With yellow flowers the shape of flying saucers, it had various charming nicknames, including bitter buttons, cow bitter, and golden buttons.

Recipes for the simplest tansies are short and to the point.

Per a “Mrs. Rendle”:

“Pound a handful of green tansy in a mortar, add the juice to a pint of batter, and bake it.”

As time went on, however, other herbs found their way into the mix.

A recipe in the 1588 Good Housewife’s Handbook used the juice of tansy, feverfew, parsley, and violets, mixed with “the yolkes of eight or tenne eggs, and three or four whites, and some vinegar, and put thereto sugar or salt.”

It was then fried. Essentially, it was a big, flat, slightly sweet pancake, with a faint greenish tinge.

It’s likely that tansies originally had a medicinal purpose. The herb itself was believed to cure various ailments:

One 16th-century medical tract, Treasurie of Health, prescribes it soaked in a pint of wine for “a drinke for them that be hurte or brused,” while another claims that “it is good to dissolve windiness of the stomach and guts, and to kill worms in the belly, expelling them out.

It is also used to provoke urine and to break the stone of the [kidneys].”

(Tansy is now known to be slightly poisonous.)

Its appearance on the Medieval Easter table, therefore, makes some sense. Throughout Lent, Christians endured a long, boring diet of lentils and dried fish.

Tansies, one early recipe claimed, were “good for the stomach, on account of discussing the flatulences generated by eating pulses and fish during Lent.”

In short, they were probably a practical solution to post-Lenten gut squalls.

(But tansies had other, year-round medicinal uses: In the early 19th century, physicians told women with “hysteritis” to place a “tansy pancake” against their abdomens to ease uterine pain.)

But a curious religious element also seems to have linked the herb with the holiday.

Despite commemorating different events, Easter and the Jewish festival of Passover have striking overlap beyond their often-coinciding springtime dates.

The word “paschal,” which derives from the Hebrew Pesach, can refer to either holy day.

In Italian, Easter is Pasqua; in French, it is Pâques.

For English Christians, eating tansy seems to have been a nod to Easter’s ancient roots—with a strange note of anti-Semitism.

In an 1885 Notes and Queries, the scholar Edward Solly traces “the custom of eating tansy pudding and tansy cake at Easter back to the the Jewish custom of eating cakes made with bitter herbs.”

However, to make it clear that this was still a Christian festival, he wrote, "people made a point of eating pork or bacon with the cakes to take from it any Jewish character.”

Although many Lenten dietary rules were relaxed or forgotten during the Reformation, people continued to eat tansies.

Over time, however, they became increasingly decadent.

Many omitted the eponymous herb altogether in favor of ingredients such as ground almonds, rose syrup, bread crumbs, grated nutmeg, brandy, artery-choking quantities of cream and butter—and sometimes all at once.

Tansies transformed from a kind of herbal pancake into something more reminiscent of a sumptuous clafoutis.

Tansies also played an important role in raucous, regional Easter celebrations.

Residents of what is today the northern part of Cumbria would make a “tansy puddin’” on Easter Monday to carry through town to the public bakehouse.

A 1905 glossary to the region’s dialect explains:

“During the day, women carried flour about and threw it at any one whom they passed. Young men would often steal the puddings or pies from the women. The day ended with a supper and dance.”

Held in the church or cathedral, these balls involved “slow, stately dancing, … solemn chanting,” a religious service, and the distribution of tansies with a rich, rum sauce.

These were called “tansy neets” or “tansy suppers,” and culminated with young men slipping the fiddler a shilling at the end of the night.

By the early 20th century, however, people were speaking of these puddings and traditions as vestiges of the past.

Tansies and tansy neets vanished from Easter plates and celebrations.

The Easter Adventurer, from 1826, calls tansy “as essential [to the holiday] as pancake to Shrove Tuesday, furmity to Midlent Sunday, or goose to Michaelmas day.”

Today, those holidays and their culinary accompaniments are all but forgotten.

And though we celebrate Easter, our chocolate egg hunts and subsequent gluttony would be unrecognizable to any flatulent, flour-throwing, tansy-pinching Easter Monday reveler from centuries past.

