After the equinox, before Halloween
October falls in that strange place between
And has become a time that means much to me
After the equinox, before Halloween.

The last month of long days before the clocks change
The last month for sunshine afore colder ways
The high month of autumn and her golden sheen
After the equinox, before Halloween.

But for me October holds some special glow
For of all the people I have come to know
October is when the birthdays seem to be
Of those friends I most cherish, who mean most to me.

So I think there’s a magic in October’s span
Something quite precious that makes me a fan
Of that enchanted time that falls in between
After the equinox, before Halloween.

Eleanor Swift-Hook

Dying to be Roman by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook is a whodunit set in an alternative modern day Britain where the Roman Empire still rules.

IV

Julia was rapidly getting annoyed. There was something big and bad going on, she knew it in her gut but she couldn’t pin it down. As she had feared, talking to the lion keeper’s wife had proved a waste of time although it wrung her loins with pity. Somebody somewhere had to know something. But whom? She kicked the wall of the office she had been allotted and swore sulphurously. Edbert looked up from the dagger he was polishing the nicks out of.
“Why don’t you go have a word with the lovely Lydia?” he rumbled. “I heard a rumour that she’s thick with the wives of both the dead Romans and with the Arena boss.”
Julia gave him a grim look, knowing full well that asking him about the source of his rumour would get her nowhere. Praetorian barrack-room gossip was her guess. Stamping her feet into her boots and striding out of the room, she crossed the courtyard and was admitted to the Tribune’s lodgings without comment. A moment later she was at the door of Lady Lydia’s rooms. She tapped and a homely female face appeared.
“You after her ladyship?”
Julia nodded.
“She ain’t here.”
Julia was nonplussed and the woman sighed.
“If you was to ask me, she don’t intend coming back.”
Julia stiffened.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I just found out that she took her jewel box.”
“Come with me,” Julia snapped.
She stomped off along the corridor, not bothering to check whether or not the woman followed her. Hurrying as fast as she dared without causing too much remark, she was soon knocking on the door of the Tribune’s suite of offices. The secretarius came to the door.
“I need to see the Tribune,” Julia demanded.
The man frowned, but she heard Decimus speak sharply.
“Who is it, man?”
“Domina Julia,” the man mumbled.
“Let her in then, and bugger off.”
The secretarius glared at Julia, but he opened the door wide and shuffled through it and passed her.
“Come in, girl. Come in.” Decimus bellowed.
Julia went into the room followed by Lady Lydia’s servant. The Tribune stood in front of an open window with his big hands clasped grasped behind his neck. She stopped quietly and waited for him to speak.
“I hate all the admin and paperwork that goes with this job and I hate that little pederast of a keyboard-fiddler. Hate him and his computer equally.” He did not trouble to modulate his volume and the secretarius would still have been in earshot. Then he dropped his voice and turned to her with a smile. “I was about to contact you with some new information anyway. But what brings you here, little sister?”
Julia shuffled her feet and he stopped smiling.
“So. It’s not a social call?”
“No. It’s about the Lady Lydia.”
“What about her?” He sounded long-suffering rather than surprised.
“I went to talk to her and she seems to have gone missing.”
That summoned a frown to his face.
“Missing? What do you mean missing? And why did you want to speak to her?”
“Missing as in not in the house, and her woman here says she has taken her jewellery box. And I wanted to talk to her because one of her close friends is dead, and two have been recently widowed.”
Decimus glowered at her from beneath his thick, black brows then hit a bell on his desk with one hard fist. A guard came scuttling in.
“Will you please find out if Domina Lydia is in the house?”
“Sir.”
The guard left at a gallop, and the Tribune turned his fulminating gaze on the serving woman who shook her head and returned it stoically.
“You might have known she was up to something,” the woman said, her tone inappropriately accusing. “She has been too quiet. Except for that Titillicus and he was in the nature of a diversion.”
Decimus showed his teeth.
“Shut up Boudicca. If you can’t be anything but right you can just shut up.”
The woman actually smiled at him. There’s a story here, Julia thought, but she was too exercised with the puzzle in hand to add another set of questions to her list. However, Decimus obviously felt the need to explain.
“Boudicca here is a Briton by birth, but she was sold to Lydia’s futatrix of a mother when she was a little girl, just before enslaving anyone was outlawed. Of course every decent person promptly freed their existing slaves, if they had not already done so, but as it was not a legal requirement, the old cunnus didn’t. So Boudicca came with my lady wife as a body slave. I freed her. Annoyed the merda out of Lydia, but you know how I feel about slavery and those who keep trying to get it reinstated.”
“I do.”
It was not the whole story, Julia thought, she got the impression she was being told the details as much to distract as to inform. But right then there seemed no more to say on the topic and she was not about to enquire, so the three people in the room stood in silence for a moment.

