Alex Bell – fantasy author

I realised it’s been a while since I did a Wunderkammer post, and as I don’t want the blog to be lacking in weird stuff, here I shall present not one, but two, instances of weirdness.

Number One – the Mastodon:

 As you can see, it is both shrivelled and dead. Obviously, therefore, I love it. I found this mastodon whilst heading an archaeological dig in the wild jungles of Peru. Now Seth, as I like to call him, keeps my shrivelled mermaid and shrivelled bigfoot company. There is a fourth member of their little gang, but I will write about him another time.

Number Two – Erin’s New Hat:

This is Erin’s new hat. My Mum recently went on a trip to Marrakech, and she bought this for him in one of the markets there. That’s how cool my Mum is – when she goes on holiday she brings back presents for me, and for my skeleton. And it was perfect timing too because Erin was becoming bored with his Victorian top hat, and had taken to trying to put it on the Siamese, which she dislikes. And an unhappy Siamese makes for an unhappy human. Now, because of the hat, we are all happy, and living together in harmony once again. Soon, Erin will own more hats than I do. I spoil my skeleton almost as much as I spoil my Great Dane. Moose has a hat too. Here she is wearing it on her birthday:

So make that three instances of weirdness.

Oh yes, we are all mad here.

I love Jamaica Inn. For those who do not know, it is an ancient coaching house from the 1700’s, situated on the edge of Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, spectacularly shrouded in ghosts and atmosphere. It is also the inspiration, and setting, of Daphne du Maurier’s novel of the same name – a fantastic story of smuggling, murder, romance and intrigue. She wrote the book after becoming lost on the moor, and finding Jamaica Inn in the fog, where she was then entertained by the local vicar with ghost stories and tales of smuggling.

If I lived closer to it, I would be a permanent fixture in the Smuggler’s Bar. They have six reasonably priced vegetarian options on the menu (SIX! Arghh!) (one of which is veggie sausage and mash – arghh, arghh, have I died and gone to heaven?). I love the timelessness of it – especially when you stand in the courtyard outside in the dark, with the sign creaking ominously, and all this mist pressing in. I can practically see Daphne du Maurier riding across the cobbles on her pony. They even have a little brass plaque on the floor in the bar saying ‘On this spot, Joss Merlyn was murdered.’ For some reason this plaque delights me profoundly. I try not to spend too much of my time staring at it when all the locals are walking past it in such a blasé fashion. Plus I do realise that Joss Merlyn is a fictitious character created by du Maurier and so was not really murdered on that spot. In fact he wasn’t murdered anywhere but in du Maurier’s own head. But still, when I see the plaque, I can’t help thinking: wow, Joss met his well-deserved end right here on this spot!

Conveniently, Jamaica Inn also allows dogs. Moose was very warmly welcomed despite her huge size. Not only that but she was even provided with her very own private doggy water bowl. This is what I call service.

We’ve been in Cornwall since yesterday, and as a result of peoples’ reactions towards her, I am starting to suspect she may have sneakily got bigger without my noticing. She just looks medium to me. But when you hear people remarking upon her size in shocked voices, it does make you wonder. She has started leaping right over Loki in the garden, but I just sort of thought perhaps the Doberman was shrinking. But it has to be said that she takes up significantly more room on the back seat of the car than she did last time we came to Cornwall in May. In fact, there is not really room for me on the back seat as well but I manage to squash in there somehow. If she had any sense she would just put her head on my lap but, being a little afraid of the car, she prefers to sit on my lap as much as she possibly can. This is very sweet, because she becomes very cuddly in the car – like a nervous child – but it does mean that by the time we get wherever we are going, I can no longer feel my legs, and I am covered in slobber (because Moose has a propensity to motion sickness, which causes her to drool). My favourite cap is now quite ruined.

But, anyway, I am sure that she thoroughly enjoyed her time at Jamaica Inn, even though she had no idea that she was snoozing just mere feet away from where Joss Merlyn was murdered! Perhaps I will consider moving to Cornwall in the future. That way I can go to Jamaica Inn every day, and perhaps get lost on the moors and have an amazing idea for a novel. Or perhaps go back in time. Every time I go to Jamaica Inn I can’t help half expecting it to happen. And I am always just a little bit disappointed when I open the door to the Smuggler’s Bar to find that there are no bloodthirsty smugglers in tricorn hats gathered there, all staring at me murderously. Maybe next time. Hope springs eternal, and all that . . .