[afnews7]

Il reportage di Fumettomania Factory dal LICAF

È di ritorno in Italia la delegazione dell’associazione barcellonese Fumettomania Factory, che a fine settembre ha partecipato all’edizione 2024 del Lakes International Comic Art Festival (LICAF), tenutasi a Bowness-on-Windermere (in Cumbria, UK), luogo che ha ispirato la famosa scrittrice Beatrix Potter, e che anche quest’anno ha ospitato una nutrita comunità di disegnatori, scrittori e fan che…

[toughgirlchallenges]

Jo Moseley - Sharing More About Her New Book: 'Stand-Up Paddleboarding in the Lake District: Beautiful Places to Paddleboard in Cumbria

Jo Moseley, a 59-year-old single mum of two grown-up sons, resides on the edge of the picturesque Yorkshire Dales.

In 2019, she achieved a historic milestone by becoming the first woman to paddle-board 162 miles coast to coast from Liverpool to Goole, all while actively contributing to litter cleanup efforts and fundraising for causes close to her heart.

Her remarkable journey inspired the creation of the film "Brave Enough - A Journey Home to Joy," masterfully crafted by award-winning filmmaker Frit Tam. This captivating documentary has garnered acclaim at prestigious adventure film festivals and consistently sells out online screenings.

In 2022, Jo's debut book, 'Stand Up Paddle-boarding in Great Britain,' captivated readers with its stunning portrayal of scenic paddle-boarding spots across England, Scotland, and Wales, quickly ascending to bestseller status. 

Following this success, her second book, focusing on paddle-boarding in the Lake District, was published in May of this year.

To further promote her latest literary endeavour, Jo eagerly anticipates embarking on summer adventures, including hiking, paddle-boarding, and indulging in the serene beauty of the Lakes #LakeDistrictBookRound initiative.

Beyond her literary and paddle-boarding pursuits, Jo shares her passion for stand-up paddle-boarding (SUP) as the host of The Joy of SUP Podcast. Additionally, she embraces new challenges, such as learning to skateboard, and is poised to relaunch her newsletter, Fresh Starts & Sunrises, in the near future

***

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Thank you for your invaluable support!

  Show notes

Who is Jo 

Being a single mum of two grown-up sons

Based in Yorkshire 

Releasing her 2nd book on paddle boarding

The first time we spoke to Jo on the Tough Girl Podcast - May 19th 

Finishing 2019 on a high

Reflecting back to 2020 and what Jo’s been up to 

Officially being menopausal 

Sumer 2020 starting to think about writing a book about paddle boarding and the reason why

Sept/Oct 2020 - pitching her first book about paddle boarding

Would she want to write a travel paddleboading book?

Deciding to grab the opportunity and saying yes to writing a travel guide

Deciding to start a podcast - The Joy of SUP Podcast

Connecting with fellow paddle boarders

May 2021 and starting the research to write the book 

Visiting over 30 places around the UK

Being on a massive learning curve

Putting the book together with Vertebrae Publishing 

Favourite places to visit in the UK to go paddle boarding

Sharing the joy of aging well

Turning 60 at the end of December 

Mentally preparing to turn 60 and wanting to embrace it

Doing a headstand a day until turning 60

Wanting it to be a positive new chapter

New Book:  'Stand-Up Paddleboarding in the Lake District: Beautiful Places to Paddleboard in Cumbria

How paddle boarding transforming changed her life

Why you can only paddle board on only 10 lakes in the Lake District

Sewage in the water and what to do 

How to be environmentally conscious and what to look out for

Check - Clean - Dry

How to go to the toilet, when there aren’t toilets around

Cold water and peeing

Poo…. Pooing…

If you show people a beautiful place, they will love it and look after it

Knowing the wind speed that is safe for you to paddle in

Being made an Ordansury Survey Champion 

Fitting fitness and exercise into her life

Keeping the kettle bell in the kitchen

Snacking on exercise

Taking up skateboarding

When was the last time you did something new for the first time

How to connect with Jo online

The next adventure/challenge 

Walking from lake to lake and bookshop to bookshop in the Lake District

Campsites with Camp Wild

Final words of advice for other women

“Start exactly as you are, start today and start small”

Build a community online 

Do it for you and do what’s important to you

  Social Media

Website: www.jomoseley.com

Instagram: @jomoseley

Facebook: @joanna.moseley.77 

    Check out this episode!

[explorerfloyd]

The Anthem Bands @ Keswick Beer Festival 2023

[hogroastcompanyukk]

Indulge in a Culinary Extravaganza with Hog Roast Cumbria

In the heart of England’s picturesque countryside lies a gastronomic delight that has been enchanting locals and visitors alike for generations. Hog Roast Cumbria embodies the essence of traditional British cuisine, offering a feast that tantalizes the taste buds and brings people together in a celebration of food and community. Let’s delve into the mouthwatering world of Hog Roast Cumbria and discover why it has become a beloved culinary tradition in this charming region.

