‘Much Dithering in Little Botheringham’ is an everyday tale of village life and vampires, from Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook.

“We may have a problem or do have one?” Em asked, knowing Agnes was seldom that precise in her use of words.
“Okay. Do have. The vicar has a visitor.”
“Who?”
“A rat catcher. Didn’t stay long, but he took in a box of stuff and he came out without it.”
“Oh bother the man. I’d better keep an eye on the church hadn’t I? “Hadn’t we. I’ll be there in twenty.”
“I’d be glad of the company. I just wish we could watch both sides of the church. I can only see the back door from here.”
“Can’t you get that pesky bloody bat of yours to go and keep an eye from the lych gate?”
“Yes. Of course I can. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“It’s being close to the church does it. I find I’m thinking a lot clearer over this side of the village. But right now I’m on my way.”
Em felt comforted by the thought that Agnes would be with her, and she rather despised herself for those feelings. In an effort to reassert her normal control, she brushed herself down briskly and went to collect certain things from a large tin trunk in the attic. Once she had assembled what she thought she might need, she dressed in camouflage trousers and a neat khaki vest. Carrying her booty downstairs she loaded the pockets of the ancient poachers gilet that hung behind the back door before lacing her feet into the Doc Martens that Agnes had persuaded her into last winter. As by now the sun was turning the evening sky a lurid orange picked out with purplish storm clouds it was time to persuade Erasmus to cooperate. 
“Are you awake my friend?”
To her surprise he answered immediately. “I am. What do you require of me?”
“Agnes and I can watch the back of the church from here, but we can’t see the front.”
He was ahead of her. “I will hang in the lych gate. It’s high enough so I won’t be seen.”
Em felt him leave, just as Agnes slipped in via the back door. “I left the car in the pub car park.”
There not being too much else to say, they took themselves upstairs to where a window seat on the half-landing offered a perfect view of the back of the church. They sat down, comfortable in their silence, and Em looked at Agnes with an inward grin. She also wore camo, although hers was less tailored than Em’s and her pockets bulged with various things as Agnes was always one to be prepared for any eventuality. 
It occurred to Em that there was one vital piece of information she hadn’t passed on to her friend. “I just remembered what I haven’t told you. Erasmus says the vicar is a were.”
“Wolf?”
“No. And we don’t know what. Erasmus tells me the bats say he’s rodent.”
Agnes gave a humourless chuckle.
“A rodent? Then my money’s on him being a wererat. I can just see him fitting in well with those cunning, sneaky supes.”
“But a wererat becoming a vicar?”
Agnes shrugged. “They have their exiles, rogues and outcasts same as the rest of us, but the traits always run true.”
Em wasn’t convinced, there was something distinctly un-ratty about the man that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. “I suspect we’ll find out soon enough.”
“You got the silver bullets?”
“I have. If necessary.”
Agnes’ phone bleeped. She listened for a moment.
“Thanks. Can you follow him?”
She listened some more. “Right. See you.” Agnes put the phone carefully back in her pocket. “The vicar is on the move. Dressed like he thinks he’s Clint Eastwood I’m told. Arnold is following on his motorbike, but he has to keep well back. Oh, and Arnold has Petunia riding pillion.”
Em sighed. “But you never know, she might even be useful for the first time in her life.”
They resumed their study of the churchyard in the lurid light of a Disneyesque sunset. A movement at the edge of the little coppice that backed onto the churchyard caught Em’s eye. She stared and then as her eyes became accustomed to the half light under the trees she realised who it was.
“Agnes. Why do you suppose the Cropper woman is sitting in Dead Man’s Wood watching the church?”
“Azriel knows. But she is just about bound to get in the bloody way. I’ll go send her home.”
But before she had even got up from her seat, a strange looking figure slipped into the churchyard by the back gate. It was the vicar, loaded for bear and heading towards the church.
The two women ran down the stairs and down the garden path to where a low wall separated Em’s garden from the churchyard. Em was thinner and fitter than Agnes but even she wasn’t fast enough to stop Ms Cropper who ran into the church shouting incomprehensibly…

Part 13 of Much Dithering in Little Botheringham by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook, will be here next week.