They say that little things amuse little minds. If this is truly the case then I must have a phenomenally tiny mind. Little things amuse me no end. For example, last week I took Moose out for her first ice cream:

I don’t know what it was about the experience that amused me so much. Perhaps it was just the fact that Moose has very floppy chops (she hasn’t really grown into her face yet), and it was funny watching her trying to get her mouth around this ice cream. Needless to say, there were continuous peals of laughter from our bench. Anyone nearby must have thought: “Wow, that girl is so easily amused! It’s just a dog eating an ice cream!” But there you have it. I probably enjoyed it more than Moose did.

The other great thing about Moose is her eyes. They’re different colours:

I mean, seriously, could she be any more special?

It’s good to be home. I like going on holiday but towards the end I start to suffer from intense cravings for two things: meat (of the vegetarian variety, obviously), and my animals.

On our last night in Las Vegas, we stayed in the Luxor. Nowhere near as nice as the Mirage, and we were all having a bit of a whinge about it, and saying we should have stuck with the first hotel. But then we went into breakfast and there, on the menu, was a side order of vegetarian sausages. Vegetarian sausages! I wouldn’t go so far as to say I actually wept with delight but . . . well, it was a near thing. There’s only so much lettuce a person can take, after all. Now I won’t hear a bad word said against the Luxor.

I was probably suffering from meat cravings even more than usual at that point because of the white water rafting we’d just done in Colorado. This involved a night of camping. And, believe me, there is nothing more painful than watching bacon sizzling away on a campfire, smelling all tasty and delicious, when you know you can’t have any of it. Later on they got the marshmallows out but these ones had gelatine in them, so I couldn’t have any of those either. By this time I could feel the cold sweat starting to prickle the back of my neck. Given all this, can I really be blamed for feeling so profoundly delighted by the veggie sausages at the Luxor? 

Anyway, the bacon aside, the white water rafting was fantastic. What I loved most about it was that my brother fell out of the raft about five minutes after we set off down the river. Much amusement was had at his expense, but we dragged him back in eventually. I did not fall out at any time during the two days. At one point, however, I did neglect to jump in quickly enough. We got to this bank in the middle of the river and were carrying the raft across to the other side. Everyone else seemed to leap in nimbly enough. I slipped, or something, and ended up clinging to the side of the raft as it started to move on down the river. The problem with this is that when the water is moving faster than the raft, you have to hang onto the side tight in order to avoid being dragged underneath it. I had horrible images of being, effectively, keel-hauled beneath the raft. So I clung to the rope like a limpet, all the while shrieking, ‘Pull me in! Pull me in! Stop laughing and help me!’ Finally, my brother and his other half managed to drag me in between them. It was quite undignified though. I ended up sort of sprawled on the floor of the raft like a landed fish. 

Anyway, now all that adventuring is behind me and I am back home with the menagerie. Moose has outgrown her car seatbelt whilst we’ve been away. She’ll outgrow my car soon too. My Siamese cat gave me the cold shoulder for the first few hours after I got back. But, since making her displeasure known, she has spent virtually the whole time glued to my lap. If there was any animal I missed more than Moose, it was Suki. That little cat is the absolute apple of my eye. Nothing she does ever irritates me. Not even when she shits on my bed. I mean, obviously, I’m irritated that there is shit on the bed, but I’m not irritated with Suki. She is a Siamese, after all, she can’t help being neurotic. Here is a photo of her:

I have been told she looks evil in this picture, but I just think she looks ridiculously cute. Something between a kangaroo and a gremlin. It makes me want to kiss her feet. In fact, I’m gonna go do that right now.

Yes, indeed, my Great Dane puppy can sing. Here is the YouTube link to prove it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj25i6Gzl3I&feature=channel_page

I swear at one point she even tries to say a word. It sounds like meh-meh which, I guess, isn’t strictly speaking a real word. But it’s still pretty impressive nevertheless. I was crying with laughter when I filmed this. Given that, I think I did quite an impressive job of keeping the camera steady. Naturally Moose and I are going to enter into Britain’s Got Talent. I think Simon Cowell would really like her act.

The reason, by the way, that Moose is making those noises isn’t because she’s clinically insane, but because she was trying to coax Loki into playing with her. Loki, however, had been playing with her for a couple of hours by then, was worn out and wasn’t having any of it. The phone goes when she’s making these sounds sometimes. It’s no wonder people think I live in a madhouse. Between Moose and the Siamese it is rather like a madhouse much of the time . . . Which is fine because I don’t think I would do very well somewhere that was calm and normal.