The Solstice Strangers...........

"GAUDETE GAUDETE KRISTOOS IST NAH-TOOS...."

As we approached the blazing inferno that was Tupfnder Towers, we could see a circle of people dressed in white, wearing crowns of mistletoe and ivy, all swinging their arms and singing at the tops of their voices.

"Tuppy, who ARE these people?" said Geoffrey anxiously, fumbling in his new khaki, combat-style bumbag (an early Yuletide gift from his distant aunt Jemima) for his brass telescope.

"They're Strangers Geoffrey."

"Yes they are Tuppy," said Geoffrey, screwing up one eye and peering through his telescope, "They look like they're from Overthere.  I remember the fat one with the ring in her nose from the check-out when we were Overthere three years ago (see e-books for MUCH more  detail), on our epic search for the oracle in the coracle.  And I'm sure that one with the pink hair and the tattoo on her neck is the nurse from the compulsory health screening centre."
"That's called body art," I corrected absently, "A completely different thing to the tattoos of whales and sailing ships and "MOTHER" to which we're accustomed.  I read about it in Bad Trip Advisor."  I was appalled.  We don't like Strangers round here, with their fancy different ways.  We're inbred, and we like to keep it that way.

"Will we have to - " Geoffrey hesitated.

"I'm afraid so, Geoffrey," I said shortly, "We've little option.  We'll have to send them Over the Top, just like we did the last lot.  Come on.   Let's get back to the Outcrop and think of a plan."

Meanwhile, as the jets of water from the Bay did their work, clouds of steam rose high above the dully-glowing embers of Tupfinder Towers,  and the muffled voices of helpers running to and fro with buckets of this and that faded behind us in the mid-winter twilight.

"Shouldn't we stay and help, Tuppy?  It seems wrong not to. After all, the T-G and Mrs T-G are our dearest friends."
"No Geoffrey. Lots of things seem wrong, but they aren't really when you sit down and think about it.  It's all under control now.  No point in wasting our energies."
And I hastened along the homeward track, trying to blot out the mental image of the contents of my pipe smouldering away in the waste paper basket in the library of Tupfinnder Towers....

AMAZON PAGE

Quote of the Day - Merleau Ponty

"There is nothing to be seen beyond our horizons, but other landscapes and still other horizons,  and nothing inside the thing but other smaller things."

From The Phenomenology of Perception.

King Crimson "Islands"

King Crimson - 21st Century Schizoid Man

I do like a gatefold sleeve.

Here is a link to a great photo of a storm over Saturn's north pole, taken by the NASA spacecraft Cassini, in National Geographic http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/11/pictures/121130-best-space-pictures-224-saturn-storm/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Social&utm_content=link_tw20121208news-spacephotossaturn2&utm_campaign=Content
Cassini has been orbiting the Saturnian system since 2004.

Quote of the day: from TS Eliot's The Journey of the Magi

'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey,  and such a long journey:
The ways deep, and the weather sharp,

The very dead of winter.'

I nearly get crushed by a ceiling in the Starship BUM

.....the ceiling appeared to be patterned by a series of black and white dots, which, as the whole thing descended with a hideous metallic clanking and grinding, I recognised as tiny newsprint.
I glanced to my right.   The hand-written sign "Arrivals Lownge" and the portrait it concealed were vanishing with a splintering of wood and glass.
I glanced upwards again.  I could now decipher the letters.
There were only three, repeated in a relentless pattern that had a strangely dazzling, yet hypnotic effect on my eyes. BUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMB
BUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMB
BUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUM
Despite my appalling predicament viz a viz the ceiling that was about to flatten me into some kind of awful Spam, and although I sensed that I'd be saved if only I could find out what BUM meant, or stood for,  I felt my eyes grow heavy and the idea of having forty or indeed fifty winks became irresistible.....
"Tuppy!  TUPPY!  WAKE UP!"
"Wh-what?"  I muttered thickly, "Oh good!  has this all been a horrible dream, after me having over-eaten my supper-time cheese on toast again?  Am I really at home, by my own fireside, tucked up by a roaring blaze with my favourite rather smelly but cosy tartan knee-rug and a glass of steaming Madeira? Pass me the Black Bogey and a - "
"No," snapped Geoffrey ,(for it was he), " It's all true, and real, and here I am, come to rescue you.  I managed to wedge the space doors open with a crowbar and hacksaw my way into the Arrivals Lownge -  if you're quick - "
"Geoffrey!" I sobbed.
"No time for that now," said Geofrey crisply. "I know you're naked, and shocked and everything, and I know this isn't your particular forte, but Keep it Together Tuppy.  Come on - follow me."