Part XV will be here next week. If you can’t wait to find what happens next you can snag the full novella here.

Things that make us go poop…

Granny and the ‘ladies’ darts team of The Dog and Trumpet alphabetically collate their collective contempt for the inhabitants of the twenty-first century.

A is for: self-described Alpha Males

Specifically those who pontificate endlessly about how to be a ‘real man’.

Let’s unpick this particular idiocy.

Firstly. Is there such an animal as a human alpha male? We beg leave to doubt this as an unproven theory. It is a possibility that certain animal societies subscribe to hierarchical maleness, but they are a little less evolved sociologically than all/most/some humans. Where creatures who have to kill to survive may prize size and aggression. Humans should have reached a point where intelligence trumps proddy behaviour, and quiet competence is prized above loud mouthed shoutiness.
However. If we really are looking for male leaders, we certainly won’t be scraping the bottom of the pond in order to dredge up misogynistic idiots who seek to camouflage their own lack of intellectual rigour by calling any man who doesn’t look up to them ‘gay’.
On which point we note that there are various overpriced ‘workshops’ where the sad and the stupid seek to become ‘alphas’ by means of enduring humiliation at the hands of a set of con artists who possibly even believe their own con trick.
Note: if allowing some guy in army surplus fatigues to urinate on your head is what it takes to become alpha. What does that make it worth?

Though the biggers never see it, there is much going on in their own backyard where the ‘nomes make their home…

Big bigger got someone to come and make a mess of the orchard. There was sandpits and holes with plastic cups inside.
He spent hours there hitting a ball with a stick.
The gnomes were fascinated, but the moles were incensed. It seems them cups echoed something rotten and woke up baby mole.
They stood it for a week.
Early one morning Big stuck his hand into a cup to get the ball he had just knocked in there.
His screamed and ran with blood pouring from his hand.
Mole looked out of the cup and showed his sharp teeth…

Jane Jago

Writing inspired by the art of Ian Bristow

The bright lights promise welcome warmth. The stomach remembers satisfying food while other parts recall the innkeeper’s buxom daughter. Two cloaked men slide into the smoky taproom.
Unasked, the girl brings them ale while her father places wooden bowls of aromatic dumpling-rich stew on their table.
It takes a while, but when their stomachs are sated they beckon the plump girl. She comes, seeming willing enough, and perches on the big man’s iron thighs. His fatuous smile falters as his head drops on the table.
“In your dreams,” the girl laughs and returns to her station behind the bar.

 Jane Jago

Ian is an awesome artist and cover designer, you can find his work at Bristow Design or watch him in action creating this picture on ART with IAN.

The Fugitive’s Sword is the first book in a historical adventure series, Lord’s Learning, tracking the lives of two young people through a tumultuous time in history.

In the autumn of 1624, Europe is deeply embroiled in what will become the Thirty Years’ War.

A young boy of 15, Philip Lord, once favoured at King James’ court, has vanished without a trace, under the shadow of treason.

Outside the besieged city of Breda, Captain Matthew Rider faces the brutal reality of wintering his cavalry in the siege lines, until he crosses paths with Filippo Schiavono, a young man whose courage and skill could change everything.

Kate, Lady Catherine de Bouqulement, arrives in London prepared to navigate the dangerous politics of King James’ court to ensure troops are sent to her mistress, the exiled Queen of Bohemia.

Within Breda’s walls, a foundling named Jorrit unwittingly stumbles into a lethal conspiracy when Schiavono hires him, supposedly to help sell smuggled tobacco. But Schiavono’s plans go awry and they are compelled to flee the city, only to be captured at sea.

If Schiavono is unable to prove his loyalty and ruthlessness to a savage Dunkirker privateer captain, both he and Jorrit will face certain death.

Meanwhile, in London, Kate is forced to fight her own battle against those seeking to coerce her into their schemes and finds herself trapped in a terrifying and deadly power struggle. Driven by violence, treachery, and the sea’s merciless tides, their fates collide.

