Monthly Archives: February 2026

The Cards Never Lie…. (flash fiction)

With a heavy heart, she climbed the rickety wooden staircase that led up into her grandmother’s attic spell room. It was her spell room now that she had inherited the wonky cottage and its contents. The cottage had been in the family for nigh on five hundred years. Every school holiday had been spent with her grandmother at the cottage learning her craft. With infinite patience, her grandmother had taught her and tested her in order to define what kind of natural witch she was. The findings had always been inconsistent. Magic came easily to her and her natural talents allowed her to combine elements that were never meant to be a natural fit.

For the past few days, she had been focusing on manifestation. It was the final technique that her grandmother had been teaching her before she died unexpectedly in her sleep.

Once at the top of the stairs, she walked across the well-worn floorboards to her worktable. She had laid out all the items she needed the night before after scouring the family grimoire for help. With a silent prayer to the goddess, she lit a candle then sprinkled the carefully selected dried herbs into the flame. They crackled as they combusted. Next she selected three crystals from the velvet drawstring bag that sat beside her then added a clear quartz crystal to amplify their energy.

With trembling hands, she picked up her grandmother’s oracle cards, feeling the old woman’s residual energy flowing into her hands as she shuffled them. Keeping a clear vision of the life she wished to manifest for herself in the centre of her mind, she drew three cards from the deck and placed them on the table beside the three crystals. Past, Present and Future lay before her.

Turning over the first card that represented her past, she smiled. The cared indicated that there was complexity in the situation but the presence of a bright sun indicated hope. A hope that she had clung onto for a very long time.

The second card represented her present. It showed two people at a crossroads. Decisions needed to be made together otherwise they risked parting for ever.

Keeping her eyes closed, she turned over the third and final card. Her future. Whispering the words from the grimoire, she held her left hand over the card for a moment or two before she opened her eyes. When she saw the card and the child depicted on it… her child…their child.

Her concentration was shattered by her phone ringing. Without having to look at the screen, she knew who was calling.

The cards never lie….

(image sourced via Google – credits to the rightful owner)

Spreading your wings….all in good time

I’ve been pondering this week’s blog post topic for a few days and largely drawing a blank to be honest.

It’s felt as if something has been guiding me to pause and reflect.

Maybe the transition from the Chinese Year of the Snake to 2026’s Year of the Fire Horse has had a hand in this pause…who knows…

So, now that I’ve paused, I’m taking a moment to look back. I prefer to look forwards. I’m not a fan of looking back on certain emotional levels. The past is in the past and can’t be changed. However, that said, lessons learned from the past can help to shape the future.

I was reminded recently of an angel card/ oracle card reading that I had over fifteen years ago. It’s no secret to those who know me that I love oracle cards and have several…many…different decks. (I’m more cautious and wary around Tarot cards but that’s a whole different story.)

The card that I was reminded of is the one pictured above. It’s from a Doreen Virtue deck and shows an Earth Angel with her wings folded behind her, holding a crystal ball filled with butterflies in her hands. I love butterflies! At the time I was that told that I had skills/talents to share but that I wasn’t ready to spread my wings. Back then, it didn’t make much sense but looking back now, it makes perfect sense.

That reading was in 2010 if memory serves me correctly, three years before I decided to embark on my creative journey. It was eight years before I embarked on another journey that I rarely mention on here- my Reiki journey. (During that angel card reading, the medium/fortune teller had been adamant that I was a healer.)

So much has changed in my life since that card reading all those years ago… so much.

I don’t intend to go into it all here, largely because most of it is too personal to share in such a public space.

I will share this though…

If you’d told the “me” who was offered that card that I’d write and self-publish seven novels plus a poetry collection and have an eighth novel in the works, she would have thought you were insane.

If you’d told the “me” who was offered that card that I’d write a weekly blog, every week for over eleven years and counting plus an ad hoc music blog, she would have thought you were insane.

If you’d told the “me” who was offered that card that I would be qualified as a Reiki Master Teacher (although technically I can’t call myself a teacher until I have actually taught a Reiki student) I would have thought you were insane.

If you’d told the “me” who was offered that card that I would confidently travel solo and go to concerts on my own, I would have thought you were insane.

None of these things felt achievable back then. They were the stuff of dreams. They were things that confident, capable people achieved and felt completely beyond the reach of shy, introverted wee me.

Now that I have paused to reflect, perhaps that “Earth Angel” has quietly spread her wings. Maybe now, in these early days of the Year of the Fire Horse, it is time to spread them further and fly.

Time will tell…

Unconditional Love….. a poem for Valentine’s Day

Understanding what makes you smile

No strings attached

Celebrating all your successes however small

Offering support without being asked

No expectations of love in return

Duration and strength in the unspoken bonds between our hearts

In this lifetime, past lifetimes, lifetimes yet to come

Trust

Implicit trust

Once in a lifetime soulmate connection

Nurture over need

Always got your back

Loyal to the death

Loving freely and deeply and quietly

Openly and honestly

Volunteered without question

Endless…

We made it through January!

Finally, the 3567 days of January have passed!

I saw the photo above on Facebook on 22 January. In fact, I shared it on my personal Facebook feed.

Making it through those ten darker than dark weeks has been a slog.

It feels like a moral victory to see light in the sky now when I finish work for the day around 4:30pm.

While those ten weeks are recognised as the darkest in the northern hemisphere, my own personal “dark days of winter” timeline is measured a little differently.

Regular readers of my blog already know how much I love the beach. The beach is my happy place. It’s where I go to think, to recharge my batteries and to feed my soul. I’m fortunate to live less than two miles from a small stretch of beach. Several times a week, I’ll walk there after work just to feel sand under my feet and to hear the water lapping ashore.

However, when the clocks change at the end of October, it becomes dark too early for me to walk there when I finish work. Visits to the beach become limited to the weekends until the light begins to return to the sky.

The key date for me isn’t 22nd January. It’s 1st February.

It takes until 1st February for the day to be just long enough for me to walk to the beach, walk along it and get far enough through the journey home to be back on the section of road that has streetlights before it is pitch black.

So, here we are, finally into February. Hallelujah! My daily beach walks beckon”

Now, if it would just stop raining!….

credits to the owners of the top image – littlepinelearners – image is tagged