I wrote a book, it took me ages
For it has a lot of pages
Worked until my fingers bled
To get the words out of my head
The edited until I ached
Eradicating my mistakes
It is a tale of derring-do
Aimed at you and you and you
So pop along and have a look
Within the covers of the book
And if you like the things you see
Chuck a couple of quid at me
And that is all I have to say
Support a sad old bat today

©️jj 2020

Gwion Yfans was an imposing figure but not really what Dai had imagined an Archdruid to be like. He realised he was probably over-influenced by too many viewings of ‘The Conquest of Ynys Mon’ where white-robed figures with beards growing to their naked toes, stood waving staves, bellowing curses and sending wave after wave of zombified Britons against the brave and gallant Roman legionaries who opposed them. 
By contrast, Yfans surprised by his air of normality. He welcomed them into his comfortable villa on the outskirts of the village of Llanwddyn, nestled deep in the lovely valley of the River Vyrnwy. 
“Call me Gwion please, Submagistratus – I would be honoured if you did so. Delighted you have come by. Please, please come in. I do apologise for the mud on the driveway, I have been having a new swimming pool and pavilion style garden house built out the back.” He held an arm out like a signpost towards a door at the back of the entrance hall. “I have honey and cinnamon cakes fresh baked and will have some brought through to my winter room.”
The man was indeed tall and bearded, but his beard far from being long and tangled, had been trimmed to a discreet length that still allowed the shape of his jawline and chin to be seen. His clothing was perfectly normal, even erring slightly on the side of fashion. He was also younger than Dai expected – perhaps in his early forties at most.
“I regret we are not here for a social visit,” Dai explained trying not to think about food. It suddenly seemed much too long since breakfast. “This is part of a vigiles investigation.”
Yfans put his head on one side looking for all the world like a curious bird.
“Oh? Official? Then perhaps my study instead. Come this way. Oh sorry, I should have warned you about that step. Are you alright?”
Dai rubbed his head where he had stumbled off the invisible step and hit his head on the low lintel of the doorway beyond.
“Just fine,” he lied.
If Gwion Arfan was a disappointment for an Archdruid in appearance, his study more than made up for it. There were shelves of old books and two beautifully carved harps. The air carried the scent of old leather and paper with a slight undercurrent of dried ink. The chairs were wood carved and the huge desk looked as if it had grown up out of the floorboards. The sole concession Dai could see to the modern world, was a case on one wall containing some particularly ancient looking books and scrolls. It was sealed shut and had humidity and temperature readings on a small panel to one side.
Afran gestured politely to the two chairs which were closest to the hearth, where a few logs burned and settled himself into the large chair by the desk, swivelling it around first to face his guests, who remained standing.
“So what can I do to assist you two gentleman? Oh, my manners, Saturnalia Optima to you both.” His smile boarded on the patronising. Dai felt his jaw tighten.
“We have reason to believe you were celebrating the solstice on the night before last, in the company of Cariad Llewellyn.”
Afran laughed.
“Well, of course I was celebrating the solstice. It goes with my job description – giving spiritual counsel to those of my faith, maintaining and honouring the traditions of Druidism and celebrating major Druidic festivals. But I was not in the company of your sister – is she of the faith? I would have assumed since she has married Rome she professes Roman creeds – as you do, Submagistratus.” He lifted his voice in a very slight interrogation.
Dai ignored the question – or dig.
“So where were you and what were you doing?”
“I don’t think I need to speak of my religious practices to satisfy the curiosity of the Roman authorities. It is enough for you to know that my religion is not one on the prohibited list and I am, thus, free to practice it as, when and where I choose.”
“No one is challenging your right to practice your faith. But I do need to know where you were practicing it the night before last.”
“I don’t see what busi-”
This time it was Bryn who stirred.
“Archdruid, it would grieve us to have to take such an august and respected member of the community to the vigiles house for further questioning. But if you will not co-operate…” Bryn added his most sinister smile.
Arfan looked between them as if weighing up his options. Then he sighed.
“It is not secret. You will find it on my webpage in fact. I was at Bryn Cader Faner. I arrived there in the late afternoon – before sunset – and remained there until dawn. If you doubt my word I can offer you the names of at least fifty people who will be willing to testify to the fact.”
Dai did not doubt that he could do so, whether he had been there or not being moot.
“And you were not in company with Cariad Llewellyn?” Bryn asked.
The Archdruid shook his head and looked slightly non-plussed.
“I already told you, I was not even aware she was of the faith. But you must recall there are other – less organised – groupings which also profess to follow my path.”
Gritting his teeth, Dai pressed on.
“Cariad herself has been heard to-”
“To what? Mention me by name?” The expressive face adopted a look of disbelief. “I don’t think that is possible since we have never met. But why all these questions?”
“Cariad Llewellyn went missing the night of the solstice and the two men with her for her protection were murdered.” Dai watched the other man closely as he spoke. The expected shock and horror came.
“But – but that is dreadful. Terrible. I am so sorry for your loss.”
For a moment Dai felt chilled despite the warmth from the logs in the hearth beside him.
“My loss? My sister is missing. We have no grounds to believe her dead also. Unless you know different?”
For a moment the careful mask of the Archdruid slipped and something of anger seeped out, serpent like, before it could be snapped back in place.
“Are you accusing me?” he hissed.
“No one is accusing you, dominus,” Bryn said soothingly. “We merely want to know any information you might have which could help us trace Domina Llewellyn or uncover the killer of her guard.”
“Then I regret your journey here has been wasted. I know nothing about either matter.” He got to his feet and  crossed to open the door of the study, holding it open to make his meaning clear. “I will not delay you from your enquiries any longer.”
The air outside tasted clean to Dai and he did not regret leaving the warmth of the villa.
“Nice place,” Bryn observed, “and all paid for by his loyal congregation, according to my Gwen.”
“Generous of them.”
“Very. Some are that poor the tithe he demands can cost them an empty table.”
Dai stopped still and grabbed Bryn’s arm.
“You are serious?”
Bryn nodded.
“Of course I am. It’s just they are afraid of what will happen if they don’t pay. They might be cursed for neglecting their duty to the old ways. My Gwen says the last Archdruid was a very different man. Had a humble house where everyone was welcome and did not trouble anyone but the most wealthy for their tithing.”
Dai released Bryn’s arm and carried onto the all-wheel, feeling profoundly troubled. It was as Bryn was firing the engine to drive them home another thought occurred.
“So does your Gwen pay-?
“Faex no!” Bryn jarred the gears and shot Dai a disbelieving look. “You can’t think Gwen would fall for that kind of daft superstition?”
Dai said nothing. It was all superstition in his book.

