Saturday 17 September 2022

A lovely Autumn day - again

Many of you have asked if I could repost this story as the recent attack by Hootman meant that you were unable to read the whole blog. It was a beautiful day today, already feeling quite Autumnal here at Homeward. The Old Monkey, Goodman and I decided to go on a short expedition looking for unexplored towers. It was very pleasant walking along the edge of the moat. Cloutman and Gubbins were mowing my vast lawn and a lovely smell of cut grass was in the air. We came upon a mysterious tower with red lights in every window and green smoke coming out of several large chimneys. Goodman ran ahead, and soon came scampering back saying that he had discovered a strange door with a notice on it that simply said "Time Portal". Carefully we opened the large wooden doors and and were greeted by a strange man wearing a fez. "Hello come to see the Camera Tempus obscura have you? - follow me up the steps then." he said. So we all climbed up the rickety wooden steps to a darkened room at the top of the tower. In it was a large, round, paper covered table. Projected onto this, by an apparatus working on the periscope principle, was a picture of the main area of Homeward. The clear, bright picture the machine obtained, with its special virtue of silence, made Homeward appear particularly charming, the roofs, walls, railways and gardens being seen as from a height. You can find out more about Camera obscura here. But this Camera obscura turned out to be very special indeed. The strange man said "You can watch all the activity of this busy place and it gives me a special satisfaction to do so - but this apparatus has a magician's crystal so you can see anytime you most wish to as well." I looked over the table and to my delight saw a very young version of myself accepting the key to Homeward from Wizard Blenkinsop all those years ago. Each of my companions were also in rapture as they looked at some past event that had made them particularly happy during their time here. The strange man, who's name he revealed to be Doctor Tempus Fugit, then invited us all for tea on the roof gardens. At first we were all too deep in thought to discuss the events we had seen, but soon we were all in high spirits recounting remembered anecdotes that had been prompted by the memories brought back to us by the Camera obscura. Doctor Tempus Fugit bade us all farewell at the door and so that was the end of our very exciting day - as you can imagine we all found it both a very exhilarating and quite emotional experience.

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