creative arts & reviews

Cassiopeia4

FOUND FICTION

Original writing inspired by lost photos

REVIEWSLost films unearthed

IN FOCUSGeocaching, the

treasure hunt with GPS

CREATERecipes for when you’re feeling lost

Crafting with found materials

L O S T &F O U N D

FOUND FICTION 8 ‘MURDER ON ICE’ by R.M.F. Brown

10 ‘FOX HAVEN’ by Tracey Scott-Townsend

13 ‘NEWS FROM THE HOMEFRONT’ by Fiona Dorchester

14 POEM by Ashley Tallyn

16 ‘MY MAN’ by Sarah Peploe

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ORIGINAL WRITING36 GET LOST, FIND SOMETHING. Geocaching with Florence Pettit

42 ‘STEPHEN HAWKING: ON STARS’ by Niraj Dave

PHOTOGRAPHY18 ‘WHAT’S LEFT BEHIND’ by Charlotte Parker

32 ‘LOST ARCHIVE’ by Fabio Sassi

REVIEWS26 ‘LOST FILMS’ by Owain Paciuszko

28 THE LOST ROOT OF HORROR Jules Verne’s ‘The Castle in Transylvania’

RECIPES46 LENTEN PIE A recipe found by Andraea Zambakides

48 CHICKEN AND RICE A recipe for when you’re lost by Rachel Backa

CRAFT50 PLASTIC BAG PLACEMATS Tutorial by Katie Davies

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Hello, you found us! A warm welcome to issue 4 of Cassiopeia where this time the theme is Lost & Found. The launch of the ‘Found Fiction’ creative writing competition has sparked interest all over the world, and in this issue you can read all five winning entries alongside photography inspired by lost or discarded items. We also have articles on long-lost films, rediscovered books and the hide-and-seek world of geocaching as well as recipes from a forgotten age and a craft project made from materials normally found in the bin. It’s a voyage of discovery, so sit back and lose yourself, who knows what you might find.

If you find you’d like to comment or contribute to future issued please email us at submit@cassiopeiamagazine.co.uk

Katie Davies

Editor

WELCOME

CONTACT USwww.cassiopeiamagazine.co.uksubmit@cassiopeiamagazine.co.uk

FOLLOW USfacebook.com/CassiopeiaMagtwitter.com/CassiopeiaMagissuu.com/cassiopeiamagazine

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CONTRIBUTORS

Fabio Sassi started making visual artworks after varied experiences in music, writing and photography. He makes acrylics with the stencil technique on board, canvas, or other media. He uses logos, tiny objects and what is considered to have no worth by the mainstream. Fabio lives and works in Bologna, Italy.

www.fabiosassi.foliohd.com

Niraj Dave is a tutor currently living in Manchester, before which he had a brief stint as a radio DJ, and before that was a Medievalist across in York. He enjoys the theatre, plays keyboards for a local funk band and produces bits of verse and prose in various forms as and when.

Charlotte Parker is a 19 year old photography student from North Wales who hopes to complete a degree in September. She loves to travel and hopes to one day combine travel with her passion for photography. She works mainly with digital but thanks to college was also given the chance to experiment and fall in love with dark room.chunkphotography.blogspot.co.ukcrparkerphotography.deviantart.com

Andraea Zambakides is a postgrad student who is studying for an MA in Medieval Studies at the University of Bristol, where she also works as a Hospitality Officer and a Student Warden. Her hobbies include knitting, cooking, baking, listening to Classic FM, and reading every single book that catches her eye!

Owain Paciuszko writes waffle for a bunch of websites, makes short films and music videos for his own amusement and plays keyboards/’sings’ in a band. He grew up in Cornwall, studied in Wales and currently lives in London. When he grows up he wants to be a space captain. quackspout.blogspot.com

Rachel Backa is a Canadian currently studying in the UK. She has an odd fascination with hedgehogs and a newly-found love of vintage radio dramas. She thinks baking is the perfect form of both stress-relief and procrastination, and looks for any excuse to try something new.

Florence Petitt is a science enthusiast by trade, ever trying to open her mind to a little more creativity in both the metropolis of London and countryside idyll of Grantham.

