Today, my Dark Origins – African Myths and Legends post discusses the Castle of Good Hope in Cape Town and the ghosts that haunt its battlements. Thank you for hosting, Kaye Lynne Booth.
The Castle of Good Hope in Cape Town, South Africa, was built in 1665 and became the scene of many bloody and tragic events. The Castle came about as the result of a ship wreck, a common occurrence at the southern most tip of Africa where the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans meet.
On the 25th of March 1647, a Dutch ship called De Nieuwe Haerlem ran aground near present day Milnerton, as it journeyed from Holland to the East Indies. The ship sank and a junior merchant named Leendert Janszen was requested to stay near the site of the wreck, with about 60 crew members, to look after the cargo while the rest of the ship wrecked men boarded other ships and continued to Holland.
While he waited to be relieved of his responsibilities and return home, Janszen and his men grew vegetables, caught fish and bartered fresh fish…
Thank you to children’s book author and poet, Victoria Zigler, for hosting my stop on the Refracted Reflections book book.
Today is my stop on the blog tour for “Refracted Reflections” and I have a guest post for you from one of the authors, Roberta Eaton Cheadle, along with a giveaway and my review of the book. So, over to you, Robbie.
Inspiration for The Nutcracker
My short story contribution to Refracted Reflections is called the Nutcracker. The title, Nutcracker, was intended to be a play on words relating to the psychiatrist in this story who fails to crack the nut (the reference to nut being aligned with the outdated description of an insane person as being as nutty as a fruitcake, which saying was first recorded in 1821) because he is too short-sighted and arrogant to understand the internal conflict that is taking place within his patient.
Irene is chronically depressed due to her guilt over the sixth mass extinction of the animal life on earth and is overwhelmingly anxious due to the increasing symptoms of global warming. Irene, like some other Generation Z youngsters, sees no hope for the future. This feeling of hopelessness among young people appears to be increasing and is most concerning to me.
Dr. Jamison’s inability to reach Irene and understand her inner turmoil is in keeping with her view that Generation X has done nothing to stop global warming or the destruction of the animal kingdom and does not care about improving the world for her generation. His epic failure has tragic consequences for Irene.
The theme of global warming and the sixth mass extinction and its contribution to the mental health problems being experienced by modern youngsters is combined in this piece, with the additional problem of modern medications being used to treat symptoms and not causes, as well as the potential damaging side effects of medications.
My personal experience of medications for anxiety, depression, and other mental health problems are that incorrect dosages or medications can exacerbate depression and cause suicidal thoughts. Parents and patients need to investigate the potential side effects of any medications they are given, and doctors need to be sensitive to the development of negative side effects due to adverse reactions by patients to anxiety and other medications.
This story is set in the Sterkfontein Cave in Magaliesburg, South Africa, and was originally inspired by the deaths of a small group of divers who were investigating the exceptionally deep lake within the cave. The divers went into one of the small, water-filled tunnels branching off from the lake and were not able to find their way back. They are believed to have drowned, but their bodies were never found. When I started writing a short story about the deaths of these divers, my mind took me on a different journey and that was the story I ended up writing.
For a chance to win a free digital copy of Refracted Reflections, just leave a comment to show you were here. Follow the tour and comment at each stop for more chances to win. Three copies will be given away in a random drawing.
Welcome Valerie B. Williams
Today, I am delighted to welcome author, Valerie B. Williams, for my stop on the WordCrafter Book Blog Tour for Refracted Reflections, Twisted Tales of Duality & Deceptions. Valerie is a contributor to Refracted Reflections: Twisted Tales of Duality & Deceptions, an anthology published by WordCrafter Press in which I also have a short story.
Extract from The Tinker’s Gift by Valerie B. Williams
“The Tinker’s Gift” is a Civil-War era tale of death and hope
I love period pieces, where news and communications are slow or unavailable. I’m also fascinated by itinerant salesmen, and the way they cobble together a living by offering a variety of goods and services. The last ingredient in the story is a camp mirror, a typical personal item carried by many soldiers. The small, pocket-sized mirrors were wood-framed, with a folding or sliding cover to protect the glass, and usually used when shaving.