From Dying as a Druid, one of the Dai and Julia Mystery stories also found in The First Dai and Julia Omnibus by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook

I’m sorry I’m not who you thought I was
When you first met and got to know me
I guess you just made some assumptions
based on the face that you see.

You built for yourself a card-castle
Of things you’d expect me to be
To fit in the frame of your world view
So I’d not be a challenge – or three.

You couldn’t reshape the way in your mind
Someone like me you did view
Notions you have of how I should behave
And of all the things I should do

But I won’t be bound by your prejudice
For that is what it is, that’s true
And now you are left to discriminate
Just quite what that says about you…

E.M. Swift-Hook

Okay let’s get this right out in the open before we begin. Whatever this heap of steaming ordure is it is NOT reality. It is no more real than the soap opera you won’t admit to watching. It’s contrived and packaged to get you to believe in it.

• What is real about putting a bunch of semi-famous people in the jungle and only feeding them beans? Although imagining the aroma is vaguely amusing.
• What is real about shoving a load of attention seekers in a house and force-feeding them booze? This is purely for those who want to watch cut-price porn.
• What is real about getting together a group of the nastiest human beings you can find and offering a job to the last one standing? It would be marginally less boring if they were actually allowed to kill each other.
• What is real about encouraging assorted no-hopers onto a stage and laughing at their lack of talent? This is mostly just so cruel that it can only be watched with beer goggles on.
• What is real about watching over-privileged tossers attempting to get laid? This just makes me wonder precisely how inbred the little bastards are.

I could go on…

And breathe, Gran, you are hyperventilating now. *lights a ciggy and decides that drinking Southern Comfort from the bottle is sometimes necessary*

Having reached the conclusion that it’s all pretty much shite there is one question hanging in the air. Why is it on night after night? Because this shite is popular, and people who begin their ‘careers’ on reality tv are becoming mainstream ‘stars’. Why? Are we so devoid of talent as to make a cult of being a bit dim?

Being genuinely goshswoggled by the amount of airtime devoted to this  regurgitation of humanity at its least appealing I took myself to the pub, where it was OAP luncheon day, had myself some dinner and conducted a straw poll.

What I discovered was beyond depressing. People who are really old enough to know better watch this dross for the following reasons:

• I like to get to understand people in real situations. (Where would that be then?)
• I really like the presenter. (Can one like an oleaginous bastard?)
• It’s an interesting social experiment. (See, even the middle classes get drawn in.)
• It’s lovely to see the children on it. (That’ll be the talent show element.)
• And finally (probably the only honest one). I watch for the tits.

