HoneyFest: A Tale of Ancient Sweetness

In ancient times, when communities were just beginning to settle in small villages, they would explore the land around them to understand the terrain, find natural resources, and spot any possible threats. If the area was suitable, they would build their huts, prepare the soil, plant crops, build fences for their animals, and set up their very important beehives or skeps.

Now, as everyone knows, honey has different tastes and flavours depending on the types of flowers that bees visit to collect nectar. The nectar from flowers contains various compounds that give honey its distinct flavour, aroma, and colour. Each settlement’s bees produced honey that was unique, capturing the essence of their surroundings.

Once a village was well-established, a few of its villagers would explore further afield. On these trips, they often discovered neighbouring settlements. Instead of causing fear, this brought great excitement because it meant they could hold a HoneyFest! The villagers would prepare a gift of honey, placing it inside a specially made and beautifully decorated clay jar. They would carve a wonderful wooden box to hold the honey jar with handles to carry it. Then they would wait for the morning of the fullest moon to help guide their way and to provide the longest light for celebrations. Then they would walk in the straightest line possible to the newly discovered village, humming like bees and letting out an enormous “BUZZ” every fifty steps to mark their way.

When the villagers they were visiting heard the sound of the “bees,” they weren’t frightened; they just knew a HoneyFest was coming. They would bring out their bread and mead and place their own honey inside their own specially made and decorated clay jar.

When the new villagers arrived, there would be great celebrations. The discovery of a new tribe and a new relationship was a joyous occasion. They would share drinks and food, but most importantly, every member of each village would taste the other village’s honey, cherishing the differences in flavour, aroma, and colour. Through sharing honey, villagers shared and appreciated each other’s differences and culture. In the evening they would raise their drinks to new friendships under the light of the Honey Moon.

Each village would add the newly discovered settlement to their “grand maps,” marking the straight line between the two and measuring the distance by the number of BUZZES made on the procession. They would add details from each other’s discoveries, creating bigger and bigger maps of the areas in which they lived. These straight lines between each village were known as Bee Lines.

As more and more villages were found, the HoneyFest celebrations became much larger, with many communities gathering together at a single special spot.

Hundreds of years later, when the Romans began to build their roads, they admired the straightness of the Bee Lines and adopted many of them. You can still see evidence of the Bee Lines on modern maps, although they are now called B roads. The original ones are still pretty much straight.

As for the gathering places for the larger HoneyFests, many became revered landmarks in our ancient countryside. Perhaps some are still visible today? You may have even visited one. Indeed, if you drive down the old beeline the B303 (now an A road), many people find themselves wondering, “I wonder what Stonehenge was actually for?”

And now you know, it might have been the site of a grand HoneyFest, where ancient villagers gathered to celebrate the sweet gift of honey and the bonds of friendship without fear between their communities.

The Sock Moles

Have you ever noticed how often a baby has only one sock on?

Now the traditional explanation is that babies pull their socks off when they are playing, but if that were true a baby would have two bare feet and they don’t. It’s always one bare foot and usually it’s the left.

 

Do you want to know why it happens?

 

Now, this may seem a little hard to believe but (and it is as true as I am standing here) the moles take them. That’s right, the small black furry animals that live under the ground creep out and take the left sock from the baby’s foot.

 

Now I know what you are thinking: “Why would a mole take a baby’s sock?”


Well, it’s simple really. When a mole has babies they are born with no fur... think about it ... no fur. So can you imagine how cold it is for them living under the ground with no fur? Adult moles need to find a something lovely and warm for a baby mole to live in and nothing is better than a baby’s warm sock.

 

How do they take them?

 

Well, although moles have very bad eye sight, they do have a really good sense of smell and touch. The mole sits quietly in the corner of the room until everyone is staring at the baby’s face. (Isn’t it just amazing how long grown-ups can spend staring at babies faces?) Then the grown-ups will start playing ‘peek-a-boo’ with the baby. As soon as they have hidden their eyes behind their hands the mole rushes out and takes the sock.

 

Why do babies laugh when it happens?



Well can you imagine something soft and furry touching your foot? Of course you would laugh, and so does the baby. But the grown-ups think it’s because they are playing ‘peek-a-boo’, so they just keep on going and going and going until finally the baby cries when it realises that its mole is not coming back.