Alex Terry is an Editorial Designer with a pet hate for terrible kerning. Designing magazines all day is not enough so when he get home he creates t-shirts and occassionally squeezes in arranging the Cassiopeia pages.

www.365tshirtdesigns.com

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F or this issue of Cassiopeia we launched our first ever creative writing competition ‘Found

Fiction’. The concept is simple, every entrant received a unique long-lost photo and was asked to ‘find’ it again by writing something based on the image, any genre considered. The responses were brilliant and varied, from thriller to love poetry, but the five best showed exceptional imagination and a real sense of the history that can be locked up in a photo.

Thank you to everyone who entered. A new competition will be launched soon, for more information visit www.cassiopeiamagazine.co.uk or follow us at www.facebook.com/CassiopeiaMag

F O U N D F I C T I O N

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M U R D E R O N I C E

R.M.F.BROWN

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On the surface, Mr and Mrs McDonald appeared to have a happy marriage. Their wedding picture beamed with hope and expectation, warmth and love. Whenever visitors called upon them, they would be impressed by the generosity and hospitality they had on offer. Whenever fundraising was needed at the church, they would be at the forefront, raising the most, their gargantuan efforts shaming the meagre contributions of the other members.

They were pillars of the community, respected and envied in equal measure. But it was all a front. In reality, they loathed each other with a passion.

As soon as any visitors had departed, harsh words would be exchanged, threats of murder issued, and crockery flung back and forth. It was just as well their house was isolated; otherwise, tongues would wag at the din they made.

It was after one heated exchange about prowess in the bedroom, that Mr McDonald had enough. He wanted a divorce, but the divorce he had in mind meant literally cutting the cord between them.

Of course he wasn’t to know that Mrs McDonald also had murder in mind.

It was when they were both out on a winter’s walk that the idea came to both of them at the same time. The nearby lake had frozen over, and warning signs had been posted.

In between flashing false smiles at passers-by, and trying to outdo each other in the who can grip the other’s hand- the tightest contest, they both glanced at the thin ice, and wondered how

they could persuade the other to skate over it?Mrs McDonald hit upon the idea first.

They would go skating, but it would all end in tragedy. All it would take is one good push. After all, people die falling through thin ice every year...

Then Mr McDonald hit upon his plan. A few well-placed rocks would be enough to break the ice. Of course, he wouldn’t do it himself. A few coins in the palm of a local ruffian would be enough to get the job done.

So it was that the day came to pass. The McDonalds skating on the ice, trying to persuade the other to go just that little bit closer. After you my dear, no after you my dear, I insist.

When push came to shove, Mrs McDonald shoved first, her husband comically falling over and crashing through the ice. His cold hands struggling for purchase met with the blade of her ice skate. She smiled as her husband slipped under the water. She was free at last.

It was then that the ruffian had come along. And just like he had been told, the woman was alone on the ice. Getting to work, he lobbed his stones.

A hail of rocks flashed pass Mrs McDonald and burst through the ice like a stone smashing a window. Water quickly lapped around her feet - she was sinking. She cried out for help, but the only reply was more rocks. She slipped under the water to join her husband - they were together for all eternity, just like their wedding photo. Satisfied, the ruffian departed and went to collect his reward.

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With a trembling finger my grandmother traced the outlines of the carved animal she held on her lap. Late afternoon light turned her grey hair into a halo of silver and her profile into a silhouette. She sank her head against the high back of her chair with a little sigh. It was one of the few remaining items of furniture in the room. Packed boxes were stacked around the walls, ready to be loaded into the van that was due any minute.

“Although her life was condensed into a few short years,” she continued in a faraway voice, “it reflected mine in a way. Raising a family, letting it go, fighting for our young, we both faced the eventual relinquishment of motherhood. We were not so different.”

She wakes every evening to the sound of their yips and grunts. The mass of intertwined limbs disentangles and they follow her out into

the cool twilight. She climbs onto the mound under which she dug their den. A breeze ruffles her red coat and she lifts her nose, sampling the air, the thousands of scent receptors in her nostrils telling of everything that has gone on while she was asleep. The young ones try to emulate her but soon become impatient, milling about below in a tussle amongst the fallen leaves.

A golden orb illuminates the deep blue dusk, edging trunks and branches, undergrowth and grass with light. Snuffles, snaps and rustlings indicate the awakening of a woodland night-shift. A tall sapling leans and creaks when a stronger gust of wind blows through the trees. It carries scents from beyond the wood. She continues to sniff and assess, always careful before taking action.