To recap. Reality tv serves only one purpose – to bring forward even more people who are famous for being famous. Oh and maybe to fill the  schedules cheaply.
There is only one reason for watching any of it and that’s the vain hope that somebody, somewhere, someday will up and twat one of the presenters…

In the days when their ball of mud was spinning to oblivion, they released the blurred and unconvincing pictures that were all they had of us.

Mother laughed. “They are trying to distract themselves from their doom,” she said.

Sssscrattt looked up from the game he was playing. “Will they die soon?” he asked eagerly.

Father tapped him firmly on his poll. “Soon enough my bloodthirsty loinfruit. But it is not for rejoicing.”

“Why not? They are stupid and ugly.”

“They might think the same of us. Why do you suppose we spend our lives floating in a tin can?”

©️jj 2020

We rocked up at the Fair Maid and Falcon at about four in the afternoon of a filthy early October day. Two humans and two dogs, in a big American motorhome, come to run the business while the owners went on holiday. The rain was streaming, it was blowing a gale, and the pub certainly wasn’t appearing to its best advantage.
‘You and the dogs stop in the dry’ Ben said. ‘I’ll go find out where they want us to park.’
I did as he suggested, and he came back about fifteen minutes later looking cross.
‘What?’
‘Oh, the stupid buggers want us to park on the other side of the road in a very muddy field with no water and no lekky hook-up. They don’t want their customers to see the Winnie. He says they have a select clientele who might think the New Age Travellers had moved in.’
‘And what did you say to him, love of my life?’
He grinned. ‘The second word was ‘off’. I’ve left them having a bit of a think.’
I looked at the long, low, flint-walled building squatting moodily at the edge of its sodden beer garden and found myself shivering. ‘I don’t much care for this place’ I said slowly ‘so if the incumbents aren’t prepared to be reasonable I vote for giving them back their deposit and going home. Let them find somebody else to run their fucking gastro pub while they piss off the the Caribbean.’
Ben laughed. ‘Do you think there is anybody else?’
I laughed ruefully. ‘No. I guess not. And I find I don’t much care.’
He patted me companionably ‘Got the willies have you?’
‘Yup. And that’s normally your job…’
‘Yeah. It is. I’ve actually got a few myself. The atmosphere has changed greatly since I came here in June.’
‘How?’
‘I can’t put my finger on precisely what it is, but they seem to be losing it. He’s chain-smoking and his skin is hanging on him. And her? She looks like something the cat brought in and didn’t want. They are also extremely edgy. When I was inside, a door banged somewhere and she jumped about ten feet in the air.’
‘Odd. Marital problems do you think?’
His forehead creased as he considered that idea. ‘No. Doesn’t feel like that. I mean they aren’t exactly playing happy families, but they weren’t in June. This feels new… and nasty.’
Our conversation was interrupted by a timid knock on the door of the camper. Stan and Ollie growled softly and Ben got up to open the door. A skinny young girl in a waitress uniform stood out in the rain.
‘Come in.’
She did as she was told and stood dripping on the floor. ‘They want you to go back in’ she almost whispered. ‘He’s in a terrible temper and threatening all sorts if you don’t. She’s crying. Again.’
Ben looked at the girl from under his blonde eyebrows. ‘Would you go back in there if you were me?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s them two. They’ve gone mad. They used to be OK to work for. Hard. But fair. But now they are both completely nuts. He shouts all the time and drinks, and she drinks and cries. This is my last shift. Got a job in Lymington. It’s a drop in pay. But. Told myself it was because its nearer to home. It isn’t though. It’s this place. It has started to give me the serious creeps.’
‘Okay. Thanks. I’ll now go see the charm twins.’
He got up and pulled on his parka. I watched them splashing their way across the car park, with Ben holding our huge red umbrella over the shivering girl, then sat on the rug with the dogs. ‘Well’ I said. ‘What do you two reckon? Stay? Or go?’
They looked solemn, then lay one either side of me and promptly fell asleep.
Ben was gone ages, and I was almost asleep myself when he returned. He looked a bit grim.
‘Problem, love?’
‘I dunno. When I went back inside all was sweetness and light. But I have the willies now. The volte face was too complete. We get to park wherever suits us. Would we like a meal with them in the restaurant tonight? The dogs can use the private garden. There was even the offer of more money.’
‘Shit Ben. They must be desperate. We’re overcharging them now, because you didn’t really want to take the job.’
‘True. But that was different. I just thought he was an asshole. Now he’s a worried asshole.’
‘So? What do we do? We probably have to stay, don’t we?’
‘Yup. Or have the asshole mouthing off all over Facebook and Twitter if we don’t.’
‘Okay then. We do it. But I want it on record that I have the willies.’

