Location, Location, Location

Serena Stephen, whose blog I found through Jen Daiker, held an awesome blogfest last week.

As usual I'm a little late for it, but I had an awesome guest on Friday, and I stayed home sick yesterday, so there is a decent reason (unlike most other times). Please be sure to visit that post linked above to see all the other entries.

In the blogfest Serena asked that we describe a place, and that we pick one of these: Woodsville, Kingshire, Douglas Mannor, Letham Grange.

I know I don't usually put my own creative writing up here on the blog, usually saving it for sharing in other places (namely Bryan's blog) but today I've made an exception since I thought this blogfest sounded rather cool.

I've selected Letham Grange, though technically I suppose Douglas Manor could be part of it as well:

Letham Grange stands in a hollow betwixt the moors of Northumberland. The morning fog collects there like beggars outside of Mass in the longdark hours just before the dawn. Its swirling mists are ever prepared to leech all warmth and comfort from any living being caught within their bone-cold tendrils.

The main building is a manor house of stone. The round rocks seem to defy all Newton's laws as they cling precariously to each other and rest, one atop another, in a fashion that boggles all interpretations of the idea of gravity. The ivy that clings desperately to all but the south wall reaches ever toward the thick thatched roof with about as much chance at success as the tower of Babel had of reaching Heaven. The roof itself is soft and comforting, home to birds and critters of all manner, looking soft and puffy from a distance, and encompassing all twelve gables of the windows of the upper floors. Smoke rises from the chimney constantly, inviting the weary traveler in from the cold.

The outbuidings are of wood, and though kept up with as much care as can be mustered, are worn by time and wind and weather and so do not bear the sense of invitation that the manor does. There is a barn, a stable, and a granary, along with the millhouse down by the stream. Its water wheel turbine turns pleasantly with the current on a fine summer day, squeaking harmoniously along with the singing of the babbling brook.

All in all Letham Grange is a good and decent place, standing, as it does, on the borders of the north and the dangers of the hinterlands beyond.

So that's it! Please do be sure to visit and read all the other entries, you'll most likely be pleased and may even meet a new blogger or two.

Thanks for visiting!