Time melts into itself - one second into another, the two and a half years of her life sifted

F O X H AV E N

“All things must follow their natural path.”

TRACEY SCOTT-TOWNSEND

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through her sensory memory while she stands on a small hillock. Soon the vixen’s body and her den will be her own again, the young ones will be gone but they don’t know it yet. She lives in the moment. As it is, now, she has a large family to nurture and support.

“You can’t imagine it Daisy, you’re so young still. You have your first baby, and then a couple more, and you think it will last forever. You’re so caught up in the day-to-day minutiae of it. They are your whole world and every decision you make involves them. When your grandfather died so unexpectedly I had to fight to keep hold of my children. His family wanted to take them off me; they said I would never manage on my own. Sometimes I had to starve myself in order to feed them. But any mother would do that.”

It is colder and there has already been a shower of snow by the time the first fox cub leaves. He is followed closely by his two brothers and shortly after that by one of the females. The final daughter stays around a little longer. Maybe she will keep her mother company through the winter. Every evening the older vixen stands on her hillock, receiving the latest news bulletin through her powerful sense of smell. Once she has gathered all the necessary information she will take off, streaking through the woods and fields. Her territory ranges for miles, beset by many dangers. She will hunt throughout the night and during the early morning, until the cold pre-dawn light is turned orange by the rising sun. Then she will tuck herself in with her tail wrapped around her nose, and expect to sleep through the day.

“What happened to the fox, Grandma?”I noticed how my grandmother’s hands

shook as she wrapped the wooden carving of a

fox in layers of tissue paper before closing the lid of the box. She wiped the back of her bony, heavily freckled hand under each eye and then turned those watery eyes on me.

“I could have saved her.”It made my heart thump to see the depth

of emotion evoked by such an old memory, her empathy for a long dead fellow creature.

“It was the hunt. The vixen ran straight towards my house and I was frozen by indecision. She stopped at my gate and stared directly at me. If I had only opened it she could have run through the garden, hidden under the shed at the back. I could have refused the hunt access to my property. But I wasn’t quick enough. The dogs came over the bridge like one huge writhing, baying beast. The fox ran back towards the woods, and I knew she stood no chance.”

When I was clearing Grandma’s things out of her room at the residential home after her death, I came across the photograph she’d showed me on the day she left her cottage for the last time. It had been taken on one of those huge boxy cameras which had belonged to my grandfather, whom I never met. Her hands were so full with three small children and taking in washing and ironing to make a living. She was coping with her grief at the early loss of her husband, fighting with her in-laws to keep hold of her children. And yet Eliza, my grandmother, had found the time and the patience to achieve that photograph in the woods one summer evening.

I stared at the image of the vixen, apparently communicating with her offspring, only some of whom appeared to be taking notice. And I thought of Eliza bringing up her family in circumstances that were in their way, just as uncertain as those of the fox.

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I hope this photo makes you smile, my ladand gives you strength when in the darkest hoursyou fear that this whole world is going mad,just look at this fine handsome boy of ours.

Your mother’s knitting socks for the Red Cross.She read that prisoners are going shortof cigarettes and cosy winter clothes.She’s clicking up a storm to show support.

You know I love you more than I can sayand dream that when this blasted war is over,you’ll be right here beside us every day.So keep your pecker up, my bonny lover.

Oh, please stay safe. I pray these days will pass.I’ll sign off now, with love. Your special lass.

FIONA DORCHESTER

N E W S F R O M T H E H O M E F R O N T

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Grey photo can’t showBlistering heat, ice cold seaBright blue sunny sky

Having quite a splashGiggling through the morning‘Til we saw the shark

Shadow in the seaTrying to run through waterWaiting for a bite

Ran out of the surfBolted straight onto the sandOddly soundless fear

Still feel terror tightLooking at photo afterScanning for shadow

ASHLEY TALLYN

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I have set to mowing the grass. I don’t look for ages. It will be my treat to me.

When I do sure enough she’s in the middle of the window like a picture in a frame, drying a plate. She lifts her head. I ain’t looking down, why should I. The window’s dusty. I’m sweating. Her lips and her eyes stand out in fat smudges. Red, black, blue. Make up to wash the dishes.