A Time-Honored Tradition

The art of hog roasting dates back centuries, with roots deeply embedded in British culinary heritage. In Cumbria, this tradition has been lovingly preserved and perfected over the years, evolving into a cherished culinary experience that is cherished by all who have the pleasure of partaking in it. The process begins with selecting the finest locally sourced ingredients, ensuring that every element of the meal is of the highest quality.

Savoring the Flavor

One of the hallmarks of Hog Roast Cumbria is the unrivaled flavor of the meat. Slow-roasted to perfection, the succulent pork is infused with smoky, savory notes that captivate the senses with every bite. The crackling, crisp skin provides the perfect contrast to the tender, juicy meat, creating a harmonious balance of textures and flavors that is simply irresistible.

Accompanying the star of the show are an array of delectable side dishes, showcasing the diverse culinary influences of the region. From buttery mashed potatoes to vibrant seasonal vegetables, each element of the meal is thoughtfully crafted to complement the rich, robust flavors of the roast pork.

Bringing People Together

Beyond its culinary prowess, Hog Roast Cumbria holds a special place in the hearts of locals as a symbol of togetherness and community spirit. Whether it’s a festive celebration, a family gathering, or a casual get-together with friends, a hog roast has a magical ability to bring people together in joyous camaraderie. The sight and aroma of the roasting hog never fail to create an atmosphere of warmth and conviviality, fostering connections and memories that last a lifetime.

Experience Hog Roast Cumbria Today

For those eager to embark on a culinary adventure like no other, Hog Roast Cumbria awaits. Whether you’re a seasoned food enthusiast or simply curious to discover the delights of traditional British fare, a hog roast promises an unforgettable dining experience that will leave you craving more. So gather your loved ones, prepare your appetite, and prepare to indulge in a feast fit for royalty.

Click here for more information :-

Hog Roast Catering For Wedding

Hog Roast Manchester Uk

[musicblogwales]

Bored At My Grandmas House Announces New Album

Not being funny, but Bored At My Grandma House produces hazy pop gold at its very peak, Amber's new anticipated debut album 'Show And Tell' drops on the 7th of June via CLUE Records / EMI North and we personally cant wait.

After making waves with her critically acclaimed debut EP Sometimes I Forget You're Human Too, Bored at My Grandmas House, AKA Leeds-based Amber Strawbridge, announces her debut album Show & Tell for June 7th via CLUE Records (The Wedding Present, Van Houten, YOWL) / EMI North (Nadine Shah) as well as a a London headline date at MOTH Club on October 16th.  The title track is out now with the reveal of the record - following late 2023 release ‘Inhibitions’. Reminiscent of artists like Soccer Mommy, Snail Mail, and Alvvays, ‘Show & Tell’ is a breezy track which meets at the intersection between dream-pop, bedroom-pop and shoegaze, the sprightly guitar work echoing the droll lyrics and themes. It’s a hooky song which lays bare difficulties with trust, and building walls for self-protection. As Amber explains:  “Show & Tell is quite a tongue-in-cheek song about me being the opposite of an open book and all the little specific things about me that I sometimes wish were different. Overall it’s about me being a guarded person and fearing the possibility of having to be vulnerable and realising that vulnerability is actually a beautiful thing and something i shouldn’t be so scared of.”  On her debut album, Amber explores a broad range of heavy topics including anxiety, friendship, introspection, love, human greed, mental health, loss and empathy (or a lack of it) in the world. Despite the breadth of themes covered, each track deals with the weight of the subject with real conviction, while not losing any of Amber’s trademark pop sensibilities. She elaborates a little more on the thematic process:  “The main overall theme of this album is connection. Connection with myself, connection with the world and connection to the people around me who I love. This album is for me first and foremost and was a way for me to internally process.  The origin of these tracks all stem from me wanting to understand these connections and process my emotions surrounding them. The album covers topics such as the power of queer love, humanity and its ‘delusions of grandeur’,  reflection and purpose.  It would be unwise to say that I haven’t developed and changed a lot since my EP. I’ve experienced more, questioned more, felt more and allowed myself to be vulnerable more - which I hope translates throughout the Album.”  Amber has received support and coverage from DIY, Dork, Clash, BBC Radio 1, BBC 6Music, Rough Trade and more in the past, and has played Glastonbury, BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend, Swn Festival, Standon Calling, Deer Shed (main stage) and more.  Originally from Cumbria but now based in Leeds, Amber began recording music in 2017 using garageband on her phone; she updated her bedroom set-up after saving up to buy a laptop and Logic Pro. After a couple of years of self taught production and recording Amber began working with Clue Records, releasing her debut EP Sometimes I Forget You're Human Too which gained critical acclaim and sold out two pressings all before Amber had ever played a single gig.  Amber wrote and recorded all the demos for her debut album in her bedroom, before taking them to The Nave studio where she worked with Alex Greaves to give them a studio twist, allowing them to fulfil their rightful potential. 

