Should have stayed in Scotland – a short story (chapter one)

The wind flowed through the forest making it come alive with the rustling of leaves and the singing of birds. Sunlight broke through the distant treetops illuminating a path towards the nearby village. Walking along the forest floor was a woman carrying a small wicker basket filled with herbs and fauna that were in abundance in the forest.

Tucking a strand of her long brown hair behind her left ear, the woman knelt and inspected a cluster of mushrooms at the base of a tree trunk. Taking a small paring knife from her basket, she cut one of the mushrooms and brought it up to her emerald eyes for closer inspection. After turning the fungi around in her hands for a few moments she gave a small nod and placed the mushroom in her basket and cut a few more off from the bunch.

She stood up from the mushrooms and brushed off any lingering foliage which stuck to her long green apron which covered her long brown skirt. Taking a moment to look around the forest for any further potential ingredients she heard a faint sob from nearby. Carefully approaching the source of the sobbing, being careful not to step on any branches that would give away her presence, the young woman came across a small boy who was sitting at the base of a large oak tree.

Her eyes scanned over the boy and quickly found the source of his tears – a graze on his right leg. She looked around the boy, he must have caught his foot on a tree root and tripped. Looking at his leg the young woman could see that small droplets of blood threatened to exit through the flesh wound if left unattended.

Taking a few steps forward she announced her presence as not to startle him further. “Hello, sir! Are you okay there? Looks like you’ve had a bit of a fall.” Her feet stop in front of him as she kneels down to the boy to meet his eyes, offering a warm smile.

Blonde locks of hair had fallen on the boys face in his dishevelled state. Sucking up a snotty sniff through his nose the boy responded, “I was playing with my friends, but I fell over… they didn’t stop and wait for me, and I’ve been all alone, and I don’t know the way home…” his last few words came out more strained, clearly upset from the ordeal.

“Ah, I bet that hurt, didn’t it? What do you say I help you fix up your leg, and then we can go and find your friends back home? Is that okay with you?” her smile still warm, she waited for consent to patch up the flesh wound. Through another sniffle the boy replies “Yes please, miss.”

The woman reaches for the small satchel hanging from her shoulder and places it on the floor next to her. Opening the satchel, she first reaches for a small handkerchief embroidered with a lavender pattern and passes it to the boy. “Here, you can blow your nose with this, Sir.” She had a habit of calling male children ‘Sir’ – in her mind children often deserved more respect than grown men, after witnessing the many displays of arrogance and tomfoolery in her long life.

Blowing his nose into the cloth, the woman took out a small jar of purple paste from her satchel and popped open the lid. “This is a lavender paste that I made. Did you know that lavender oil has antiseptic properties? That means that this will help your body keep that graze nice and clean so that your body can heal itself.” The boy watched with awe as she gently applied the paste to his leg, the pain in his leg becoming fainter.

“Is that magic?” the boy asked, as she finished by wrapping a small bandage around his leg.

“No Sir, it’s just the power of flowers! They can do a lot of things if you know how to use them right. But you are all patched up now, shall we go and find your friends?” Standing up, she extended her hand to the boy to help him up and guide him to the forest exit.

“My leg isn’t hurting as much anymore, thank you!”, the boy said smiling up at her.

“You’re very welcome. Can you do me a small favour and keep your leg clean? If you keep it clean it will heal even faster and be like nothing ever happened.” He nods approvingly at her, absorbing her words of wisdom.

A short walk eventually brought the pair to the outskirts of the forest. A small group of children were playing hopscotch near the forest entrance. Looking up at the lady once again, the young boy thanked her for the help before telling her that he was going to go back and play with his friends now. Releasing her light hold on the boy’s hand, she nods and then gives him a small wave goodbye.

From behind her, a meow left the mouth of a black cat which was making its way towards her. Rubbing against her legs, the woman gave the cat a small pat on the head. “Hello, Percy.” Her green eyes moved back up to look at the group of children, happy to see that their friend had returned, with one smaller girl apologising or not staying with him.

“What was the small demon crying about?” the cat asked, still stood at the ankles of the woman. To anyone else, Percy sounded like a normal cat, but to her he talked in a language usually more refined than most humans. “Poor thing fell over in the forest and hurt his leg, I helped him up and brought him back to the village. Oh!-” her eyes beamed as she lowered her basket to show the cat the contents “I also got some good mushrooms! Haven’t seen one’s like this since we were in Wales!” The cat looked disinterested as he glanced at the fungi.

