Last Night at the Christmas Market

If Melissa had to listen to this choir sing Wonderful Christmastime once more, she was going to start jamming gingerbread into her own ears. 

    The bells started again. Melissa tensed, waiting for the choir to sing, but she already knew what it would be. What it always was. 

    She groaned. 'Don't they know any other songs?' Melissa eyed up the gingerbread sausage dogs in front of her, with their jaunty icing scarves. She could probably fit one of those in each ear.

This is just a quick post today to let you know that I have a brand new short story in the newest issue of PaperBound magazine! PaperBound is an online magazine for younger readers (and the young at heart) and I'm so excited that they've chosen to include Last Night at the Christmas Market in their very first winter issue!

Last Night at the Christmas Market is a short YA story about a girl called Melissa, who has lost some of her Christmas cheer selling gingerbread at a Christmas market, and Nick, the cute boy at a neighbouring hot chocolate stall who, during a minor disaster on the market's last night of the season, might help her get some of it back. Basically, it's a bitesize, gingerbread flavour, Christmas romcom!

I had so much fun writing Last Night at the Christmas Market and I'm thrilled it's been included in this issue of PaperBound, which you can download and read for free on their website, paperboundmag.com right now!

I hope you enjoy reading it even half as much as I enjoyed writing it.

An Experiment

A while ago, my mum found her old Olympus AF-10 point and shoot camera in a drawer in her office and asked if I wanted it. Obviously, I did. I'll have any camera someone offers me. This one though, also had a roll of film in it that had been half shot and left there for no one knew how long. We had no idea what might be on the film or if it would even come out after so many years, but I decided to find out. I finished the roll off and took it to be developed, with the full expectation that I might end up with nothing to show for this experiment.

But I didn't end up with nothing! 

What I ended up with was a slightly psychedelic set of photos I actually took on a school trip when I was probably around 13. I remember the trip in question (I think it was for geography) but I have no idea where the trip was to and neither of my parents remember either. If you recognise this unidentified beach, please let me know!

I also ended up with a few not-so-bad pictures of Bodmin Moor from earlier this year. 

One film, two sets of photos, ~15 years apart. All in all, a successful experiment!

A Roll of Film

It turns out that any random old film you've had rolling around in a desk drawer for the past ten years is maybe not the best film you could be using?? Who could have guessed?! Either way, I do still have a few rolls kicking around so we're just going to have to make the most of it! Even if I did realise while editing these images from a roll I had developed earlier this year that this particular film is pulling VERY green, especially in low light. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. It's all just part of the unpredictability of shooting film, isn't it?

Although, I wouldn't mind a little bit more predictability, so if you shoot 35mm, please tell me your colour film recommendations! Because once I've used up all this Agfa pro 200 I got with a lomo camera when I was a teenager, I will probably be looking for something a little less expired.

In the mean time, here are some photos!

Hinterland

I have some more photos for you today, from three different places: two that hum with the ancient history of Cornwall, with structures and landscapes that have stood since before anyone alive now can remember, and one that was made from nothing by human hands, not that long ago, and filled with things that would never have grown here on their own, which is a magic all of its own.

This stretch of Bodmin Moor, near the village of Minions, is one of my favourite places in the whole of Cornwall. The landscape is full of reminders of the area's mining past, and even bronze age stone structures, but the land seems to belong again now to the livestock who graze there, and personally, I find the sound of baaing sheep to be a perfect accompaniment to exploring old engine houses. 

These photos do not do Boscastle justice. It's a beautiful little fishing port but more importantly, it is home to the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures from the museum, but I highly recommend it as a day out. Tickets are just £5 for adults and the building is stuffed full of hundreds of weird artefacts, supposedly with magical pasts. It's worth the £5 just for the cards describing some of the exhibits, written by the man who originally opened the museum. All I can say is that he took a very opinionated view on some of the items.

I think it's almost impossible to live in Cornwall and not have visited the Eden Project more times than you can count, but still I manage to find interesting things to photograph every time, which is good, because I have a locals' pass, which means I'm probably not going to stop visiting it any time soon.

These two little birds are roul-roul partridges, who roam freely in the rainforest biome. Every time I go to Eden I try to get a picture of them, and every time they run away too fast for me and my camera, but not this time! I am extremely pleased that I finally managed to capture two of them.