 

But I’ve seen a baby pull it’s own sock off 

 

That’s right - babies do pull off their own socks. It’s because they want to feel the little mole on their toes again - wouldn’t you? But the socks that babies pull off don’t disappear. You will always find that sock somewhere on the ground, in their push-chair or their cot.

 

Then why do grown ups lose socks?

 

Now this is where it gets weird. When the baby moles grow their fur they don’t need the baby socks any more – and they wouldn’t fit into them anyway! But they still love the smell of their own particular human sock and so they do something strange. Every so often your personal baby sock mole will take one of your socks from your sock drawer. 

 

Is that why I always end up with one odd sock?

 

That’s right. Although they have grown out of your baby sock they still love your smell. Your very own sock mole has taken the other to remember you by. They sit quietly in the dark corner of your bedroom and when you open your sock drawer they pop in and out and go back to their tunnel underground. 

 

Sometimes you can catch them, or at least the sock. You must remember looking at your bedroom floor and thinking, “I don’t remember leaving that sock there.”

 

Why don’t I remember a mole taking my baby sock?

 

How much can you remember from when you were a baby? Not much, I imagine. But one thing is stuck in our minds forever, so stuck that we can’t help doing it even though we don’t know why - we always play ‘peek-a-boo’ with babies. Somewhere deep, deep down we know that something special happened when a grown-up first played it with us.

 

How do I know that this is true?

 

Well, think about it. What else could explain the number of odd socks in the world? Did you think washing machines ate them? Don’t be silly - washing machines eat underwear and besides, there are certain tell tale signs:

 

First

Have you ever imagined that someone is following you?
 Well they are, but they are under the ground; your own personal ‘Sock Mole’ is keeping an eye on you to make sure you are safe.

 

Second

You must know the expression because everyone says it:

“You can’t wear that sock, it’s got a mole in it.”

 

So what could we do with all these odd socks?



Well, we can do something sensible. Together we can start the ‘Sock Exchange’ to raise money for charity, and do you know something – I think one day we will!

 

Brian The Disappointing Penguin

 It was the biggest egg the penguins had ever seen. It was so big it was almost impossible to fit it beneath their bodies to keep it warm. But keep it warm they did as their excitement grew in anticipation of quite what sort of glorious penguin was going to emerge.

When the day came, the whole colony gathered round struggling to catch a view of the egg as it hatched. Suddenly the first noise of a shell being cracked echoed into the icy air. Then a second, then a third and then the frantic sound of a small beak chipping away to break through into the daylight. 

 

The penguins collectively held their breath for what, they were sure, was going to be the King or Queen of their huddle. Their eyeline looked up to focus on the top of the egg as the sounds got louder and they anticipated the young penguin’s arrival. Their stare was so high they missed the final crack and the tiny penguin with the giant head emerge from the bottom of the egg.

 

It was only when one of the youngest penguins started giggling that they all saw the baby penguin, smaller than any one of them, and with the largest head they had ever seen. It was at this very point that the newest penguin of the colony tried to stand upright but the weight of his head caused him to fall forward his beak wedging into the ice below.

 

This was how Brian, the Disappointing Penguin, emerged into the world.

Big Benjamin

 Once a small baby was born 

A tiny baby called Benjamin

 

He was so tiny

His parents were worried

His family were worried

The friends of his family were worried

And as news spread through his village the villagers were worried

 

Tiny Ben

 

But Ben wasn’t worried.

He knew he was just the right size for the moment.

 

As the months passed Ben grew and by the time he started school he was pretty much the same size as the other children. Not too tall, not too small, 

 

He knew he was just the right size for the moment.

 

Tiny Ben

 

It was around this time that the village was beginning to grow. More people moved into the area and new voices were heard. And as the village grew so did Ben. For the children and people who knew Ben they didn’t really notice, or they chose not to say anything. But, sadly, some of the newcomers would point and make comments about how tall ‘Tiny Ben’ was.

 

At first Ben never heard their comments so he wasn’t in any way upset or embarrassed by his height. He just knew he was tall. And his friends never treated him any differently although there were times when his size was a real help, like when rescuing balls and kites from trees.

 

He knew he was just the right size for the moment.

