This is the lair of the rare Ducksect. The Ducksect first emerged as a distinct being in 347BCE and currently lives in Alice Holt Forest. It told me that it also has a cousin on its mother’s side in the New Forest, so I will have to venture there one of these days and try to solicit an interview. Ducksect said it’d happily put in a good word for a highly reputable publication such as mine. The Ducksect is a pirate and that’s why it flies its flagweb outside its lair. Its voyages on the sea started from a young age, and are, sadly, rooted in tragedy… You see, the Ducksect is the product of an unholy but loving union between a duck and a form of insect sadly extinct but which might be considered a form of beetle. Both beings were egg layers and madly in love and so felt
This is Rose, she is related to Deadloggosaurus, but is a much more modern descendant. She’s also considerably more benevolent than Deadloggosaurus, and is actually the gateway to the Land of Milk and Honey. You can find her on Holmbury Hill. The way to gain entrance is to present Rose with a jar of honey. If your offering is deemed acceptably delicious enough (tip: only present her with raw, organic, glyphosate-free honey), you will magically get pulled through to the other side. Don’t worry if you think you won’t fit through her gateway mouth, the magic will take care of that. You won’t get a scratch or a splinter, I swear. You should know that it’s only worth bothering to have this adventure if you are a dairy lover, as literally everything on the other side is made of it. Mountains of Stilton, sofas of brie, fountains of chocolate milk, etc., etc.
There are lots of kooky tellybox shows which say that aliens built our wonders like the pyramids and Stonehenge and whatnot. To be honest, I think they are probably right because this pod fell from the sky a very long time ago, and once contained millions and millions of books and their Reader. The Reader who lived and traveled in the pod came from a star system full of light and stories. Her planet had fourteen suns, although they were smaller than our own. The suns were different colours and traced patterns across the sky so that the whole day was kind of like a rainbow. Not too bright though, due to their smaller size, and the fact that they were pastel coloured. As beautiful as the light show sky was, the Reader sometimes found it annoying, as not all of the colours were the best to read by. So one
I found this absolute beauty when I was walking the North Downs Way near Etchinghill in Kent. It broke into my peripheral vision in the distance to the right of my path. At first, it seemed like a ghostly apparition, then as if someone had poured paint on a tree. It was only upon closer inspection that I found it to be this absolutely gorgeous, alive and undamaged, wholly natural pink and green. Without meaning any disrespect to any other tree I have seen (especially Harry, Isobel, the Dandag Sisters, Richard, and the yews), it was quite simply the most beautiful tree I have ever encountered. As I contemplated its beauty, I came to learn that this was the first time a tree had ever trusted me enough to show me its true colours. As I was to subsequently learn, trees are like flowers and come in a variety of colours;
For the last few years, I have been noticing more and more pathologisation of the menopause. Either anecdotally, in the media, or from ‘professionals’, the message seems as clear as day: menopause is some awful process that women need various kinds of emotional and medical support with. About three years post-menopause, I was working at a university and they launched a menopause support network complete with an MS Teams community and events. I found this absolutely hilarious until I went to an event and came away equally baffled and depressed: why were all these women so desperate and unhappy? I have been post-menopausal for a decade now, so I feel that I know enough about it to tell you that it’s joyful! Not having to deal with periods is brilliant and liberating. I might get one mild hot flush a month (if that), but otherwise there are only two downsides. The