The Fugitive’s Sword is now out on Kindle.

Eleanor Swift-Hook fell in love with the early Stuart era at university. She is also the author of the Lord’s Legacy series. She lives in County Durham. You can find loads of information about this book and the others she has written on her Website, together with background information about the history of the times and the characters, or follow her on Twitter/X.

Cover design and original artwork is by Ian Bristow.

Jacintha Farquhar, maternal parent of Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV offers important life lessons to those who like to think they’ve got what it takes to write a damn book…

To whoever is deluded enough to read this crap.

This is Jacintha Farquhar, woman of a certain age, and distaff parent of the delusional and currently incapacitated Moons. I never thought I’d feel sorry for the poor self-centred little twat. But I do. I actually hurt for him. He’s so bruised and battered that I have sent him away to lick his wounds in the fleshpots of Mykonos. I packed him off with a bag of clothes, a few smutty novels, and an introduction to a couple of gay friends who run a very popular bar there. As to what precisely happened to the sad little bugger, that’s his business. I’m not about to discuss it with a bunch of prurient wannabes. If he wants to tell you when he gets back into the saddle that’s his affair. But for now, mind your own…

If it was up to me, I’d stop this crap too. However, it means a lot to my battered son, so I have promised to keep it going until he returns from his sabbatical.

I have decided to write about life lessons, because if you lot really want to write anything decent you’ve got to live it first.

Writing about Alcohol.

In almost every piece of adult literature you will find booze, and as a general rule boozing falls into one of half a dozen categories:

Polite drinking.

Social drinking.

Party drinking.

Getting pissed drinking.

Drowning the sorrows drinking.

Alcoholism.

So then, where are you on the scale? A sherry on the third Thursday of every month? Prosecco hangovers on Sunday mornings? A bottle of vodka in every cupboard in the house?

Whatever your own consumption, consider that as the strongest use of alcohol you should ever write about. Of course, many of you will be timid shits like my poor little bastard of a son, and will consider a glass of Fernet Branca on a sunny afternoon to be the height of decadence. But on the other side of your shiny little threepenny bit you will be wanting to write about drinking and roistering. Well. You bloody can’t….

If you want to write about a drunken orgy, bloody well find one (effing Google it) and go and get completely off your face.

In the same vein, if you really want to write about the miseries of a hangover, or the utter awfulness of drinking so much you vomit what feels like your toenails into the gutter, then at least have the frigging courage to try it out and see what it really feels like. My recipe for the first: a bottle of good red wine with your dinner, followed by at least a dozen cocktails, and four large brandies. To achieve the second, take recipe one and add a kebab and half a bottle of Bucky at the end.

When you’ve done that. And taken a week to recover. Then you can write something that will be at least recognisable as real.

Now piss off and get on with it, because, to be brutally honest, you lot are getting on my tits right now and I’ve a hot date with a half-bottle of calvados.

Jacintha Farquar, unfortunate mother of Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV.

You can find more of my son’s ramblings in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago, but I wouldn’t bloody bother even though I did my best with it and added a load of comments on his drivel!

The music that we called our song
Plays on repeat in my head
But the notes now feel twisted and wrong
And my heart, like our romance, is dead
The music plays on without heed
Uncaring of how I might feel
As the record revolves still I bleed
Perhaps if it stopped I might heal

©️jane jago 2024

Since Ben and Joss Beckett took over The Fair Maid and Falcon, they have had to deal with ghosts, gangsters and well dodgy goings-on. Despite that they have their own family of twin daughters and dogs, and a fabulous ‘found family’ of friends.