 

When the rest of his friends had stopped growing Ben carried on getting bigger and bigger. More and more people started to comment on the giant amongst them and Ben began to hear them. And the more people said, the worse Ben felt. He began to slouch and crouch to try to disguise his enormous height, but it was no good – he was so tall.

 

Soon he didn’t like going out with his friends because of the way people stared and talked. His mum and dad were worried, his friends were worried but most of the villagers didn’t seem to care that their comments could hurt. They excused themselves by saying ‘he’s big enough to deal with it.’ No one is big enough not to be hurt.

 

And still Ben grew and so did the village.

 

He began to believe he was just the wrong size for the moment.

 

Ben began to spend more of his time on the outskirts of the village and in the fields and countryside where he didn’t feel so self-conscious. And still he grew and so did the village which had become a town building on the green open spaces. 

 

And now it was a town, it felt grown up, it needed organisation and order. It needed to feel important if it was going to attract investment and wealth. It needed to be ‘just so’ and a giant is never going be part of that. You don’t want anything that’s different.

 

So Ben became even more of a recluse until one fateful day.

 

Now that day had started as a perfectly normal day until one of the children at school had wandered off during playtime. Well perhaps wandered off is a little harsh, it was simply a case of following a butterfly that had flown into the playground. That butterfly had flown off out of the playground and through the town, through the streets and alleys trying to find the countryside.  The child had followed the butterfly until they were quite lost.

 

Once the teachers knew the child was gone the search started and by the end of the morning everyone was looking. At a gathering of the important people it was decided the search needed more organisation and structure so the town was divided up into areas for teams to search – to no avail. Because the butterfly had led the child through the back streets and alleys in its search for a green space.

 

In desperation someone said, ‘if only we could look from above, we might find them.’

And that was when the children all shouted ‘get tiny Ben’. The important people were against the idea but the people went and asked him to come into the town. When he arrived people stared in amazement, he was so tall he could see down onto the streets, the roads and even the alleys and within moments Ben shouted ‘There, There.’

 

He knew he was just the right size for the moment.

 

Everyone was so happy that the little child was found and everyone knew that without Ben’s help it might not have happened. In fact the people decided that they should celebrate the occasion by building something to celebrate Ben. And so the idea formed to build a tower as tall as Ben that people could climb to the top of to be able to look down onto their land as he could. And they decided to put a big bell at the top to ring on special occasions.

 

And despite the important people saying they didn’t have permission, the tower was built by grateful villagers. And for years people came and climbed to the top to enjoy the view and to feel a sense of ‘wonder’. To be able to see the river and the countryside made them feel they lived somewhere special. The important people, who were never slow to claim credit, began to realise it was bringing people to the town. So they put more and more shops and cafes around the bottom of the tower. 

 

Soon the important people began to believe it was their shops that brought the people in. They thought the tower was taking valuable space that they could build upon and they didn’t really need it. So one night, in the quiet of the dark, they tower was taken down and the bell taken away.

 

The next day as people noticed they were sad – they had grown to love the tower they called Ben Tall’s. They knew that a town without fun wasn’t special at all. And that made them sad. People need spaces for fun, for nature and to play and to feel joyful.

 

So nothing is left of Ben Tall’s tower other than people remembering the name. Although every so often some of the villagers talk of building a tower again to allow people to see the town in a different way. And some say maybe bring the bell back – if only people could track down where Big Ben’s bell had gone

See Shells

She sat staring out to sea. Her gaze fixed on the horizon, the point where sea and sky joined, the place where two worlds touch.

Pebbles underneath pressed against her, the body of her coat offered little protection to dull the feeling. By concentrating she could make one part of her body feel the pain leaving the other areas numb. This point of exaggerated connection brought an intensity that was unworldly.

 

In the distance she could hear the excited voices of a family playing on the beach. She tried to tune them out, to return to the meditative state of horizon and prickly pain but they were too loud. She knew the exaggerated noises of enjoyment were really a piece of drama to encourage her to join in. Her family, desperately worried about her, just wanted her to return to normal. To play games like she used to. To be one of them again.

 

She glanced toward them and saw them looking back before they immediately went back to their game with an increased energy to disguise the fact they had been caught looking. But she didn’t need to catch them, she knew they were always looking, always caring, always sympathetic. Too caring, too sympathetic. They wanted to wrap her in loving cotton wool to drive away the pain, to protect her from her emotions. The problem was the pain was inside and the love they surrounded her with just trapped the feelings deeper inside her.