BORED AT MY GRANDMAS HOUSE ONLINE  TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | SPOTIFY 

[downthetubes]

RapidEyeMovers announce brand-new games festival, ‘Humanise’, in Kendal

Collective talent and passion will come together for Humanise Festival of Play, a new take on a games festival, set to take place in Kendal, Cumbria, in 2024, putting culture, community, and experience at the heart of play

Collective talent and passion will come together for Humanise Festival of Play, a new take on a games festival, set to take place in Kendal, Cumbria, in 2024, putting culture, community, and experience at the heart of play. RapidEyeMovers Director Jörg Tittel (C-Smash VRS) and Matt Burke of the Lakes International Comic Arts Festival, and previously Kendal Mountain Festival, have announced…

[whatsonmedia]

Thursday Thrill: 7 Unmissable Summer Fest Frenzy!

In August’s embrace, the world awakens to a kaleidoscope of life’s wonders. Music festivals weave their melodies, while tantalizing gastronomic delights tempt our taste buds. Cultural fiestas bloom, revealing the rich tapestry of humanity. Let’s dance to August’s tune and paint eternal memories on life’s canvas. Embrace the magic, for this month promises a symphony of experiences like no other. Creamfields 24 - 27 Aug The UK’s biggest 2-day dance music festival with the biggest A-lister line up of the summer. All things house, EDM, techno and d’n’b make it the ultimate music super marathon for a crowd of 70,000 dance music lovers. Returning to its mega festival site in Daresbury.  Creamfields has become one of the legendary dance music events on the dance music calendar which sells out every year super-fast.  The northern festival is one of the best celebrations to end the festival season in grand summer in style.  The festival features huge stage productions, a variety of camping options, food stalls selling all sorts of munchies and plenty of bars to wet ya whistle plus all the usual festival paraphernalia to make this one top festival...ing weekend  Al & Fila, Armin van Buuren, Calvin Harris, Camelphat, Carl Cox, Hybrid Live, Chase & Status (DJ Set), David Guetta, Diplo, Don Diablo, Eric Prydz, Fatboy Slim, Ferry Corsten, Four Tet, Martin Garrix, Nina Kraviz, Oliver Heldens, Tiësto, Gentech and so many more. Tickets & More Info> creamfields.com Crooked House In The Park 27 Aug Returning for a mammoth one-day festival, and hosting a star-studded DJ royalty line up spanning the genres of House, Drum&Bass & UK Garage music and more!  This Bank holiday Sunday is going down in big festival style. Set in one of one of the best locations in the historical city of Lichfield, Beacon Park stone’s throw away from easy access so travelling to the festival site as no restrictions. This year Crooked House in The Park is back, bigger and better by demand delivering an open-air live dance music experience across 6 different stages, it’s become one of the ends of the summer’s significant festival bucket lists This year’s stellar DJ line-up features Groove Armada, Pendulum, Sam Divine, Low Steppa, RatPack, Jeremy Heal, Andy James, Chris Walton, AJ Gibson, DJ Luck & MC Neat, Dave Pearce, Rob Tissera, Tall Paul, Brandon Block, Nicky Blackmarket and so many more. Tickets & More Info> crookedhouseevents.com  Solfest 24 – 27 Aug Known for its happy all-round vibes which makes its regular festival-goers return each year bringing new people along with them. It's where the festival-goers are just as important as the line-up and giving them the best time for the weekend.  What makes this so special is everyone is welcome young and old; all will be treated equally.  The independent festivals have stood strong since the first one took place in 2003 with each year getting bigger & better, increasing the capacity and line-ups.  If you’re heading to North Lakes Cumbria then this one might be worth a visit. This year’s line features live music artists and DJs including The Libertines, Ocean Colour Scene, Wilkinson, Peter Hook and The Light, Dave Seaman, The Undertones, The Futureheads, Hollie Cook, Dreadzone, Drumspyder, Dub Pistols, Easy Star All-Stars, Alfonso Muchacho, Utah Saints, Utah Saints, Vacant Weekend Tickets & More Info> solfest.co.uk Moovin 25 – 27 Aug Ask the DJs & live artists who've played this festival since its beginning seven years ago.  