The Pool of Tears

It’s kind of soggy out there – our river has burst its banks and there is not a lot to do except don some wellies and a parka, (glitter wellies, naturally!), and get some kind of exercise. The good thing about the terrible weather is that I’ve finally found my old archives during a studio upheaval and will soon be able to fill in the blanks on the website and start to digitise the rest / build up from where I left off. I’ve also had chance to build some VR spaces that have photographed well and created a new

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The Pool of Tears

It’s kind of soggy out there – our river has burst its banks and there is not a lot to do except

New Year, New Site

So 2020 sucked – a pandemic broke out, I apparently caught the virus and now live with some fallout, my plans for

WEIRD TALES

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The Pool of Tears

It’s kind of soggy out there – our river has burst its banks and there is not a lot to do except don some wellies and a parka, (glitter wellies, naturally!), and get some kind of exercise.

The good thing about the terrible weather is that I’ve finally found my old archives during a studio upheaval and will soon be able to fill in the blanks on the website and start to digitise the rest / build up from where I left off.

I’ve also had chance to build some VR spaces that have photographed well and created a new mesh build as a 100% donation to the Relay for Life American Cancer Society event later this month.

Hope to see some of your virtual aliases there!

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New Year, New Site

So 2020 sucked – a pandemic broke out, I apparently caught the virus and now live with some fallout, my

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Atlas Obscura Weird Homes Tour : Ghosts in The Machines

The chance to virtually peruse stuff in other people’s homes over Zoom is definitely right up my street especially if I can do that with a glass of whisky in hand at Midnight. Throw in the fact that the owner is a collector of Spiritualist artefacts then you have my money. Thank you, ($12 btw).

Despite a tiny bit of museum glass glare there was a lot to be seen here and a plethora of information for the total beginner to learn taking us from the earliest forms of spirit communication through to the patented Ouija board most commonly associated with spirit contact.

Considering my own research interest in this area focuses on a different form of metaphysical communication, (no devices or tools), I certainly learnt a few new things and got to see some striking rarities in an immense collection. I also love a good nosey around others’ homes and decor so it ticked all the boxes as an event experience in these socially distant times.

The tour lasted approximately an hour and was led by the home owner Brandon Hodge of Mysterious Planchette a historian and avid collector. Sadly I realised that due to time differences I really wasn’t up for a Midnight start so I had to watch the replay of this tour in fifteen minute increments over the last two days in and around my schedule – but with replay access provided to ticket holders for seven days afterwards plus access to the event chat it seems all that is missing from the live experience is the ability to ask questions, (although my fellow attendees it had it covered).

I can see myself booking up for more strange home tours, keep them coming!

My Weird Homes Tour was booked through Atlas Obscura Experiences.

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The Ghosts & Boojum of Jesmond Vale

I was introduced to the story of the Boojum inside a book titled Memories of Jesmond Vale. Like many who read this book the Boojum is one of the residing articles to stay with them. I find people asking about it on the internet and in study groups and yet I have never seen any other reference to it other than in this particular book which is not in general circulation.

I don’t have a copy myself. I made notes from a copy I found in my ex-partners parents’ bookshelves years ago when I stayed with them in the Spanish mountains. They themselves had lived in Jesmond Vale for most of their adult lives.

The problem for the most part is that these notes I thought I had now appear lost or at the very least very hidden under the rubble that is the last 30 years of my writing life. I hope to find them and should I do so will update here with exact quotes.

So what I remember. The Boojum was a creature, (possibly wolf like or large dog but you get the idea), whom would roam Jesmond Dene and Vale and whom parents of unruly children would at night reference to little or greater degree depending on the level of unruliness encountered.

Mostly a book full of interesting memoirs of a woman who was a little girl at a time before the Vale was, “redesigned”, it is also truly fascinating in its first hand and second hand accounts of supernatural tales. The eyewitness accounts of the ghost girl, (approx 14 if memory serves me well), whose apparition clad in a nightdress would float from the knees up, (there was nothing below the knees visible – naturally!), down Benton Bank – from a wicket gate in Heaton park…or was it Armstrong Park? Here is where it gets shady – I absolutely must track down those notes.

There is no reference to the ghost runner of Armstrong Park in this book – something I do have a personal experience of having been trailed by what I thought was kids playing grannies footsteps with me but what I later learned from Darren Ritson’s Haunted Newcastle was a ghostly runner! (At least I presume it was this book I must re-check my digital copies!) Nevertheless if you find yourself at the above part of Armstrong Park with a distinct feeling of the heebie-jeebies now you know why.

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The Pool of Tears

It’s kind of soggy out there – our river has burst its banks and there is not a lot to

New Year, New Site

So 2020 sucked – a pandemic broke out, I apparently caught the virus and now live with some fallout, my

Published on

The Vale of The Deadly Nightshade, Abbotswood & Furness Abbey

Of all the places I have lived and of all the hidden avenues I’ve gone down, the site of the former Abbotswood Mansion in the heart of The Vale of The Deadly Nightshade has to be one of my favourites.