 

If she concentrated on the pain, focussed on that, she could drive out some of the other thoughts. She was so thin there was little to protect her bones from the insistent pebbles. She thought of standing and folding her coat to make a thicker cushion but just the thought tired her.

 

She dropped her eyes from the distant point and they fell to her legs. Before she could feel revulsed she moved quickly onto the stones and pebbles around her. Shades of grey, white, orange and sand colours surrounded her. A quick glance gave them a uniformity but scrutiny revealed the differences, the irregularities, the things that made each one unique.

 

And as she stared, her mind momentarily freed from the burdens it carried, other things revealed themselves. Fragments of glass made smooth by the actions of sea and shore. Bricks worn to tiny red spongelike shapes and shells. 

 

The shells, perhaps knowing their value, hid amongst the pebbles but once she had spotted the first others seemed to magically appear. It reminded her of how, when the issue that caused her so much pain had first surfaced, it seemed to be mentioned in every TV programme, every radio show, every newspaper and magazine. Constant reminders as if the world wanted her to never to be able to forget. So much so in the end she just had to tune out of real life.

 

She leant to one side to pick up the shell she had first noticed. Doing so increased the pressure around her hip and the pain from the pebbles made her wince. She glanced to her family in case they had noticed but they were consumed by the game.

 

Shuffling to ease the pressure she held the shell in the palm of her hand. It was nothing special, the sort an animal might have lived, in but it was beautiful in its own way. As sunlight caught it areas showed their translucence, others a rich deep pink vein.

 

A distant voice echoed through to her. Her mother’s voice imploring her to listen to the shell to hear the sea. So clear was the voice she glanced again to her family before registering this was a younger voice, a voice before concern had changed its tone, filled it with crushing care. A voice from her past.

 

She brought the shell to her ear as she had as a child. She stared out to the horizon and closed her eyes. And there for a moment the sound of the sea. Not the sea in front of her, not as close, as insistent and without the sounds of the pebbles being turned by the waves.

 

This was the sea of dreams. Calming

 

Then she could hear her mother shouting, and then the others. It was time to go. She looked at the shell in her hand and made the decision. She would leave it, leave it where it belonged, safe, in the right place. She gently laid it down as near the exact spot the she had picked it up from. Then she gently prised herself from the beach quickly wrapping her coat around her to hide her body from spying eyes. She turned and began to walk back to the car.

 

 

When the car had gone so the questions started. What had he heard? The shell was unusually quiet despite the demands of the beach. In a soft voice he tried to find the words

 

‘It was not,’ he paused, ‘not like the usual. Not what I was expecting, not what I wanted to hear…….’

They waited.

 

The Shower – Three Choices

The water was just not draining from the shower tray as quickly as it should. He looked at the suds gathering around his feet and decided he should do something. He bent and lifted the cover from the shower tray outlet and saw the matt of hair that had weaved itself across the top.  

Slightly repulsed he drew it together with his fingertips and lifted the seaweed of hair out. The satisfaction was the immediate flow of the water down the drain, but it didn’t overcome the shuddering revulsion of the clogging wet hair in his fingers. 

 

He dropped it by the sliding door and immediately rinsed his fingers madly under the shower before bending to lift the bottle of shampoo again. The very act of touching the dead hair had made him feel grubby. As he showered, he realised the irrationality of the feeling. The hair was either his or his wife’s. It must be clean, having been washed out by the very act of shampooing the head but he still found it stomach turning. As he turned off the shower he stared at the knot with slight nausea.

 

Stepping out he put on his bathrobe and then turned to the hair. He didn’t really want to touch it again, but it had to go somewhere and the thought of flushing it or rinsing it away just seemed to be not right. Not solving it but rather contributing to another problem further down the pipes.

 

Opening the cupboard below the sink he saw a jar with the last cotton wool ball in it. The irony was lost on him he tossed the ball into the toilet bowl before gingerly placing the soggy hair into the empty jar and back under the sink. When there’s enough, he thought,  he’d take it out to the garden for birds to make nests with. That thought somehow cheered him. Their dead hair would provide a home for new life.

 

Stepping into the bedroom his wife glanced up registering the half smile.

‘You OK?’ she asked

‘All good,’ he replied slipping back into the bed next to her.