February was a difficult month, with the temperature unremittingly cold and skies dropping pellets of ice at inconvenient moments. We provided hot stews and soups which the WI delivered to those in need. And if the odd sack of logs found itself loaded into a Ford Transit and dropped outside the home of those who couldn’t otherwise keep a fire going, I certainly wasn’t going to argue.
On a dark Tuesday afternoon I was battling with a set of truly complicated forms from our pension provider when Ben came in and shut the door quietly behind him. Something in the set of his chin said troubled so I saved what I was doing.
“S’up Benny.”
“We have a visitor.”
“Someone we know?”
“Nope. But he gives me the heebie jeebies. He’s very polite and all, but I get the feeling asking for the favour of a few words is rubbing him right up the wrong way.”
“Do you not want to speak to him?”
“It’s not that. I just don’t like the cut of his jib. And anyway it ain’t me he wants to talk to.”
“Now I’ve got the heebies.”
The scent of flowers with an underlay of decay announced Esme’s presence. She spoke aloud.
“It’s all right Mother. This one means no harm.”
I blew her a kiss and she was gone.
Ben sat down in my visitor chair with an audible thump.
“I really thought Esme was gone. Haven’t had a sniff of her since Cherry went to the light.”
“She’s still here, love. I think she’s just been keeping a low profile because she thinks you don’t like her.”
“I do kinda like her. Even if I didn’t I’d tolerate her because I know she loves you. I was just surprised she’s still about, and sorry if she can’t find her way to the light.”
Esme’s laugh filled the air. “I’m okay Mister Ben I can cross when I want. I’m just waiting for something.”
I think she must have kissed his cheek because he smiled and put a hand up to touch his own face.
Esme spoke in my head. ‘For a man, he’s okay.’ Then she was gone.
“Come on Benny, stop flirting with girl ghosts. Let’s go talk to whoever.”
I checked my face and fluffed my hair, following Ben into the bar where a tall, pale-skinned, dark haired man stood up from his seat at a table by one of the wide windows. He had a chiselled, handsome face, was immaculately tailored from his tie to his highly polished brogues, and felt about as human as an iceberg. I walked forward with my head high and my spine straight. He unbent fractionally.
“Mrs Beckett. I hope you will excuse my turning up here unannounced. It isn’t the way I normally operate, but my errand isn’t exactly normal.”
I inclined my head. “Shall we have tea while you explain your errand?”
I noticed the spasm of distaste that crossed his stern features at the word tea, and grinned at him.
“Are you not a tea drinker?”
“Indeed I am not?”
“Would you prefer coffee? Or something a little stronger?”
He smiled narrowly. “I’d prefer a large whisky, but, as I am driving, coffee works be more than acceptable.”
“What variety of coffee?”
“Anericano please.”
Ben went to the bar and had a brief conversation with Morgan, who showed him an uplifted thumb.
“Shall we sit?” I suggested. “Then maybe you can tell me why you have driven from wherever, on a day as foul as today, to speak to a woman you have never met.”
This time his smile was a little warmer. “They said you would be a surprise and I begin to see why.”
Ben slid into the seat beside me. “I wonder what you have found so surprising in a perfectly reasonable question.” His voice was calm, but the underlaying threat was obvious.
“I’m sorry if you found my comment offensive. But the only information I was given about Mrs Beckett was that she is a beautiful woman who talks to spirits.”
Ben chuckled. “She also runs a hugely successful business, is mother to twin girls, and swears like a storm trooper with a bunion. However…”
“However indeed. What I was expecting was someone rather more dramatic and a lot more Celtic Twilight.”
I snorted. “I’m not a Celt. And I’m not fond enough of drama to create it. Life does that for me.” Then I added my own caveat. “I can produce a genuine Romany clairvoyant if you would like to meet her.”
He held up both his hands palm outwards. “No. Thank you. I’ll pass on that experience if it’s all the same to you.”
Ben snorted out a laugh and our visitor stiffened.
Fortunately for the civility of the encounter Ellen and Morgan arrived with coffee, tea, scones, jam, clotted cream and assorted cakes.
By the time afternoon tea was laid out in front of us, Ben had controlled his sense of humour and Mister Grumpy had wound in his neck.
I loaded a scone for Ben, and did the same for our visitor. His eyes met mine, and for the first time I saw a human being under the ice.
“Eat first, talk later,” I used my bossiest tone and he complied.
Once fed and watered, our visitor felt a lot less uptight and almost like an actual human. As soon as the girls had bussed the table he spread his hands on the polished wood and I studied the black hairs that marched across the backs of those hands while he marshalled his thoughts.
“My name is not going to mean anything to you, but for the record here’s my card.” He put a square of pasteboard on the table. “I’m an advocate operating in Edinburgh. In this case I am representing a gentleman who died late last year. It is my understanding that you met him once and facilitated his communication with his deceased wife.”
“I didn’t facilitate anything. All I did was show him where his wife’s bones had been found.”
Ben took up the narrative. “The aforementioned Romany clairvoyant helped to push aside the veil for long enough to give comfort to an obviously dying man. Other than that…”
“Whatever you did or did not do, my client came here deeply troubled and the bitterest human being it has ever been my misfortune to encounter. When he returned to Edinburgh he was changed. Something had gifted him with the grace to die in quiet acceptance, instead of carrying on an unending search for vengeance.”
“For that I’m glad.” I said.
“Me too.” Ben spoke quietly.
“I wrote his will and am the sole executor. It is in that capacity that I am here today. He left a sum of money for you to put to use in a specified way.”
“What way?”
He took a sheet of paper from his top pocket and read from it: “I leave this money in the hope Mrs Bennett will use it in memory of my dear Cherry. I would ask that she arranges something bright in the place where Cherry’s bones lay. Something bright and joyful. Something where children’s laughter rings and happy memories are made.”
Ben gripped my hand and I let myself sag against his strength for a brief moment.
“I can’t refuse, can I?”
Both men spoke together. “You can if it asks too much.”
Which braced me better than any amount of ‘encouragement’ could ever do. So much so that I could immediately see what needed to be done.
“How about an Easter Egg Hunt?” I said. “Easter Sunday afternoon. With afternoon tea. And enough chocolate to ensure children on a sugar high for days. Will there be enough money for that?”
“There is ten thousand in the pot.”
“That’s all right then. Have a big party and donate any leftovers to a children’s charity in Cherry’s name.”
Ben clapped me on the back and Mister Edinburgh Advocate opened and shut his mouth like a landed pike.