“Such insignificant use of your skills as a Grand Witch, Stephanie. Most of these peasants aren’t worth your time.” Her face pulled back into a pained expression, lips turning down after being addressed by her formal title.

“I do apologise, your highness,” sarcasm lacing her words, “but sacrificing some lavender to a very polite young boy is the least of our concerns.” Bending down Stephanie swooped the black cat into her arms and she carried on walking down the path on the outskirts of the village.

“I bet you sixteen frogs legs that the peasants will be snuffing us our within the month.” said the cat as he settled in her arms. Stephanie sighed. A dark green ribbon with a small bell hung from Percy’s neck and jingled as she walked with him in her arms. He had demanded that Stephanie give him the accessory some time ago – he did not want to appear to be a common stray cat as he claimed he was so much more than that.

Approaching a small cottage with a thatched roof, the cat spoke up once again. “Maybe you should use your powers to finally get me that tuna you promised me months ago.”

The cottage exterior was decorated with a range of flowers in its small front garden, with plump bumblebees happily buzzing about.

“Keep giving me this sass and you will end up being the tuna yourself!” Stephanie gave the feline a quick scratch under his chin before carefully placing him on the floor and opening the front door to the cottage.

Inside the cottage was small yet very organised. The building consisted of a larger room which was used as a kitchen and ingredient area along with a small bed in the corner of the room, and a smaller washroom to the side. Percy had complained about the size of their abode initially, but the compactness had a certain charm that had grown on them both.

Along the side of one of the walls was a tall bookcase that climbed to the ceiling of the room. The bookcase was filled to the brim with tomes big and small, with spines in varying colours all lovingly organised by Stephanie.

On one of the walls closer to her countertop come workstation hung a small unit filled with glass bottles with colourful liquids, as well as fresh ingredients such as the mushrooms which she had found earlier.

“Okay, time for me to get to work! Mrs Schneider has had a nasty chesty cough and I plan to rid her of it!” determination filling her voice as she grabbed a nearby ribbon to tie her long brown her up at the back of her head.

“Mrs Schneider also looks like she may die at any given moment. How a woman that small, fragile and wrinkly has lived this long is surely a miracle”.

“You aren’t saying such mean things when she spoils you with a dish of milk when no-one’s looking.” Stephanie whips back at him whilst reaching for a small glass bottle from the wooden unit above her. In one swift motion, the cork of the bottle has been popped off and the contents poured into a wooden bowl.

Percy sat silent, filled with embarrassment. He didn’t think she had known about his secret milk rendezvous with Mrs Schneider.

Dinosaur Tribal – EDH MTG deck!

It’s been a long old year not really being able to play paper Magic, and it sucked! With places starting to open back up in the UK mid April, I’ve found this to be the perfect time to go through my EDH decks and re-familiarise myself with my cards before clashing against friends.

My absolute favourite EDH deck that I’ve made is my cherished Dinosaur Tribal deck. The aim of the game when playing this creature heavy deck is to ramp hard early game, get those big dinosaurs out and start swinging for the damage before others can. With some nice instant and sorcery cards sprinkled in too so there’s options for dealing with pesky blue players who don’t want us to have fun.

It’s by no means the most powerful deck that I’ve had the pleasure of making. Sometimes there are problems with card draw – I’ve been sat a few times thinking that okay I’ve got a 4 land hand start of the game I’ll keep, it’s bound to be work well for me to have more mana at the beginning! Wrong, wrong, wrong. I was sat there for many turns just not getting what I needed to get the ball rolling and I couldn’t ramp like I wanted to.

With this in mind, there have been quite a few changes since when this deck was first concocted, and I believe I’ve managed to squeeze in quite a few cards which have saved me from experiencing this frustration again.

So here it is, my beloved Dinosaurs! A full card deck list can be found here, but here is a quick snippet of the deck list.

My deck has the options of 2 commanders which I swap out depending on the kind of decks that I’m playing against (I’ll go into a bit more detail about the pros & cons below).

It also has:

• 24 creatures
• 15 sorcery cards
• 8 enchantments
• 1 planeswalker
• 7 artifiacts
• 10 instants
• and 33 lands

As indicated in these nifty pie charts, the deck is mostly in the green mana base, dipping toes in red and white as needed.

Castle – Chapter: Prologue

“Just how much money did this cost you, Sparold?” A tall clergyman questioned his companion. His long brown robe brushed the floor as he walked, and his gold cross swung from its chain around his neck from his uneven pace.

