Letterman

Anyone who watches The Dave Letterman Show in the US should look out for a friend of ours who is appearing on the show around Feb 28. Roger Pratt is well known in witchcraft circles in New York & the North East & has helped us out with information regarding artifacts we've had trouble researching. He has a wonderful photographic memory & a wide knowledge of magic and witchcraft which comes in handy for us occasionally. The big question is: will Roger be sporting the moustache & goatee or will he be nude of chin?? Only time will tell.

Notice of an Exravanganza of Words and Music

For all those interested in Cornwall, folklore, the museum, history, and music, let it be known that on March 30 and 31 2007 The Wellington Hotel in Boscastle will host a fabulous weekend that will satisfy all your interests and more. Steve Patterson has put together an extremely interesting programme. On Friday evening March 30, the Cornish band 3 Daft Monkeys will be playing in the bar. This band has recently been on tour with The Levellers and plays a wild mixture of Celtic, Balkan, Gypsy, Cornish World Music. I've seen them before and they are fabulously entertaining as well as extremely accomplished musicians. The Saturday programme of talks runs from 11am till 5 pm upstairs in the Wellington and will consist of the following:

Steve Patterson - Tales of the Museum which includes a history of the museum and a biography of Cecil Williamson
Alan Kent - Parallels in the folklore of Cornwall, Brittany and Galicia. Having just returned from Galicia I'll find this particularly relevant.
Paul Newman - Tales of Tregurthan, stories about the bohemian artist set in 1930's Cornwall including such people as Aleister Crowley and D.H.Lawrence. Paul has recently written a book about this subject.
Paul Bonnington - Ancient Sites in Relation to the Landscape Paul is the National Trust archaeologist and warden for West Penwith with a special interest in ancient sites.

Saturday evening's entertainment will include more music, puppetry, and storytelling.

Tickets for the day are £15.00 on the door and you can reserve a place by calling Steve Patterson on 07941 078975

We'd love to see you there

Pinky & Perky

For those of you who remember the museum's two headed pig, affectionately known as Pinky & Perky, you will now be able to see her/it/them on view at the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth. P & P is on loan for an exhibition of curiosities which will be held this year (dates to be confirmed). During the flood the Maritime Museum was particularly helpful to us especially in storing our collection of over 4,000 library books while we rebuilt the museum, so we wear happy to loan our piggy to them for this interesting exhibit.

New Year Update

Well, the month of January has flown by & all has been action stations at the museum. The new fireproof ceilings are all finished (thanks John & Martin) and the painting is almost complete. Here is a picture of Ron at his decorating best. He should be finished in a day or two. The drilling of the ever deeper hole continues outside. The National Trust ,who bought Cornish Goodies next door, have not done a thing to it all winter but plan to start work on it at the beginning of April. How thoughtful of them!!!!!!!!! Work on the car park opposite The Cobweb has been fast tracked so we're hoping it will be finished before Easter.

Essential work

Here are a couple of pics of John (aka The Boscastle Busker) and (Big) Martin fitting double layers of plaster board to the museum ceilings to comply with fire regulations. (Lovely chest hair lads.)Whist carrying out the annual fire risk assessment, Graham noticed that there may be a potential future breach of regulations. Maintaining an old building to meet modern regulations will always be difficult and expensive but safety must come first so we've enlisted the services of these two local builders to bring the ceilings up to standard. The extra plaster board should give the added benefit of improved sound and heat insulation as well.

Closed

The museum is now closed as of Friday Jan 5 till Easter. We'll let you know the exact date as soon as it's confirmed. I'll continue to put news on as it happens so keep checking the blog for any developments. See you soon.

Happy Yule

All at The Museum of Witchcraft would like to wish our visitors and supporters a Happy Yule and a wonderful New Year. The museum will be staying open till the beginning of the new year then will be closed until Easter 2007. Hope to see you then!

Huge Seas

Last Thursday as I was spending 6 hrs going nowhere on the M5, Boscastle was undergoing yet another battering from nature. The winds were horrendous and the seas were huge. One of the local boats was flipped over & a small dinghy was flung up to the bridge. The waves were coming over the digging works opposite the museum and Graham managed to get a photo. The 30 foot hole was totally full of water & the machinery surrounding it was submerged. The next morning we inspected the area and found the slipway next to the Youth Hostel was gouged out and a tyre & wheel from a car (swept out in the 2004 flood) had been washed in. See photos. The workmen had to replace some of the blue steel walls with more wind friendly wire walls as they were in danger of blowing over. Most exciting!!

Friends' Weekend Update

We had a fab time last weekend at our annual Friends' meeting. There were two speakers; Ralph Harvey spoke on The Realm of Fairy and signed his new 'fresh off the press' book called 'Witchcraft, Magic, Myth and Mystery and ...Not Forgetting Fairies'. He regaled us with many stories regarding the history & folklore connected with fairies. Joss spoke on Corn Dollies, a subject she is obviously very passionate about, and instilled a desire in me to learn this fascinating art. We're hoping she can be persuaded to do a workshop for us next year. The first Annual General Meeting was held at the end of the day. It was announced that 'Friends' will be seeking charitable status and will be more formalised from now on. We feel this is a necessary part of the future direction of the museum as a whole. The evening was spent at The Wellington being serenaded by Carole (from the museum), her partner Martin (a fantastic musician) & their friends. A great deal of beverage action was undertaken by all. Sunday morning we undertook our usual walk along the Valency Valley. Much has changed since last year with all the flood defense works going on. As Friends develops there will be some changes from next year so we'll keep you posted.

Lovely view

Just thought I'd share with you the lovely view we now have from the booth in the museum. As we look out our window we can now see a beautiful blue metal wall sunkissed by a gorgeous bright orange digger. Simply stunning!