Once I had the ingredients of the story, I thought about how to blend them into a dark tale. Living in Virginia, it was easy to base the story in the state. Many mansions were converted to Confederate hospitals during the Civil War, so now I had the setting. I chose one of the wounded soldiers, Corporal Clarence Hutchinson, as the protagonist. But who to set him against and why? Enter the tinker, Bartley Penfold, offering metalwork and sermons, trusted by all but our hero. Hutchinson is a keen observer and something about the tinker feels off, but he can’t put his finger on it.
When Penfold offers a soldier a glimpse in his camp mirror, the soldier is surprised and excited to see his loved ones reflected in the glass. Other soldiers beg for a glimpse, but Penfold only offers it to a select few. Theses feats of magic are followed by an unexplained string of deaths, causing a panic among the wounded soldiers and leading to a confrontation with Hutchinson.
You will have to read the story to find what happens! I had great fun writing it and hope the readers will enjoy reading it.
About Refracted Reflections, Twisted Tales of Duality & Deceptions
Blurb
One reveals truths, while the other bends light into varying shapes of deception.
Does a small camp mirror reveal hope… or death?
Is the warrior in the mirror a monster… or a protector?
Does a glimpse in the mirror reveal a young woman’s true self… or what someone else has shaped her into?
Does the mysterious portal to the future reflect what could be… or what must be left behind?
Are the dancers reflected in the water’s depth things of beauty… or evil?
This unique and imaginative collection of nine mind tantalizing fantasy and science fiction stories will appeal to readers who enjoy thought provoking tales with hidden meanings resting deep below the surface. These stories will keep you pondering long into the night.
If you liked Gilded Glass or Once Upon an Ever After, you’ll love Refracted Reflections.
Purchase Refracted Reflections, Twisted Tales of Duality & Deceptions
Valerie B. Williams came late to writing but is making up for lost time. She has honed her craft through HWA’s mentorship program (mentored by Tim Waggoner in 2017), attending the Borderlands Press Writers Bootcamp (2018 and 2019), and attending the Fright Club online horror writers workshop (2018 and 2021). She continues to write and submit new stories, as well as completing and seeking publication for a supernatural thriller novel.
Several of Valerie’s short horror stories have appeared in anthologies, including “Amazing Patsy” in American Gothic Short Stories (Flame Tree Press, 2019). Her most recent publication was the short story, “Oyster Hunt,” in the January 2022 edition of Dark Recesses Press magazine. She lives near Charlottesville, Virginia, with her very patient husband and two equally patient Golden Retrievers.
Dermot is a fifteen-year-old boy living in a remote village in the land of Denú. He has always longed for something more in his life. Now, everything changes after he sees a renowned creature–a gryphon–in the sky, and then crosses paths with a reclusive healer who harbors a secret.
Soon, he and his brother have no choice but to leave the only home they’ve ever known. They travel with new friends across the land through several great forests, along the way meeting an old man, a family of unicorns, and witnessing an important birth. They must evade fire-breathing dragons and dark-armored soldiers hunting them down, all serving an evil sorcerer determined to subjugate the kingdom, and who will stop at nothing to destroy them.
Denú’s only hope is if a renowned coven returns to face the enemy after years in hiding. Dermot, however, suspects their own role may be more significant than he thought, as he slowly discovers a power which exists amongst the trees and creatures of every greenwood. Can they save those they hold dear? Will Dermot find what he has sought? Or will all that’s free and good be consumed by darkness?
My review
Andrew McDowell has written an extraordinary fantasy tale which centres around the guardians of nature and the Greenwood, called driadors. The plot follows a typical good versus evil path, but the overlay of the protection versus the destruction of the natural environment was unusual, topical, and really fantastic.