I heave the mower round and get up nearer the house. It is a good mower. Top of the range like most everything he has. Like his fancy car which is parked in front of where I am now, in the way of the window. Its fins slice her up the middle. He took the truck to town.

The bright wet smell of grass fills the air. Day like this everything does that, everything hangs and waits. I pick up a rock and chuck it onto the drive. Time I get back up, the window’s just grime and plates.

The screen door whines. It jolts me, like as if she really was in a picture and has stepped out of it. We are in the same air now, her and me. There’s a pan in her hand. She stoops to scrape it out into Rocko’s bowl. She got a wiggle you’d think only heels could engineer but she’s barefoot. Yeah. Still backwoods at heart.

She lookstraightens up asI shestep stopsthrough the green mush towards him.

The mower stutters and stops when he hears me coming. I don’t want to sneak up on him. I hate the thought of that. I kiss his back. He smells fresh but at the same time entirely of him, something spicy and starchy that can’t be safely fit into any of the words of what is supposed to be a good odour, but it’s him and I love it.

“Wanna read what I got so far?” “You got to the hammer bit?” He asks. Lord.

Him and the hammer bit. He’s more interested in that than all the bed stuff put together.

“No.” It’s still in pieces, pencilled on bus tickets and matchbooks in a nest by the typewriter. It was the bit that came first, but now it has to wait.

“The kitchen table bit?”“Soon, baby.” My hands are in front on the

hot ridges of his belly and he’s running his fingers over mine. Our rings clink.

“I’ll read it when you got one of them. Still the whole backyard to do yet.”

He fires the mower up again and he‘s away, my kiss glowing on his back. I head back inside, past the skyline stacks of dirty crockery, and tuck my feet up at the typewriter. Finger by finger I climb back in to the man of my mind. It‘s easy, I don‘t even have to look at the story happening. I‘m looking all the time at our story; looking out the window at love.

SARAH PEPLOE

M Y M A N

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WHAT’S LEFT BEHIND BY CHARLOTTE

PARKER

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Charlotte Parker’s collection ‘What’s Left Behind’ explores the mystery behind abandoned objects, challenging us to ask questions about the objects we find. Who left the wellington boot at the theatre? Why did someone leave a loaf of bread on a sea wall?

View the collection in full at www.blurb.co.uk/my/book/detail/3211005

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L O S T F I L M SThese days I think we have a warped

perception of the permanence of things which is, in many ways, responsible for certain lackadaisical attitudes towards

our planet. But this article isn’t about eco-preaching, it’s about films.

Whilst shooting the ‘Back To The Future’ films Robert Zemeckis and Michael J. Fox had a mantra which was “Pain is temporary, film is forever.” An optimistic statement given that there are plenty of films that are, essentially, lost.

When no known print exists of a film it is regarded as ‘lost’. Records of it may exist, but it can never be screened. Films such as the first adaptation of William Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo & Juliet’ shot in 1900, Britain’s first feature length horror film ‘The Vampire’, ‘The Homesteader’ which is believed to be the first “race film” made for a black audience with a black cast and crew, the earliest adaptations of Sherlock Holmes, H.G. Wells, the first Japanese animated film and legendary film-maker F.W. Murnau’s feature début.

Hundreds of films have been ‘lost’, primarily from the dawn of cinema up to the 1940s. There are more American silent films that have been lost than have survived. One would suspect that the reason for this is because prints became damaged beyond repair or that early nitrate film, which was chemically unstable, either decayed or - as it was prone to do - spontaneously combusted. However many lost films from the silent era were in fact intentionally destroyed, once talkies arrived

studios considered silent films to be valueless, a waste of precious storage space.

Contemporary lost films are few and far between, and generally the reason for their disappearance tends to be more peculiar. For example, in 1972 comedian Jerry Lewis co-wrote, directed and starred in a film called ‘The Day The Clown Cried’. Due to financial troubles the film entered litigation and Lewis took the only rough cut into his possession. The film has never been screened publicly and ultimately has become the subject of curiosity and legend.