Friend's Weekend

It's the annual Friends' meeting this weekend. Graham will be presenting an update on what's been happening this year & what's planned for the future. Joss Radmore will be speaking on Corn Dollies, & Ralph Harvey on 'The Realm of Fairie'. Levannah Morgan will also give an overview of the new Friends' Charity. Carole (from the museum) & her partner Martin will be playing some festive tunes at the Wellington Hotel on Saturday Night, so come along if you're around. Watch this space for reports on how it went over the next few days.

I go away for one week......

Good grief! I go off to New York for a week & I come back to mice, gigantic holes in the ground, yellow dots & a cat who seems to have forgotten how to go outside for a wee (and worse). The museum is looking even more like a building site with a 30 foot hole right outside the front door. Today they have put up a big blue metal building, to have cups of tea in I presume, in front of the door so we've put more signs up to let people know where we are. We've also had an influx of mice, probably disturbed by all the goings on, & Graham has humanely caught 9 to date. Here is a photo of Hannah letting one of the mice go in the woods. You'll notice a photo of some yellow jacketed chaps placing dots on the exterior of the museum. This is so surveyors can take an accurate measurement & check if their works are causing the building to wobble/crack/fall down. I've also included a photo of my good friends Roger Pratt, Billy, & Kathy (not pictured) from New York who I had dinner with last week. Roger is becoming very helpful by going through the internet photos of our artefacts & helping to identify some of the ones we're having trouble with. His photographic memory is coming in handy. He's the hair-free one, by the way. Oh yes, if anyone knows how to re-house train a cat, let me know!!

December Update

Well it's been a bit rainy the last few days but that hasn't stopped some hardened museum lovers from coming to visit. Obviously numbers aren't at August levels (hardly) but it's worth opening for those tourists who don't take holidays in the high season. There's been a massive amount of work outside the museum, with 30 feet holes being dug and cables being moved. I've attached a few photos for your viewing pleasure. Here is a lovely view of a hole for a pumping station and the view across to the museum with diggers in sight. Very attractive!!

With all the work, the builders have uncovered some interesting bits of history. An old culvert has been discovered running from outside the museum down as far as the slipway. Graham thinks this may harken back to the old pilchard press days and may have been a way of removing bits of fish back to the sea by slooshing them down to the slipway. Here's a picture of it. It's a little larger than a foot square. Rather interesting I think.

Graham has also been busy inside the museum working out how much we spend on electricity in a bid to reduce consumption & do our bit for carbon emissions. It seems we spend £3,600 per year on electricity, £1000 of which is taken up by dehumidifiers since the flood! So if anyone knows of any low electrickery dehumidifiers please let us know!!

Correction to Winter Opening Times

OOPS! I made a teeny mistake with the winter opening times. The museum will actually be closing at 5PM not 6PM as I mentioned in the previous blog. It has since been corrected. Sorry if this has caused any inconvenience. I have also been told that Graham did the actual carving of the happy smiling Halloween pumpkin and Carole had the lovely job of hollowing it out. I'm screwing up severely here. Anyway on a lighter note, thanks for the well wishes for Mavis. I must say she's taken to this recuperation lark quite well & has been glamorously tucking herself up in my bed under the duvet. She'll be expecting her pate in bed next. (Note to self: Must remember to iron pillow cases before next photo session)

Glass Knitting Needles

The museum is now selling replicas of the glass knitting needles on display in the Spells & Charms Section. Theyb prived very popular at the Halloween Festival in London a couple of weeks ago and have been selling well at the museum. I'll put some photos on soon.

Happy Samhain

Happy Samhain to everyone and apologies re the break in blogging. The re have been a few problems with blogger.com but they seem to have been fixed now. Mercury is retrograde after all! We have a rather fabulous pumpkin outside the museum which was expertly carved by Carole our resident crafty person. It looks so good we're loathe to remove it. Here it is in full beauty.

Winter Opening

The Museum will be staying open until Christmas this year. Normally we would close soon after Halloween but as there have been more people around than usual at the end of the season we have decided to stay open. Normal opening hours will apply: 1030AM till 5PM Monday to Saturday and 1130AM to 5PM on Sundays. If we must close occasionally (to have a day or two off) we will advise via this blog. Hope to see you over the winter!

Mavis recovers

A bit of an update for those who know my cat, Mavis. She was rushed to pussy hospital a week ago for an operation to remove a weird lump on her side. The lump was actually a large haematoma & it appears she may have had a bit of a scrap with a large black cat who keeps popping through the catflap uninvited. After a scary couple of days when we thought she may have passed over to kitty afterworld she has now made a wonderful recovery & is bouncing around like a kitten. Here's a piccy of Mavis (sporting operation bald patch) being adored by uncle Graham.

Congratulations to Harbour Lights

Last weekend Harbour Lights (across from the museum) reopened as a teashop. Who can forget those awful images of that lovely old building being swept away by those terrible flood waters? We would like to congratulate Trixie Webber, owner of the shop, on the reopening of her business. Those who enjoyed the items for sale in the previous shop should not be disappointed as the retail business continues to run across the river. All at the museum wish them well & it will be great to be able to nip across for the odd cup of tea.

The Hint is in the Name

Thank you to everyone who has left comments recently. We would like to emphasise that the Museum of Witchcraft is a MUSEUM where artefacts and educational information relating to the folk/witchcraft traditions and practices of the people of this country and abroad, both in the past and as they are practiced today, are on display. It is not a religious institution and does not pretend to be. There are more approriate sites for some of the comments regarding religious topics than this one. We do not believe in censorship so please moderate your comments accordingly, otherwise we will be forced to take action.