And that ‘gentle reader’ is why I’m sitting in the middle of what feels like half a hundred screaming children hunting chocolate in the thin, spring sunshine and why I said if Ben hadn’t bought the orchard none of this would have happened.

If you enjoyed reading about Joss, Ben and their friends, courtesy of Jane Jago, you can catch up with their earlier adventures in Who Put Her In and Who Pulled Her Out.

Dying to be Roman by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook is a whodunit set in an alternative modern day Britain where the Roman Empire still rules.

“This is an intrusion into my dear friend Octavia’s privacy,” the woman said imperiously. “It is intolerable.”
Dai lifted his head to see her eyes flash with anger and felt the sudden insignificance of a being a mere non-citizen, provincial Briton in the presence of over a hundred generations of pure Roman patrician breeding.
“I – I apologise, domina,” he said quickly, eyes downcast.
“I should think so. And if you wish to keep your job you will be certain this does not make it into any official report – or unofficial one. If a single word gets out, I promise you that I will ensure you have no job and no licence to live in Londinium ever again either. Do you understand?”
Dai felt his throat dry up. She more than had the power to do precisely that if she chose.
“I understand you, Domina Lydia.”
There was a slight flush of colour then in her face and for a moment Dai wondered at it, then he realised that she had not thought he recognised her.
“I am glad you do,” she said quietly. “You can leave now. I will look after poor Octavia. But remember what I said.” 
Dai bowed again and moved towards the front door, as Octavia detached herself from Bryn and was scooped up into the arms of Domina Lydia who made soothing noises and stroked her hair whilst glaring over her head with cold command at Dai and Bryn.

They left the apartment block in stunned silence and it was only once they were walking back to their vehicle Bryn broke it.
“You handled that well, Bard, your poet’s charm worked a treat.”
Dai shook his head.
“I’m out of practice, is all.”
Bryn stopped by a street stall.
“Two portions of garum and chips, not wrapped.”
They stood waiting as the chips were thrust into paper cones and the pungent sauce poured all over them. Bryn paid with his wrist phone and they continued walking, eating the chips as they went.
“Did you notice something odd?”
“I noticed a lot. Like the way you buried your head in her tits for example.”
“More like she did the burying bit.”
“You weren’t exactly fighting her off. Can’t say I blame you though. Not every day you get to put your face in the perfumed cleavage of a Roman matron. Or not without having your balls sliced off for it. Must have made it almost worth the threats from that pompous bitch at the end. Like we give a cracked cack whether some Roman lives in the lap of luxury or not.”
“It wasn’t that,” Dai said quietly.
Bryn looked at him.
“Oh?”
“No. She was just terrified we’d seen her there. She didn’t ask what had happened to Rufus or even who we were, which means she must have known us. And I don’t know if you have a celebrity job on the side, Bryn, but I’m really not that famous.”

Part XIV will be here next week. If you can’t wait to find what happens next you can snag the full novella here.