Bright blessings for Imbolc

Today is Imbolc! I’m sure many of my blog readers will know this already, but for anyone who perhaps doesn’t, today is one of the old Celtic cross-quarter festival days. I send out a Stonewylde newsletter eight times a year on the festivals, and my latest one for those who haven’t yet seen it can be found here. In this newsletter I’ve announced the title of the final book in the Stonewylde series (the one I’m currently writing) and also details of an award for which Shadows of Stonewylde has been longlisted – the David Gemmell Legend award. All very exciting stuff so do please take a look. 

I’d also like to share a link to another post about Imbolc which you can read here. Only yesterday, I received a ‘hot-off-the-press’ copy of Kay’s wonderful new book with a personal dedication inside and I was so very excited. I’ll blog about this another day, but let me just say now that Kay Sheard’s dictionary is absolutely fab and I thoroughly recommend it. I shall be using it in book 5 – say no more!

This is a quickie today as I took the day off from writing yesterday to celebrate my middle son Olly’s birthday. He was 27, and all my children and some of Mr B’s were here (nine of us) to eat an enormous dinner involving fajitas, nachos and birthday cake. It was a lovely but hectic day, with a lot of cooking, baking, hoovering and bed-making, but the evening was wonderful. Obviously no writing at all took place yesterday and I must catch up today.

So I shall leave you with an old-fashioned ‘Riddle-me-ree’ from Wild Roses, a huge Stonewylde fan and maker of fine jewellery (see her website here).

My first is in Sylvie but not in her love

My second in solstice and starlight above,

My third is in moondance but not in sunlight

My fourth is in raven as black as the night.

My fifth is in Maizie but not in her son

My sixth is in shadows and will they have won?

My seventh in young magus and in his great love

My eighth in his sister, of the shaman beloved.

My ninth in dark waters into which they must dive

My tenth is in Heggy and five, always five …

How cool is that – to have a special poem written? Thanks to Wild Roses, and a very lovely Imbolc to you all.