Similarly the Woody Allen film ‘September’, a drama modelled on Chekov’s ‘Uncle Vanya’, began filming with Christopher Walken, Maureen O’Sullivan and Charles Durning in 1987. Walken was quickly replaced with Sam Shepard after Walken was deemed unsuitable for the role. However, once Allen had finished editing the film he decided it

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L O S T F I L M Sstill wasn’t right. So he re-wrote it, completely re-cast it and re-shot it entirely. The original version of the film is still believed to be in Allen’s possession.

All is not lost forever though, as films are frequently being re-discovered for archivists to restore and preserve. For instance, in 1964 Richard Burton had a stage production of ‘Hamlet’ filmed and screened in cinemas, but insisted that after its theatrical run all the prints should be destroyed. After Burton died in 1984 one copy of the film was found in his garage and has been made publicly available once more.

More recently a 1980 short film called ‘Black Angel’ was discovered by an archivist at Universal Studios in December 2011. The directorial début of ‘Star Wars’ art director Roger Christian the film was originally programmed with screenings of ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ in the UK, Australia and

Scandinavia. It is now due to be re-released.Meanwhile the famous deleted opening

sequence of ‘Escape From New York’ (believed lost for decades) was found in the Hutchinson Kansas Salt Mine film depository. The depository is an excavated portion of a salt mine that is used for archival storage of movies, television shows, data tapes and business records. Never before has a film been so literally as well as figuratively unearthed.

Paul W.S. Anderson’s cult sci-fi film ‘Event Horizon’ originally had a longer and more violent original cut that was believed to have been lost, but was discovered by the film’s producer Lloyd Levin on a VHS tape, as announced at ComicCon 2012. It’s currently unclear whether a director’s cut will emerge.

It is hard to imagine losing films in this day and age, but perhaps we place too much trust in digital media. We can never rule out that a glitch or malfunction might result in the loss of someone’s favourite film forever. Physical storage is no guarantee either, susceptible as it is to the elements and time. But in the face of this we assume that films have immortality, that these things will be around forever, and I find this quite peculiar. Perhaps when film collections are lost in the ephemeral storage ‘cloud’ and our favourite films are re-edited beyond recognition we will be forced back into the archives, the salt mines and even back to VHS to find them again.

OWAIN PACIUSZKOBLACK ANGEL

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T H E L O S TR O O T O F H O R R O R

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T he scene opens on the Carpathian mountains in

Transylvania. A crumbling and remote castle has become a source of concern for local villagers who are plagued by inexplicable supernatural phenomena. A young stranger steps in to investigate, but after being enticed inside he becomes prisoner of the sinister owner of the castle. So far the plot may sound familiar, but the villain of the piece isn’t a vampire but the Baron Rodolphe de Gortz and the year is 1893, four years before the publication of Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’.

Jules Verne’s ‘The Castle in Transylvania’ also known as ‘The Castle of the Carpathians’ was translated into English into 2010 by Charlotte Mandell, the first English translation of the work in over a hundred years. Little known in this country the novel is a strange departure for a novelist more closely associated with science fiction than with Gothic horror. Subtitled by Mandell ‘Back from the dead: The original zombie story’ and hailed as the lost inspiration for the vampire phenomenon it seems at first that Jules Verne, often called ‘The Father of Science Fiction’, also deserves the accolade of ‘The Father of Horror’ as well. But if we move beyond the hype it’s clear to see that Verne’s unusual novel pushes against the genre it helped to create.

Those expecting a literary style akin to Dracula will immediately find ‘The Castle’ rather dry. Verne’s enthusiasm for facts, figures and historical context, familiar to readers

of ‘Around The World in 80 Days’, make his introduction a little terse. When the first character is introduced we see immediately that the Transylvanian locals don’t share Verne’s love of science. A shepherd meets a travelling salesman who is selling “eyeglasses, thermometers, barometers, and little clocks” but it is clear that the shepherd can’t even identify a clock by sight. He is a man untouched by the new world of science and reason. It is revealed that the villagers are in the grip of irrational fear of the local castle, and of the spirits they imagine live there. Miriota in particular, a young lady in the village, is often rendered senseless by fear of the ‘Chort’ (the devil), and Master Koltz the village doctor, although ostensibly a rationalist, quickly gives in to terror and confusion once he encounters the unknown.