“Remember my Edwardo?” The villages resident pig farmer, Sparold replied. He was a smaller man, dressed in farmers overalls with slashes of mud splattered around his attire.

“You mean your swine that won best-dressed pig at the summer fair last year?” Pointy raised an eyebrow. When Edwardo the pig won that pointless pig competition Sparold did not stop talking about it for weeks. Pointy understood that this was the most exciting event which had happened in the farmers’ simple life but there was only so many times you could hear about a pigs grooming routine.

“Aye that’s him. Well, he’s going to be the lord’s animal of choice in this Easter harvest festival”. The grin on Sparold’s face was wide, full of pride.

“So, the village is going to get a free hog roast in return for a free birthday party?” The two other members of the group behind Sparold and Pointy gave a quick chuckle. A lady with ginger hair plodded along with another man adorning a stained chefs hat on his balding head.

“Not just any birthday party, a birthday party in his lordships castle!”

Mumbling agreements came from the pair at the back of the group after all a peasant rarely had the opportunity to visit the lords’ castle. The only time commoners were allowed anywhere near the castle was if there was a public execution taking place, and it had been 9 months since the last one.

The group of peasants trogged slowly up the gravel path, leaving their humble village behind them.

Sparold, pig donator and apparent birthday planner, was leading the heard towards their destination. Closely behind was Guinevere Blackthorn, the village tailor, who wore a brown sash with crude lettering splattered onto it which one could decipher to read “BERFDAYE GYRLE” kindly donated by Pointy. Her red hair was braided neatly into a bun, one either side of her head.

Next to Sparold, Pointy spoke up with some jealously lacing his voice. “How come Gwen gets a party and all I got was 4 snails?”

“You ungrateful tadpole! Me and Sparold spent 18 hours finding those delicious snails for you!” the man next to Guinevere said, pointing a spatula accusingly at him. This was Gary, and Gary thought himself somewhat of a chef, not that anyone in the village would agree with that title. However, Gary would not be seen alive without his trusty utensil. This spatula was, in fact, a cows leg bone filed down with leather wrapped around the bottom acting as a handle, and Gary considered this the most versatile and optimum cooking tool.

Pointy sighed and hunched his back, plodding along a bit slower in defeat as he acknowledged that the snails had indeed been quite a delicious birthday gift.

Sparold dug his hand into his overalls pocket, reaching for a piece of paper with a drawing of a castle and some basic directions instructing him to ‘turn left upon seeing the fourth potato field, then head North until the castle is in front of you’. This information would have been highly insightful if the navigator could read.

“I’m not questioning your directions here Sparold, but when I sold my grandma to the lord last summer I could have sworn that we taken a right at that field over their” Guinevere pointed at one of the potato fields they had recently passed.

Pointy, who also refused to leave the church unless he had 9 cloves of garlic around his neck, nodded in agreement, “She’s right, I think we’ve took a wrong turn somewhere. Are you sure you’ve read those directions right?”

The trees around them were slowly starting to look more withered and sapped of life, a stark contrast to the luscious greenery of their village.

“Nonsense! It’s right in front of you, look!”

Coming into the groups’ view, upon the top of a hill stood a solitary castle. As they approached, they noticed many of the windows shattered, stone walls crumbling away and the gargoyle statues tasked with protecting the rooftops had all be decapitated.

“He’s let it go a tad hasn’t he?” Gary questioned, eyes analysing the dishevelment of the castle’s exterior. A long 9 months was more than enough time for the group to forget how luxurious the lord’s castle usually looks – covered with right red banners with the freshest of flowers decorating the castle gardens in a display of pure wealth. Not one of the members questioned this stark contrast, and agreed with Gary that the lord had indeed lowered his standards since their last visit.

The group continued to walk closer to the castle, however, they failed to notice the black lightning clouds rolling in behind them and the menacing aura that followed…

Banning Glitter this Christmas – A Step in the Right Direction From UK Supermarkets

This week UK supermarkets came forward and announced that they were banning the use of glitter in their own branded products – hurrah! Unfortunately, not everyone is aware of the impact glitter can have on our environment, so here is a short post to briefly explain why this ban is a good move!

What is glitter, why is it used?

Glitter is a collection of small, reflective pieces of plastic which can come in a variety of shapes and colours. It is made of reflective plastic which makes it appear sparkly – which inevitably attracts that little bit in our monkey brain that says “ooh, shiny!”.