‘Ooh you’re all wet still,’ 

He realised that with his mind distracted he had not towelled off his hair. 

 

…

 

Over the next few months the rising tide in the tray would prompt a routine and the jar filled gradually under the sink. Tucked towards the back of the shelf, so it wasn’t automatically visible, it caused no concern nor prompted any questions.

 

Then after one shower, a matted bundle of hair ready, he reached in to find the jar empty. Shouting from the shower ‘did you empty the jar?’ he felt rather disgruntled that he had done the horrible work of filling it and she had the pleasure of emptying it out.

‘What jar?’

‘The hair jar,’ he hadn’t realised that he had given it a name.

‘What hair jar?’

‘The jar, the jar full of hair under the sink.’ He found his anger irrationally rising.

‘What jar of hair?’ said his wife opening the bathroom door, a gesture he found strangely antagonistic.

‘This jar,’ he said, holding it forward much as one would to a child.

 

His wife looked innocent and unaware, screwing her eyes to focus on the jar before speaking. ‘I have no idea what you are talking about.’

‘Really?’ he said already knowing the answer.

‘Really,’

 

There was a silence as he slowly lowered the jar and began to feel the rising tide of doubt within his mind. Had he thrown it out and forgotten? Could he have done that? He was sure, almost totally sure, he hadn’t but he knew his wife was innocent and they were the only two living in the house. It must have been him, somehow.

‘What was in it?’ he heard his wife say for the second time breaking through the fog of self-doubt.

‘Hair, hair from the shower plug.’

‘Oooh that’s revolting, what were you keeping it for?’

He didn’t want to explain, didn’t want to let her into this moment of doubt, both of his actions and the fact he must have emptied the jar and forgotten. To cover his embarrassment, he picked up a towel and started rubbing his hair. When his wife had left the room he picked up the tangle of hair from the shower tray and flushed it away affected by a feeling of stupidity.

 

…..

 

 

So, at this point we pause and offer three endings to this shower of a story. Your choices:

 

1)

Some weeks later, returning from an afternoon of running errands he found his wife in the armchair. As he moved towards her she ‘shushed’ him and let her eyes fall to the tiny bundle in her arms. 

 

Moving to the back of the armchair he glanced down to see what she was holding. 

A tiny, furry shape in human form. 

‘Look,’ said his wife, ‘It’s a hair boy, I found him trying to climb into the shower’.

 

2)

‘OK, what have we got?’ asked the Detective Inspector ignoring everyone in the room bar the Pathologist, ‘Double suicide?’

‘Not that I can see, it just doesn’t add up.’ He paused from examining the body on the metal slab. ‘Come over here.’

He led the DI over to a table where two gruesome exhibits were laid out.

‘What the hell is this?’

‘These are their lungs. Completely filled with hair and it’s the same in their throats.’

 

3)

Well, that’s up to you. 

Word

A word

Choose a word.

Any word, you pick, it’s your choice.

Have you got one yet?

Now say it in your head. Repeat it. Hear it echo. Say it slowly, say it fast. Play with it.

Your ..... chosen .... word

Now, are you quite sure it’s the word that you want? You still have a chance to change.

Ok?

So, it”s the word you wanted, the word you chose.

So why?

There are over 270,000 words in the Oxford Dictionary and more besides and you have chosen that one .

Why that word?

Of all the words available you chose that word. It’s not random, it can’t be, it’s not like picking a card from a deck. So why?

What is your relationship to that word?

Pause to think. 

Leave some space.

Think about why that particular word

Say the word in your head again.

What other words are gathering around it? What memories? What feelings?

How many letters does it have? Is that number important?

If your word was in a sentence what would that sentence be?

Say it in your head. Hear it. Hear how the other words play around it. Your word surrounded by friends. Keep that sentence, remember it.

Now think. Imagine. 

You are on a bus. It’s been raining. The windows are misted up from the damp warmth of bodies. Beads roll down the glass their journeys started by a bump in the road. 

There is someone sitting in front of you. You can see the back of their head. 

Look at them. Is it someone you know? A stranger? Look at them and see the details, the colours, the hair, the clothing. Who are they? How old are they? Man, woman?

You lean forward. You whisper your sentence.

That’s the start of your story. 

So, like the bus, a journey but where is that word, that sentence, that story x your story going?