Verne appears to have chosen Transylvania as his setting because he sees it as the most superstitious backwater of Europe. He depicts it as an ancient and crumbling region, rich in history but populated by locals who are easily induced into hysteria by any suggestion of the supernatural. Into this miasma of confusion he introduces rationalism

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in the form of Count Franz of Telek. With the full force of science on his side the young Count unmasks the supernatural terror in the castle, and if you’re picturing an episode of Scooby Doo at this point then you’re not far off. Verne’s aim in writing ‘The Castle’ appears to have been to capture the imagination of his readers with the supernatural only to lift the veil on irrational fear in exactly the same way that Scooby Doo is meant to allay the fear of ghosts and monsters in its young viewers.

Unfortunately it appears that the literary impact of ‘The Castle’ is not what Verne likely intended. Where ‘Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea’ and ‘From the Earth to the Moon’ inspired generations of science fiction writers and scientists ‘The Castle’ inspired writers of Gothic horror who relished those supernatural horrors that ‘The Castle’ was intended to debunk. Verne’s message that fear of the unknown is foolish and that seemingly supernatural occurrences are often the result of rational scientific phenomenon has been lost in the tidal wave of enthusiasm for everything occult.

It’s still true to say that Bram Stoker owes a great deal to Jules

Verne. The setting of Transylvania complete with ruined castle, the sinister presence of the seemingly undead, the imprisonment of a hero and even mention of vampires can all be traced back to ‘The Castle’. But if Bram Stoker was inspired to write Dracula by reading ‘The Castle’ then his take on the plot and motifs are original and startling. Verne depicts Transylvania as a place of comical ignorance, waiting for the light of rationality, where Stoker paints Transylvania seductively black with genuine malevolent evil. Stoker’s epistolary style, his expansion on the vampire myth and his enormous scope in transporting the Transylvanian legend onto the shores of England are all his own creation. Crucially Verne’s stance on Transylvania’s Gothic tradition is that of a science fiction writer, while Stoker is a writer of horror, and while Stoker might use some elements of ‘The Castle’ as a starting point ‘Dracula’ departs from these small beginnings just as quickly as Count Dracula packs his coffin and makes for Whitby.

Still troubled by a vampiric presence? Verne informs us that the Transylvanian peasants summon a good spirit to ward of vampires, werewolves and fairies ‘the serpi di casa, the snake off the domestic hearth, who lives familiarly in the back of the fireplace, and whose salutary influence the peasant solicits by feeding it with his best milk’ which sounds a lot more fragrant than garlic at any rate.

Katie Davies

“Verne’s message ... has been lost in the tidal wave of enthusiasm for

everything occult.”

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‘FOUND’ - ROSSLYN POSTLEWAITE

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LOST ARCHIVE BY PHOTOGRAPHER

FABIO SASSI

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A collection by Fabio Sassi of Bologna, Italy. Taken at a recycling centre near to Fabio’s home this collection of images represents his fascination with paper, as he explains:

“it’s about the attraction that paper has always had for me: the sight, the smell, the handling. The appeal of paper goes even further when it is cut and baled making [a] magical mix of shapes.”

In an increasingly digitised world the destruction of paper archives also represents the loss of a much-loved medium, “the progressive loss of the world of paper due to the rise of the pdf”.

See more of Fabio’s work at www.fabiosassi.foliohd.com 35

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FLORENCE PETITT EXPLORES THE INVENTIVE WORLD OF GEOCACHING

-PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALEX TERRY

HIDE &SEEK

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It’s too easy in today’s busy, hyper stimulated world to forget how something simple can be a truly enjoyable experience. On a dull Saturday afternoon in January we set off to lure out some

childhood enthusiasm, and embarked on the little known pursuit of geocaching. Whilst I say ‘little known’, and certainly through a straw poll of friends this exciting little endeavour draws many blank faces, there are over 1,987,663 active geocaches worldwide,

proving this undiscovered world certainly has some fans.

Geocaching has been hovering under the radar for a good few years, and the ease with which smartphone technology can be applied to this modern twist on the traditional treasure hunt has increased its popularity further. When described, the process of following a GPS app through the back-streets, footpaths, fields and alleys of Grantham could sound like a fairly dull and almost arduous

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process, but the search for and finding of the site of a cache, means the excitement associated with a good old fashioned treasure hunt quickly returns. Caches range from ‘micro’ which contain only a log for enthusiasts to record their success, through small, medium and large caches with a range of items and logs, the only rule being that if you take something from a cache you replace it with something of the same value.