It’s been around in our world for quite some time, a good few thousand years at the least, and apparently, we just can’t get enough of the shiny stuff. A quick search on the ol’ Google and you can see that thousands of years ago people would make shiny paint made from minerals such as Mica to add flair to their cave drawings or add that shiny bit of decoration to things that they really liked. So really, after thousands of years of human development and our society and technology advancing rapidly, we still just like to have shiny things.

In our day and age, you can find glitter in abundance, especially if you go shopping at most shops. Even seemingly innocent things such as face masks and toothpaste can contain some form of glitter – why? I’m not too sure but I can say that I don’t think glitter does good much for your health!

Why can glitter be a problem?

Like any other non-recyclable plastic, glitter takes a damn long time to break down. It will probably still be floating about somewhere in the ocean long after you and I are long gone.

A little bit of further research on this kind of microplastic on the National Geographic website, I found that after everyone has had their fun with the glitter, it makes its way down the drain before a pesky kind of litter referred to as microplastics (really small plastic that you can’t necessarily see easily just by looking!).

These microplastics then float about in our oceans and are gobbled up by plankton, fish, shellfish, seabirds and any other creature which comes into contact with the ocean. It can line their stomachs and cause a build-up of these plastics, which unfortunately causes many marine creatures to die of starvation because of this.

What makes me a little bit uneasy as someone who likes to eat seafood, is that we as humans consume a fair amount of seafood. If this food has been ingesting microplastics during its time in the ocean, then there is a pretty good chance that somewhere down the line we may be eating those microplastics too!

UK supermarkets banning glitter.

It was good to see that this year quite a few UK Supermarkets, including Waitrose, Morrisons, and John Lewis, have taken steps to ban glitter from their own branded Christmas products. This means no sparkly glittery cards, crackers, wrapping paper or gift bags – this is completely okay by me as I have often found glitter from Christmas crackers to be attached on my skin literally weeks after Christmas, so good riddance!  

Personally, I think this is a step in the right direction by these supermarkets. Whilst it’s not banning the use of glitter on all of the products that they sell, banning glitter from their own branded products indicates to me that they are somewhat willing to try and help the environment around us.  

No glitter and it all looks just as nice!

New stories such as these really help raise awareness about things that many people consider harmless and considering that plastics affect the entire world we live in I am glad that some places are making efforts to improve themselves and their practices. Let’s hope that as humans, we can move aside our fascination for shiny things and harmful products!

making a vampire MTG commander deck!

So I’ve been playing commander pretty consistently the past few months (even if it is just against my boyfriend), and although I love my cherished dinosaur boys it’s time to venture to something new, something… Bloody. This calls for vampires!

Since I’ve just started the construction of my new tribal vampire deck, I’ve been planning what I should include  to ensure maximum tomfoolery. My dinosaur deck was centered around getting lots of big creatures out fast and hitting hard, and although I’m pretty sure this approach to MTG will always be a favourite for it I still feel it’s good to mix things up a bit.

For my commander I’ve chosen Elenda, the Dusk Rose. She can really get that lifelink shenanigans going which is exactly the aim of the deck. And for such a cheap casting cost, I can’t really complain.

If you couldn’t tell, I’m going for the ol’ lifelink and counters approach for this one! Feeling confident with my choice of commander it was time to make Elenda an army.

Turns out through my hoarding of many cards that I actually acquired more vampire cards than I had expected. I counted to have roughly 120+ vampire related cards, so it seems my subconscious knew that the time would come to call upon them!

First things first. Let’s look at the mana curve with the current cards we’ve picked out. It goes without saying that 2 – 3 cost cards are the centre of attention for this deck, and I feel that I’m lacking in anything that costs over 6 mana. This is only a rough idea of my deck though, I still have many many cards which I still need to buy.

‘Fallen Empires’ 1994 booster pack opening!

Every now and then do you ever find yourself pursuing eBay, usually out of boredom, and you come across something which is…bizarre.
“What even is this…”

After some late-night shenanigans we find this really old looking MTG booster pack for sale. The eBay seller was a charity shop, and they said that this old pack had been donated to them and they thought that the best place to sell it was on eBay. For a starting bid of 4 quid, we thought why not, no skin of our nose if we don’t win it.

 

Lo and behold for an additional 20p, making this booster pack £4.20 (probably a bit more than market value) we won this Fallen Empires booster pack.

Since the pack is actually two years older than myself I was quite intrigued to find out what gold gems would be hiding in this pack!

Plus you see that cheesy slogan at the top of the booster? Must have Magic: The Gathering to play! Do really, you don’t say? I thought these were for Pokemon.

The pack also felt very strange to me to hold – I suppose I’m so used to 15 card booster packs that an 8 card booster feels so thin to me!

