The winter solstice is at the end of this week.  In the Princelings world that means the Yuletide festival is upon us…starting on the 20th with the Solstice speeches and dinner.  It lasts through to the 31st December (Green Willow Day) with a variety of feasts, fairs, a narrathon, a ceilidh or party, and the Green Willow Day ‘beating of bounds’ and another feast.  Oh, and at some stage there are presents.  I’m still working out exactly when, although if I go back to last year’s guest posts on the Princelings website, I’ll probably remind myself!

Beating of the bounds is an old English custom whereby people would walk around the parish boundary, or boundary of their particular village, or the territory recognised by the castle, so that everyone knew where it was, and it also helped to mark it for anyone coming in to the area.  I adopted it for the Princelings world as a recognition of the territory supported by the castle.  As the population grows, and becomes more mobile as a result of modernisation, this will become more important in the books.

On the Princelings website the Narrathon is in full swing.  Today Willoughby starts his two-part take on a well-known story by Charles Dickens.  He’s pretty well plagiarised it, but then he does, you know!

The Narrathon will be rounded off on Monday 29th, but here on the blog I’ll be taking next week off, more or less.   There’s a Midwinter’s Eve Giveaway Hop for you to enjoy opening on Sunday 21st and running to the dot of new year in New York.  It’s possible something else might turn up, like a book review on the 27th, but otherwise I won’t be posting until the 29th on here.

It’s business as usual this week, though, save for Friday being the Deja Vu Blog Hop, with a re-posting of a piece of flash fiction you may have missed.  I have already done Chuck’s Random Title challenge this week – but it’s on the Viridian series website.  I guess you can work out who it stars!

If you missed Read Tuesday you have until tomorrow midnight (24:00 Tuesday or 0:00 Wednesday, possibly Pacific Time) to get those deals on the Princelings books on Amazon.  I will be doing some price readjustments on 31st December to take account of Amazon’s revised treatment of VAT to meet the EU rules.  I doubt whether anything will become cheaper than it has been this year 🙂

Today is a special day as it’s the birthday of my fantastic editor, Dawn, slave to Willoughby and Atticus and the much missed Lord Mariusz and Professor Saku.  Happy birthday Dawn!

And Noelle, today’s picture is for you – Hark The Herald Kevin Sings 🙂

Heading into the Yuletide festivities

4 thoughts on “Heading into the Yuletide festivities

  • 15 December, 2014 at 6:02 am
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    Oh boy–more narrathons!
    You’re staying well atop things this time of year!

    • 15 December, 2014 at 10:34 am
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      I always was one for planning ahead 🙂

  • 15 December, 2014 at 7:35 pm
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    Aw, Kevin is so cute! Thank him for taking time out of his busy day to pose for me. I wish you and the furballs the Merriest of Christmases ! I will still post at the beginning of next week but then will take a break, too. Gotta catch up with my email, Christmas cards, wrapping and Christmas cookie baking.

    • 16 December, 2014 at 10:16 am
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      Thanks, Noelle. I may plan ahead, but execution is poor – baking, present wrapping, decorations are all in the planning stage still!

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