From Who Put Her In? by Jane Jago

Pearls of wisdom from an octogenarian who’s seen it all…

Botox

As a woman whose face has more furrows than a ploughed field, you can probably guess my stance on this subject.

Firstly: At what point did it become sensible to inject your face with food poisoning?

Secondly: Has nobody explained how frigging stupid you look when the only facial expression you can muster is vague surprise.

Thirdly: This doesn’t so much make you look young as desperate

Fourthly: If you stopped pulling the disapproving face that makes your mouth look like a cat’s bum…

And finally: Nobody looks at women over fifty anyway, so have a cake and enjoy life.

Three hours later, Julia peeled off from her escort outside a small hut that commanded a view of three tracks through the forest.
“You stick around the hut, girl. And if anybody wants to pass, you just salute and let them through. I dunno what is going on. But I don’t much care for guards being set up. Even pocket-sized moechas like you.”
Julia snapped him a salute, and he grinned showing a set of distressingly yellow teeth.
“I’m tempted to leave somebody with you, but we are so short handed I dare not. You just be careful missy.”
Then he and his detachment were gone.
Julia went into the hut and unloaded her food bag, before setting up the hut’s unreliably shielded coms link, thus making sure the place looked inhabited to a casual eye. She carried the rest of her belongings to a broad-trunked oak tree where she dropped the bag on the ground. Several trips, and a good deal of climbing, later she was satisfied with her arboreal nest. She sat in an accommodating fork right at the centre of the crown of the tree. She was barefoot, with two gel mattresses under her and a carefully woven twiggy roof over her head. She opened a self-heating food pouch with a momentary longing for the thick, tasty stew she had abandoned below. But, then again, stew laced with sleeping drugs…
Thanking her lucky stars that it was Augustus not December, she leaned against the rough tree trunk and closed her eyes. She must have drifted off to sleep because she was startled into wakefulness by the sound of coarse masculine voices speaking in a language that was definitely not Latin.
“Well, here’s the hut. Where’s the woman?”
“She can’t be far. Her stuff’s here.”
“It is indeed. So we wait. Khulan. You and the boy tether the northman and the hounds.”
At the sound of the coarse male voice speaking the Mongol tongue, Julia felt herself regressing to a twelve-year-old girl. A girl taken prisoner by Mongols and beaten half to death for disobedience before they tied her to a wooden bar and took turns raping her. She had been sure they were going to kill her, and they may well have done so had not a half a century of Legionaries arrived in the nick of time. She didn’t like to admit it, even to herself, but she still had nightmares – particularly about one Chingis, who had been amusing himself with a ligature about her throat in the moments before he met his demise.
She dragged her mind back to the here and now and peered cautiously around a branch. Right below her, a small flat-faced man was tying a blond giant to the very tree on which she sat. The blond had his hands tied behind his back and a rope around his neck by which he was being secured to the huge trunk. Additionally, another man was tying two thin grey dogs to another tree, cruelly tightly. When they had done that, they picketed half a dozen sturdy short-legged ponies, carefully choosing the less rich grass at the forest edge.
Julia held her breath, not moving a muscle, until a loud voice called from inside the hut.
“There’s a big pot of bantan here, and the woman won’t have any use for it. I’ve heated it. We may as well eat.”
The two braided Mongols cantered back towards the hut and Julia let out a careful breath. It seemed like she might be about to have a stroke of luck.
She dropped an acorn on the head of the man tied beneath her. He looked up incuriously, but his eyes widened when he realised there was a woman in the tree. Julia put a finger to her lips and smiled down. The big man nodded then allowed his head to drop back onto his chest.

From ‘When Julia Met Edbert’ in Dying to be Friends by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook 

Elizabeth expected little from marriage to a widower some twenty years her senior and in need of a housekeeper.  

It was surprising, then, how kind he was and how gentle with her in their big bed. Elizabeth was content, even if she could never fill the place his first wife had in his heart.

The day she told him she was carrying his child he just smiled, and she wondered if he cared.

He never spoke of love, but employed a sturdy young women to help her around the house, and slept with one big hand on her burgeoning stomach.

©️jj 2020