Why I don’t go to prereleases – MTG

Prereleases are an exciting time for Magic players – you can get your hands on the latest cards (or in Core 21’s case, the latest reprints) and get to dabble in creating a small, yet immensely fun deck.

I love the whole concept of prereleases, how it encourages players all to meet up to see what the new set is going to get and is a brilliant way for all levels of Magic players to come together. Whilst I appreciate that they are a fun and positive event for most, my one bad experience has ultimately made me apprehensive of going to my local game store for future pre-releases.

Flashback to 25th January 2019, 5 days before my birthday. Ravnica Allegiance is just about to come out and myself and my partner decide that after getting back into MTG a few months prior that we would go down to our local LGS and join the prerelease.

I will admit I was a little confused at first, I was new to the game and wasn’t 100% sure about card synergies, mana curves – I was just a very new player looking to learn how to play MTG properly. The first deck that I made was a Simic deck with the idea of getting lots of tokens on my creatures and being honest I thought the art on the Simic cards looked pretty cool!

Cocktail – a short story.

In the darkness, they sat there. They taunted her. Laughed at her. How pitiful she looked. She could never get to them, always close but still too far. But she still craved them, they caused such a pain in her stomach she felt like her stomach had begun to eat itself.

Emerald eyes fixated on them intensely. It felt like the universe was playing a sick game with her. She forced her eyes to close, trying to think of anything but them. She had to shut the doors, after all, it was forbidden for her to touch them. Creaking slowly her hands pushed the doors shut and had one last glimpse of their golden surface.

There was a reason they were forbidden. You cannot just take others possessions just because your heart desires them. But she was beginning to question her morals. She knew that they were not good for her. They caused insatiable habits, hoarding as many as she could, taking them from others just so she could have them all to herself. Someone had once tried to take them away from her, but they were met with the rage akin to a rabid beast breaking loose from its chains.

Animal Crossing: Leif Update!

Animal Crossing: New Horizons could not have come at a better time. Here in the UK, I’ve been stuck inside since the 24th March and keeping me sane (sometimes, insane) is Animal Crossing.

Like many of you I’ve been trying to make my island look the best it can – plenty of decoration, nice new bridges and paths to make the place look snazzy. My addiction has led me to join a copious amount of Facebook fan groups, and I keep seeing something being mentioned and that is the event planned for later this month!

But what is this mystery event?? I’ve read a few articles, and we’re pretty confident that it’s going to coincide with the real-life event, Earth Day. Now I didn’t even know what Earth Day was really. Turns out that it’s an event such began back in 1970 to focus on environmentalism and highlight the best parts of our natural world and occurs on the 22nd April every year. I feel I have let David Attenborough down…

If you had a copy of Animal Crossing: New Leaf or Wild World, Earth Day was also celebrated but took the title of ‘Nature Day’.

10 Gluten-Free Must-Haves!

It’s not always easy when you are eating a gluten-free diet. Whether it’s due to being diagnosed with gluten allergies including coeliacs disease or you’ve simply chosen to reduce your gluten intake (such as myself), finding an alternative for cupboard stables can sometimes be a bit tricky. 

My partner was diagnosed with coeliacs disease almost 3 years ago, and out of solidarity and support I’ve reduced my gluten intake massively (I do, however, cave in for noodles every now and again). 3 years ago there wasn’t a lot of options on the free from section, but supermarkets are finally catching on that people have gluten-free/vegan etc. diets!

Here’s a list of my 10 favourite must-have gluten-free products we always buy in our weekly shop. I should note I am in the UK, so the supermarkets I get these from may not be available if you’re outside of the country, sorry about that 😦

 

4 Large Yorkshire Puddings from The Real Yorkshire Pudding Co.

Us British love a good Sunday roast! And you can’t have a roast without the blessing that is Yorkshire puddings. This pack of 4 puds (and they are quite large) are so nice that I didn’t even realise that they were GF. They crisp up nicely but still have nice soft bottoms and most importantly can hold a river of gravy. These bad boys can be found in Asda, Morrisons, and Waitrose and usually sell for £2 – but you can often find them on offer for £1.50 🙂

 

Sue’s Gluten Free Kitchen Egg Custards

I’m always on the lookout for GF puddings. Whenever I go shopping as see in big letters ‘GLUTEN FREE’ I make a beeline straight for them. These egg custards are absolutely delicious and go perfect with a cuppa. At £2, you can nab these in Waitrose and Sainsbury’s stores.