Dermot and his brother, Brian, do not get on. Brian is the son who always does as he is asked by his parents and fits the mould of a pleaser, while Dermot is a dreamer and has always felt he was intended for more than his life as an apprentice blacksmith to his father. The rivalry between the two boys comes to a head when Dermot is carried away by a hunting gryphon. Dermot persuades the gryphon to drop him but he is injured during his fall. He wakes up in the care of a healer called Saershe, and her grandson, Ruairi. Dermot realises that they are not ordinary forest dwellers and, following his return home, he becomes obsessed with finding them again.
Brian becomes aware that Dermot has had some sort of unusual experience during his absence and uses this knowledge to stir up trouble for Dermot with their parents. Meanwhile, an evil force in the shape of a fallen driador called Taranis, is lurking just beyond the village, waiting for an opportunity to wreak havoc and destruction and restart an old battle against the driadors. Dermot and Brian will have to learn to trust and rely on each other, and harness the power of nature if they want to save the Greenwood, their friends, family, and themselves.
This is an unusual and well paced story with interesting characters, and these elements more than makes up for the odd moments in the book when Dermot and Brian’s emotional reactions to situations seem slightly lacking in depth or incongruent to the circumstances.
The author has great potential as a writer and I would love to read the next book in this series and find out what happens next in the battle for control between Taranis and the driadors.
I used a combination of these techniques to create the animated video of my Sir Chocolate characters below. I didn’t add the music on a slide by slide basis though, I added the music in video editor which is much easier. If you type video editor into your computer’s search bar, it should come up. You can create your video in video editor and add the music. I downloaded the music I used from YouTube free music downloads which meant that when I uploaded the video to YT, it was quickly approved with no copywrite issues.
I was pleased with this effort, but I wanted to add some live readings from my books. To this end, I set about finding out how to do that in PowerPoint.
I found the Recording button in PP fairly easily. When I clicked on Recording, it came up with the Record Slide Show button which gives you options: 1. Record from current slide, 2. Record from beginning. I selected Record from current slide each time so I recorded each slide’s reading separately.
When you click on Record from current slide, you get the screen above. You can see me in the bottom right-hand corner. When you press Record, you have 3 seconds before recording starts. Stop obviously ends the recording.
If you make a mistake, and I did, you can click the X button and it allows you to clear the Recordings on the current slide.
That all went relatively well, but when I tried to add music to the slides with no recordings, things went pear-shaped. The music recorded over my video sound track.
What to do? What to do?
Not give up, obviously.
How I solved this problem was to save two separate videos, one that had the animated design show that I wanted to set to music, and the other with the recordings. I added the music in PowerPoint to slide show 1.
I used the Audio button to add Audio from my PC. I had already downloaded the sound track I wanted.
I then selected Play in Background and the music was added across the 8 slides.
I then converted Video 1 to an MP4. I separately converted slide show 2 to an MP4.
I put the two videos together in video editor, as follows:
I created a new project called Sir Chocolate Books introduction. I then added the two separate videos in order. I then pressed Finish video and, wallah! video editor put the two videos together for me.
It isn’t perfect, but I think it’s not bad for a homemade YT video.
Welcome to Thursday Doors, a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing your link in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time). You can join in here: https://nofacilities.com/2022/09/15/the-road-to-preston/
Here are a few more doors pictures from our stay at Tau Game Lodge
Door to the bar – we never went insideDoor of the bathroom. It looked onto an outdoor shower. If you look carefully you will see it was actually open on one sideOur chalet from the road. Can you see our three visitors?
The second night of our stay at Tau, the temperatures dropped significantly overnight. It was really cold when we left for our early morning drive at 5.30am. The game ranger game us heat packs for our laps and hands as well as blankets. Here we are wrapped up in our winter woolies:
It was worth going out in the cold as we saw a leopard on the prowl. I got a few good pictures and we saw her trying to take down a small klipspringer antelope. It was exciting to watch but way to fast for me to film.
We also saw rhino, but the game ranger was obsessed with following the cheetah so I only go one picture and a short video.
Lastly, we saw baby giraffes, my favourite.
Oh, and a zebra scratching his side and bottom. It was quite amusing to watch.