But to where - and how?  And where was Tuppence, the cause of my doom?  And what did BUM stand for?  More Later.

Link to article on Saturn.

Here's a link to an article I just saw on Saturn - happy coincidence! http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2012/11/26/saturn_and_its_moon_tethys_in_a_cassini_picture_of_the_planet_and_its_rings.html

A Tight One on Titan, and the Perils of Moon-o-centricity

Who knew?
Geoffrey and I are in the same section of the solar system after all.  Not only that - we're on the same ring!
It only goes to show that you can't make assumptions about where you really are in life. For example, I assumed that because I was on a Moon that it was THE Moon.  Our familiar companion on silent, frosty midnights.  A pale, slender sickle, a silvery gleam, a reminder of darkness on an indigo summer evening.  A sudden light as the wind blows the clouds away in an equinoctial gale, and ships toil across a stormy sea.
How wrong could I be?
No. I'm on Saturn's largest moon, Titan.  Not to be outdone, Geoffrey's also on a moon of Saturn. Or rather, a "moonlet".  He's not on a ring, after all.
Or rather I was, and he was. We've been rescued, and are now - well, more of that later.
"Saturn's rings are made of dust particles and gas Uncle Tuppy.  I read it in the Tupfinder General's Giant Book of Useful Knowledge, which he lent me when I was recovering from my latest dose of 'flu," said Tuppence as he circled me in his space rocket. "You can't possibly sit on them.  You'd fall through."
"Tuppence!  But how did you know we were here?"
"The Tupfinder General happened to be watching for smugglers through his hi-powered telescope at the exact moment you were sneezed out of Kevin Bacon's nose. He saw you as you were blasted into the stratosphere, out of the Earth's atmosphere and indeed orbit.  He said the screaming was terrible and he'll never forget it. After a quick cup of tea, a pipeful of Black Bogey, a brief snooze, a read of the paper and a plate of korn bif sandwiches to revive himself, he flew into action and sent word to me via the heliograph to fire up my rocket toot sweet and head for Saturn with a knee rug and a flask of Madeira.  And here I am!"
"Never mind all that. Do you have the medical chest?" I asked urgently, as my nephew "looped the loop" and fired a salvo from the Bren gun he had fitted to the front of the rocket.
"Ha ha ha!" he laughed, as the "moonlet" on which Geoffrey had been perched was blown to smithereens. "That's for me to know and you to wonder!"
"Nooooo!" I wailed, as Geoffrey plummeted Saturn-wards.
"Why isn't he flying uncle Tuppy?" cried Tuppence, coming to his senses.
"His wings were welded shut by the G force when we were blasted out of Kevin's nose," I snapped.  "I'm surprised the Tupfinder General failed to inform you of that part.  Do something, Tuppence!"
Luckily Geoffrey's wings fluttered into life just in time, and he landed beside me on Titan.  Tuppence threw us a line and, using a mechanical winch, he hauled me on board.
"Good grief Uncle Tuppy.  Even without your fleece you weigh, well, a bit much actually. I haven't allowed for that in my calculations."
"What calculations?" I demanded.
"My time-space continuum calculations.  Essential to our safe return.  We could run out of fuel before we reach home due to the excess weight.  Sorry Uncle Tuppy.  Sheep overboard!"
And with that, a trap door flipped opened beneath me and I dropped into the bottomless pit of Space.
Well, nearly.  Just as the trap door snapped shut I managed to grab hold of the outside handle, and here I still am - clinging on for dear life as Tuppence steers for home.  He keeps looping the loop in an effort to get rid of me but to no avail.  I can hear the engine struggling a bit and I know that I'm threatening the lives of my companions, but I don't care.  All I want is to get home and put my feet up in front of a blazing fire with a massive mug of steaming Madeira and quite possibly a couple of opium tabloids to take the edge off after this humungous ordeal.
Geoffrey's peering at me anxiously from the tiny triangular window - he's just written - "HANG ON TUPY" on the steamed-up glass.