I’ve spent a lot of time here over the years – as a sixth form student in Barrow-in-Furness I’ve spent both trippy and lucid hours trailing around these woods.

Although the Abbotswood Mansion itself was demolished in the 1960s random bits of it lay strewn about the Vale. You will also find a peace garden which was created after the site was also used to house a nuclear bunker during the cold war.

Furness Abbey also lies in The Vale of The Deadly Nightshade and carries with it some pretty well documented ghosts within its walls and subsequent outbuildings. There are stories of monks, (non surprisingly), as well as children and animals haunting the area.

When visiting, (keep praying for the post covid era!), it is possible to take in the Abbey, the woods and an even further extension out to the Medieval Bow Bridge and back before a stop off at the equally haunted Mill Cafe, ( Custodian Cottage). Making it the perfect Sunday family trip.

Strangely The Vale of The Deadly Nightshade and its frequent supernatural inhabitants have never let me in on any of their secrets, but if or when they do you will read it here first!

For now at least this place offers a quiet, sleepy hollow away from the business of modern life. In fact just driving down to it – as you approach – the feeling of having swooped through a time portal and landed in the sixteenth century is hard to shake.

Oh and do try the mead at the Abbey gift shop 🙂

As much as I love a nostalgic trip around Abbotswood when visiting my family I always like to be away by sundown!

This post is subject to updates and revisions as needed. The photos in this post are all from my last trip in 2014.

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New Year, New Site

So 2020 sucked – a pandemic broke out, I apparently caught the virus and now live with some fallout, my plans for a PhD ground to a halt and my father died from cancer. All in all I am glad to welcome in the New Year even if only for the fact we aren’t still stuck in the last one.

That all being said I have hope for the future – however difficult it is in this rapidly drafted army of home school parenting. Some of us are faring better than others but we can keep the hope alive. And so in order to do this I’ve made some changes.

Admittedly some of these changes I have unsuccessfully attempted to instigate before such as leaving all of my social media behind. Having stared into the lifeless face of yet another person I love I decided to finally address the problem that social media was causing for me, (stare at too many dead people and I guarantee you will feel like doing something more or other with your time than maybe you currently are), and social media stood out as an obvious one for many reasons.

Although you can get high from the dopamine hit of social media you can also get low and you are meant to get low and you are meant to get high. Except yes, you are really meant to get low. And then buy things. Things companies pay social networks to advertise to people who are stuck in the high/low loop. And it wasn’t just this – I also didn’t like that the content creators are not paid for their content. But the worst experience of social media for me was the reduced level of quality interactions with people I care about. Both over the networks and in real life. There was also a problem with pandemic fatigue – basically everything from grocery shopping and home schooling to social gatherings now all take place on apps. The digital overwhelm was enormous, and so really it was a no brainer…

In the end I felt – enough is enough. I want to be a part of the solution and not the problem, (if enough people do this perhaps a change can take place and if it does – well show me the network that changes I’m listening!) but until then, I’m out. See here for reasons to claw back your life…

In its place I seem to have gone off grid and old school. I just reinstated a print magazine subscription, (Fortean Times obviously!) and took up the idea of tiny home living along with learning some new instruments. My friends don’t seem to mind – they just call or text me as before. And I don’t get FOMO 🙂 I just feel more alive.

To this end I will still have my site and have spent some time archiving old photos a lot of this material is relevant to what is coming up in terms of writing I haven’t published yet so hold in there. Some of it references my past. It means a lot to me to finally retain my own material on this asset that is totally mine. I am also excited about launching a weekly newsletter a sample of which you will be seeing here soon.

Home schooling is my temporary vocation but hopefully not for much longer!

For now – stay safe!

You might be interested in

The Pool of Tears

It’s kind of soggy out there – our river has burst its banks and there is not a lot to

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  • The Pool of Tears

    It’s kind of soggy out there – our river has burst its banks and there is not a lot to do except don some wellies and a parka, (glitter wellies, naturally!), and

    Read More

  • The Ghosts & Boojum of Jesmond Vale

    I was introduced to the story of the Boojum inside a book titled Memories of Jesmond Vale. Like many who read this book the Boojum is one of the residing articles to

    Read More

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The Pool of Tears

It’s kind of soggy out there – our river has burst its banks and there is not a lot to do except don some wellies and a parka, (glitter wellies, naturally!), and get some kind of exercise. The good thing about the terrible weather is that I’ve finally found my old archives

Atlas Obscura Weird Homes Tour : Ghosts in The Machines

The chance to virtually peruse stuff in other people’s homes over Zoom is definitely right up my street especially if I can do that with a glass of whisky in hand at Midnight. Throw in the fact that the owner is a collector of Spiritualist artefacts then you have my money. Thank

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The Pool of Tears

It’s kind of soggy out there – our river has burst its banks and there is

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