During the German occupation of France, nestled in the lush, verdant countryside in the Haute-Vienne department of central France was the peaceful village of Oradour-sur-Glane. It was a community where villagers woke to the medley of nature’s songs, roosters crowing, birds chirping, cats purring, and cows plodding on their way out to pasture. The people who lived there loved the tranquil nature of their beautiful home, a tranquility that existed year-round. Even with the German occupation, Oradour-sur-Glane – the village with cafés, shops, and a commuter tram to Limoges – remained relatively untouched by the stress of the occupation.
While Oradour-sur-Glane enjoyed the lack of German presence, twenty-two kilometers to the northwest in Limoges, the Germans were reacting with increasing cruelty to organized attacks on their soldiers by the armed resistance organization Francs-Tireurs et Partisans (FTP). Headed by Amédé Fauré, the Limoges FTP was considered the most effective of the French Resistance groups. Fauré’s missions prompted the German military to kill and incarcerate in concentration camps anyone perceived as supporters or sympathizers of the Resistance.
Up until the middle of 1944, the German anti-partisan actions in France never rose to the level of brutality or number of civilian casualties that had occurred in eastern Europe. A little before the Allies landed in Normandy, all that changed, when German troops, and in particular the Waffen-SS, stationed on the Eastern Front were transferred to France. It was then that FTP’s increasing efforts to disrupt German communications and supply lines were met with disproportionate counter attacks, involving civilians. Fauré’s response was to target German officers. When he set his sights on two particular German officers, all hell broke loose.
Based on actual events as told by survivors, The Peaceful Village is the fictionalized story of the unfolding of the events that led up to one of the biggest World War II massacres on French soil. Much more than an account of Nazi brutality and the futility of war, this is a story of love.The love of family. The love of neighbor. The love of country. Compassion and courage burn from the pages as the villagers’ stories come alive. Written by the international bestselling author of The Seven Year Dress, Paulette Mahurin, this book pays homage to the villagers who lived and loved in Oradour-sur-Glane.
My review
I reviewed this book in my capacity as a member of Rosie’s Book Review Team. If you would like your book reviewed, you can contact Rosie Amber here: http://rosieamber.wordpress.com/.
I enjoy reading books about World War II and I’ve read and enjoyed another book by this author, so when I saw The Peaceful Village, I knew I had to read it. I knew it would be a tough read before I started but I must admit that this particular event shocked me to my core. It seems beyond comprehension that any normal human being with a soul can behave in such a callous and brutal way towards civilians.
This book is historical fiction and based on a real event so I knew the ending before I began. Reading a couple of paragraphs about a tragedy of this nature is, however, quite a different experience to reading a fictionalized account of it. The author’s great strength with this book is the detailed manner in which she depicted the main characters and the specifics of their lives and how she made the reader care about them. Even the supporting characters feel like neighbours and friends.
Francoise is one of the main characters. The wife of a French carrot farmer, she is worn down from years of working the land and her spirit is ailing due to the German occupation. Francoise is given an opportunity of a job at the local church in the village of Oradour-sur-Glane, which leads to her becoming involved in a small way with the French resistance and their efforts to hide Jewish families. Francoise blossoms in her new role and becomes the reader’s measure of normality and representation of the comfortable and peaceful lifestyles of the villagers.
The story moves between life in the village, largely told through the eyes of Francoise, and the activities of the French resistance who are using terrorist tactics to fight the occupying German forces. This tactic works well as the reader knows more about what is happening with the French resistance and the Nazi occupiers than the villagers of Oradour. It creates a lot of tension as the reader can see how the events are likely to unfold as the villagers go about their daily lives.
This is a beautifully written and heart rending book which has been well researched and presented. Anyone who is interested in WW2 and the effect of the Nazi regime on the local population in France will appreciate this book.
Purchase The Peaceful Village
Profits from Paulette Mahurin’s books go to help rescue dogs from kill shelters.
Welcome to Thursday Doors, a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing your link in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time). You can join in Thursday Doors here: https://nofacilities.com/2022/09/08/clay-hill-leftovers/
The first morning at Tau Game Lodge started at 5.30am. Michael didn’t want to go out so early so Terence and I went on our own. We left our room just as the sky was turning dark gray and walked down to the lounge cum dining area.