More later.......

(If you like the Tuppy & Geoffrey stories, there are many more in e-book form which you can find here on my Amazon page via this link)

I'm spinning in the Void and Geoffrey's stuck on Saturn's Ring - but which one?

It's not nice on the moon.  It's cold and there's nothing to eat.  I thought the Moon was made of cheese - it's not.  It's solid rock.  It's even harder than one of Granny Sooker's Rock Buns - and that's Hard.
I'm all alone and there's no-one to moan to, except myself.  Oh for my tartan knee rug and a hot steaming mug of Madeira partaken in front of a roaring driftwood fire.  Maybe a few packets of Doritos and a pipeful of - oh what's the point if I'm all alone.  Where oh where is Geoffrey?
"GEOFFREY!!!" I shrieked, into the ghastly void.
There was no response.  Of course there wasn't.  I was all alone on the dark side of the Moon, spinning like an unlighted lamp in the chilling blackness of the -
"TUPPY!  It's me - Geoffrey - I'm Over Here!"
"Over WHERE?"  I choked back my sobs and sat up.  Geoffrey's voice echoed as if from a great distance. 
"I'm stuck on Saturn's ring.  I've been here for ages and I can't get the frig off.  My wings were welded shut by the G Force when we got sneezed out of Kevin Bacon's nose. Do something Tuppy. I'm frightened."
Saturn's ring? But surely Saturn has more than one ring? I remembered that from one All Hallow's Eve, when the Tupfinder General gave us one of his unforgettable mind-expansion lectures instead of allowing us out guising. "You're just doing it for the sweets Tuppy. Besides, there's an upper age limit for guising and you passed it eons ago. "
"Who says?" I argued.  But I knew he was right. Hereabouts, if you grow taller than the fourth branch of the third rowan tree on the right as you head north south north on the clifftop path, you can no longer "Guise".  In fact, you can no longer do quite a few things, but that's another story. 
"Which ring are you stuck on, Geoffrey?" I shouted, knowing full well that it was pointless to ask because even if we could identify the ring, I had no means of getting there.

More later...............

Stella Street - Mick n' Keith (Episodes 1-5)

Another from the archives. Excellent stuff.

"Tuppy?"
"WHAT????" I bellowed, hands on hips. "HONestly Geoffrey. Can't you shut up for five minutes?  Or is it Too Much to Ask?"  I whined the last bit in the whiniest voice I could manage.
"Bit tetchy aren't you?"

"Sorry Geoffrey. But wouldn't you be tetchy if you'd been stuck up Kevin Bacon's nose for thirty three years (see previous posts)?"
"I HAVE been stuck up his nose for thirty three years.  I've been right here next to you."
Geoffrey's my best friend in all the world, but sometimes he can be a right pain in the -
"ATISHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
And we were out. Free at last!
The blast of Kevin's sneeze was so powerful that we found ourselves launched into space.  For a few blissful light years we flew through the stars, blinded by tears of wonder and relief, hand in hand, or rather,  hoof in webbed foot. 
"Geoffrey! Look!  It's all so - so - marvellous...."
However, it didn't last.  The G force wrenched off my fleece and before I could say "footloose and fancy free" I found myself naked and shivering and alone.......on the Moon.......
But was I on the dark side, or the bright side, and where on earth is Geoffrey?

I'm having a bit of a think about what to do with the blog (this one).  I want to keep the focus on the Rocky Outcrop characters for now, and the e-books that feature them.   So, I've archived recent posts.  But I also like to have somewhere to ramble on, about various things such as what books I'm reading.  I'm unsure if I should do that here (she rambles) or just keep it Rocky Outcrop specific.
I'm also on the verge of starting another Rocky Outcrop Tale, featuring Tuppy, Geoffrey, Tuppence, the Tupfinder General et al, with more illustrations by Barry, but I haven't yet decided whether or not to blog it.
Hmm...