Whilst some of the items in caches

could be described at best as random, the joy in this game is in the anticipation of the search and the achievement when you successfully locate some of the exquisitely disguised hiding places. Combined with the impetus to explore some new local areas this meant that even after a late night of dancing, we returned to the charming world of geocaching the very next day.

FLORENCE PETITT

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S T E P H E N H AW K I N G :O N S TA R S

( P A R A G R A P H 3 , P A G E 3 7 )

S TA R S Are so far awayThat they appear to usTo be just pinpoints of light. We cannot see Their S I Z E or Their S H A P E . So how can we tell different types of stars apart? For the vast Majority of STARSThere is only ONE characteristic feature That we can observe – The color of their light.NewtonDiscovered that if light from the SunPasses through a Triangular-shaped piece of glass (Called a prism)It breaks upinto its component colors (its spectrum) (as in a Rainbow). * * *By focussing a T E L E S C O P E on an Individual star or galaxyOne can similarly observe the spectrum of light from that star or galaxy. Different S TA R S have different S P E C T R ABut the relative brightness of the different colours IsalwaysexactlywhatonewouldexpecttofindIn the light emitted of an object that is glowing R E D H O T.

NIRAJ DAVE

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Taken from a passage from Hawking’s ‘A Brief History of Time’ on stars (para 3, p.37) the paragraph has been dismantled, broken up and lost only to be restructured into a new form. Inspired by the surrealist ‘sound poets’ of the 1930s.

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The Lucky Ladybird

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The Lucky LadybirdDelicious Handmade Bags

etsy.com/shop/TheLuckyLadybirdluckyladybirdcraft.blogspot.co.uk

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LENTEN PIE

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To make the pastry, mix 2 cups of wholemeal flour, 1 brick of butter (cut into pea size chunks) and 8 tbsp water. Knead together. Let it sit in the fridge for 1 hour.

Line the flan dish with greaseproof paper. Roll out the pastry, and place onto the dish. Tuck it all around the edge, then prick the base with a fork.

Place either pie weights, or dried beans, in the dish. Push them up to the edges, so the pastry will not rise. Bake blind in the oven, for 20 minutes at 190 degrees Celsius.

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Cook the onion and garlic until they are soft. Add the watercress, and cook for 1-2 minutes, stirring once or twice.

Beat the eggs and milk together, stir in the cream, herbs, salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Add to the watercress, and mix well.

Pour the creamy watercress mixture into the flan dish, and sprinkle the grated cheese over the finished mixture.

Top with the remaining pastry, seal the edges together, and trim the pastry neatly around the dish. Make a two steam holes in the centre. Decorate, if you wish, and glaze with a little bit of milk.Bake for 30 minutes in the oven at 190 degrees, until the filling is set, and pastry top is a golden colour. Serves 4 to 6 people, and can be eaten either hot or cold.Alternatively you can omit the pastry top and serve it as a flan.

This was my first attempt at making my own pastry for a pie and it turned out really well. It tasted very rich, something like a home made quiche. Baking is a great skill to develop. It’s relaxing, mentally challenging and can be great source of pride. Get creative and you never know what you might find along the way.

ANDRAEA ZAMBAKIDES

O n a recent visit to Hereford Cathedral I came across many old country cookbooks. I

picked up ‘Favourite Pies and Tarts’ and discovered many recipes that I had never heard of before, including this recipe for ‘Lenten Pie’. Lenten Pie was traditionally eaten during the Christian festival of Lent, when luxuries were abstained from for 40 days, including meat and fish. But abstinence needn’t lead to suffering, this dish is rich and homely and makes a great vegetarian alternative.

1 LB. SHORTCRUST PASTRY, READY OR HOME MADE

1 OZ. BUTTER1 CLOVE OF GARLIC, PEELED AND

CRUSHED2-3 BUNCHES OF WATERCRESS,

TRIMMED, WASHED, AND CHOPPED

3 EGGS, BEATEN1 PINT OF MILK

1 PINT OF SINGLE CREAM2-3 TABLESPOON (TBSP) OF FRESH

CHOPPED HERBSSALT AND BLACK PEPPER

A LITTLE GRATED NUTMEG1 HEAPED TBSP OF GRATED

CHEESE

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Pre-heat your oven to 350 Fahrenheit/180 Celsius/gas mark 4.