Leaving our roomArriving at the lounge cum dining areaInside the dining area from outside
The first animals we saw were buffalo; a whole herd. This is one picture of a buffalo with the dawn behind him.
A huge thank you to talented author, Judith Barrow, for hosting my article in her Places in our Memories series. I have shared some of my memories about the births of my three sisters which obviously changed my life significantly. You can find out more about Judith’s excellent books here: https://www.amazon.com/Judith-Barrow/e/B0043RZJV6 and read my review of The Heart Stone here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RI9RUUVY8XUGF
There are places that remain in our memories, the details may become slightly blurred, nostalgia may colour our thoughts, but they don’t fade. And how those places made us feel at the time is the one thing that remains.
Today I’m welcomingRobbie Cheadle, someone I’ve known and admired as an online friend for many years.
Thank you, Judith, for inviting me to talk about my memories.
As a little girl I was quiet and self-contained. The oldest of four daughters, my mom was often busy with a new baby and so I spent a lot of time alone. I do believe I was a lonely child and passed my time reading, listening to Broadway musicals on my mother’s record player, and doing numerous artistic projects.
By the time I was eighteen, I’d lived in twenty-one houses and attended fourteen schools. Twelve of my school changes occurred before I was twelve and once, I changed schools twice during the same academic year.
I never developed lasting and strong friendships with other girls which may have been a consequence of all these disruptions. Instead, my sisters and I played together. Their births were the highlight moments of my younger years.
A typical picture of me as a child
My time as a baby and a toddler are grey mist to me, but the first powerful memory I have is of the entrance of my sister, Catherine, into my life. She displaced me as the only one and I wasn’t pleased about it at the time.
Welcome to Thursday Doors, a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing your link in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time).
We recently visited Tau Game Lodge in the Madikwe Game Reserve. We happened to arrive on an unusually hot day for August and were treated to an amazing show of animals who all came to drink and swim in the watering hole. We walked up to the viewing point at the other side of the grounds and saw elephants so close you could reach out and touch them (which, of course, we didn’t because that would be dangerous and disrespectful to the animals who are not remotely tame or trained).
I love this video of the animals coming to the water hole to drink. It was simply amazing to watch.
Side door to the bar at the viewing pointA discussion at the watering holeMud bathThis elephant didn’t fancy me and stared me down
One of the elephants reversed right up close to me standing near the fence.
We went out for a game drive in the afternoon on the first day. We saw lions and buffalo.
Our Safari vehicle with its high doors that latch closedOne of two male lionsHere he is waking up in the late afternoon
Here is a short video of the lion rolling over:
My blogging friend, Wayne, from Tofino Photography (if you don’t know Wayne and his amazing wildlife photographs, I suggest you go over and take a look around https://tofinophotography.wordpress.com/2016/11/29/rendezvous-spot/) made a comment about animals heads on the walls of game lodges. I have never visited a game lodge that displays heads of animals as we go to places dedicated to conservation of wildlife, but such lodges do exist where they do canned hunting (which I abhor). Anyhow, Wayne’s comment inspired this poem which will be included in the poetry book I’m working on called Lion Scream which is about the plight of animals in Africa. Thank you, Wayne, for the obscure inspiration.
Horny Burden
The lead buffalo stands
Majestic, on guard
Surrounded by cows, their calves, and lessor bulls
Responsibility
Weighing heavily
***
A formidable pair
of horns deck his head
A natural defence, also a burden
In this fake man-made world
Where greed dominates
***
The hunter lines him up
Prepares for his shot
Bang! The bullet strikes, animal slumps forward
His magnificent horns
Will soon grace a wall
Before I depart, I must share this song by Flanders & Swann called The Gnu. It is about the head of a Gnu (which we call Wildebeeste) on the wall:
I must admit that I love Flanders & Swann and always have. I was a mighty odd little thing my grandma said.
roberta-writes.com 