Their response is likely to be, it’s the highlight of their summer. Moovin' is a festival with a reputation of the best vibe, no constabulary, no red tape or pretentious VIPs.  It’s for the people by the people. It’s all about dam good music and having an epic festival experience.  From the booming baselines to the big names DJs... music lovers can get their dance on to a mix of bass, funk, soul, reggae, house and d&b in a great big field. To meet old friends and new this is the place to be.  Stockport is going off with a bang this weekend The weekends juicy line-up features some of the greatest global and home-grown DJs Stanton Warriors, Big Daddy Kane, Todd Terry, Future Dub Orchestra, en Of the Green, Gilles Peterson, Craig Charles, Goldie, Graeme Park, Greg Wilson, DJ Micky Finn, Jaguar Skills, Most Wanted, Mr Scruff, Mungos Hifi, Dreadzone, Krafty Kuts, Laurent Garnier, DJ Paulette, Dub Smugglers, Eva Lazarus, Kenny Ken, Freestylers, Metrodome, Plump DJs, Quadrant Soundsystem, Helen K Tickets & More Info> moovinfestival.com We Are FSTVL 25 - 27 Aug LONDON, ENGLAND - MAY 31: Amine Edge and Dance perform during Day 2 of We Are FSTVL at Damyns Hall, Upminster on May 31, 2015 in London, United Kingdom (Photo by Ollie Millington/Redferns via Getty Images) Winner of Best New Festival and Best Medium-Sized Festival, We Are FSTVL returns once more this summer after another record-breaking sell-out success. It’s a festival weekender that showcases a massive DJ line-up of which will be belting out the finest selection house, techno, drum and bass and mainstream dance music.  Setting the pace of one of Essex’s most desirable EDM adventures not that far from the hustle and bustle of the city of London.  Expect a field full of ravers getting their best shuffle on to go out in style for the last bank holiday weekend of the year. Flying in global royalty and some of the UK's finest DJ offerings including Carl Cox, Andy C, Example, Nathan Dawe, Shy FX, The Prodigy, Seth Troxler, FISHER, Danny Howard, Kayley Harriet, LF System, Green Velvet, Mochakk, Skream Tickets & More Info> wearefstvl.com Camp Wildfire 25 – 28 Aug Spread across two weekends Camp Wildfire is an adult only festival, which hosts a packed program bringing the fun bus for an ultimate weekend of bellying hurting laughs.  For festival-goers who seek that little bit extra, this is one big adventure of nonstop entertainment out of the norm festival vibe.  Bringing out your inner creativity during the day, alongside dancing the night away to some of the very best live music, DJs, film screenings and secret parties will keep you entertained all night.” It’s a festival to unleash your wilder side! The line-up features Crazy P (Live), Grandmaster Flash, DJ Luck & MC Neat, Lisa Maffia (DJ), The House & Garage Orchestra, Stanton Warriors, Krafty Kuts, Too Many T's, Savage Disco, DJ Luck & MC Neat, DJ Yoda, 24 Hour Garage Girls ft SHOSH, Craig Charles, Madame Electrifie, Rum Buffalo, Little Boots (DJ), Lycra 80's Party Tickets & More Info> campwildfire.co.uk Eastern Electrics 26 Aug It’s one electrifying line-up to take you and the best dance music festival vibe journey.  This day time party is a gem for devoted lovers of EDM.  From the club to the open-air things just can’t get any better than this with the bonus of great ticket prices and its location in the capital make this a great festival choice of the bank holiday weekend. Its heading for a sell-out. The line-up includes Cuttin’ Headz, The Martinez Brothers, Rossi, Mason Collective, DJ Minx, Jean Pierre, Artbat, Joris Voorn, Crazy P (DJ Set), Heléna Star B2B Louise Chen, Denis Sulta, Chris Stussy, Liam Palmer B2B Elliot Schooling, Ben Klock, Marcel Dettmann Tickets & More Info> easternelectrics.com Read the full article

[gbhbl]

Everything You Need To Know About Funeral Fest 2023

A weekend festival that features 20 diverse heavy acts, Funeral Fest takes place at the Soccer bar in Barrow in Furness, Cumbria, on June 30th and July 1st, 2023.

It’s easy to lament the recent failure of some UK festivals, but it’s far more beneficial to focus on the ones that are going from strength to strength. The UK metal fan has a ton of smaller, underground festivals to choose from. All reasonably priced, extremely accessible, and with strong and varied line ups. One such festival is the aptly titled Funeral Fest, taking place at the Soccer bar in…