Line one 9x13 inch pan with your bacon.Pour rice mixture over in an even layer.Place your chicken on top of the rice.Mix together milk, soup, and bouillon, and pour it over everything.

Pop into the oven for approximately one and a half hours, until your rice is tender and fluffy and your chicken cooked through. Let it sit for a few minutes to give things a chance to firm up before serving.

Sit back, relax, and enjoy the carby meaty goodness, which is good for the soul, and surely needed on a cold winter’s night.

RACHEL BACKA

L ast issue’s recipe was delicious, vegetarian, and decidedly healthy. A meal one could feel virtuous

eating. This issue’s contribution... not so much. Despite it being early in the new year, this is comfort food, not health food. To quote Alton Brown, “there’s no such thing as comforting spa food.” Designed by my Aunt Hennie, this dish was a wonderful, easy to make meal that Mom would whip up when she wanted something hot and delicious that she knew would be a hit with all of us on a cold night. So, resolutions notwithstanding, I’m going to share it with you anyway, and hope you don’t run screaming in the other direction, because this is a taste of home for me. And when you’re feeling lost, what more do you want to find than something that feels a little bit like home?

And hey, at least it has plenty of protein.

1 PACKAGE STREAKY BACON

(THE THINNER, THE BETTER.)

1 Ω CUPS WHITE AND WILD RICE

MIX6 CHICKEN

THIGHS (OR THREE LARGE BREASTS)1 2/3 CUPS MILK

1 CAN CONDENSED

CREAM OF MUSHROOM

SOUP1 CUBE CHICKEN

BOUILLON

CHICKEN&RICE

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PLASTIC PLACEMATS

FROM JUNK TO JOY

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Smooth the tube out flat and fold in half. Fold in half again to make a neat rectangle just smaller than the size of an A4 piece of paper.

Heat your iron to a medium-hot setting. Place your folded plastic bag on an ironing board with one piece of paper below it (to protect the board) and one piece of paper above it (to protect the iron). You can use brown paper for this or printer paper, but make sure the paper is bigger than the plastic so nothing gets messy. Open a window to keep your work area well ventilated.

Keeping the plastic safely sandwiched between the layers of paper begin to iron evenly. Iron in smooth even strokes for 15 seconds on one side, flip the whole thing over and repeat. Do this two or three times. You are aiming to fuse the plastic into a smooth sheet. When you peel back the paper you may see bubbles, which indicates that the plastic hasn’t fused completely. Sandwich it in paper again and repeat until it is smooth.

You will notice that the plastic shrinks as it heats. To make a sheet large enough to act as a placemat you will need to fuse two plastic bags separately and then glue or sew them together. You can also fuse different layers together. For this placemat I used two orange bags (glued side-to-side) as well as blue and white bags (glued side-to-side) with a patterned bag fused on top. I then sewed the layers together with a zig-zag stitch, which helped to reinforce the mat.

Good plastic fusing takes a lot of practice, so don’t give up if it doesn’t work out first time. But while you’re practising remember to be careful with the iron and keep your room ventilated. For more plastic bags crafts including basket-making and how to make these adorable fox-face placemats visit luckyladybirdcraft.blogspot.co.uk

KATIE DAVIES

L urking in the house of almost everyone in the country is a versatile material that’s brilliant

for making craft projects. More often than not it goes to landfill, which is such a waste. With a bit of patience and creativity plastic bags can be transformed into something beautiful!

YOU WILL NEED:A SELECTION OF THIN

PLASTIC BAGSSCISSORS

PAPERIRON AND IRONING

BOARDPVA GLUE

SEWING MACHINE AND THREAD

(OPTIONAL)

Firstly dig out your collection of plastic bags from the cupboard under the sink. You want the kind of thin plastic bags that supermarkets provide for free. Look out for any with bright colours or interesting patterns.

Next lay it out flat and cut off the handles. These can recycled at the supermarket.

Cut along the bottom edge of the bag as well where the bag is sealed together, removing a small strip. You can now open the bag out into a wide plastic tube. If you’re using a patterned bag you should now turn the tube inside-out. If you don’t do this then when you start ironing you create a big mess!

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