I have finally gotten around to watching the Anniversary Edition dvd of Labyrinth that I treated myself to ages ago. I really didn't need another copy of this film; I must have nearly twenty dvds and videos of it due to never being able to pass a copy on sale. But I really wanted this one because of Brian Froud's commentary on it.

I so admire him; not just because of his amazing art but because of who he is and the way he so confidently expresses his belief in faeries, his belief in himself. I've been so lucky to have met him and Wendy a couple of times, and to hear him talk is just as inspiring as looking at his work. Such stories he tells, funny and warm and beautifully sad. And full of gifted vision.

I was ten when I saw Labyrinth at the cinema. Life was changing for me in dramatic ways, and the world felt a little scary and strange and unfamiliar. But what was so wonderfully familiar was that moment when a naughty faery bit Sarah on her finger! I remember suddenly feeling less alone. The world of the Labyrinth just felt so ... true ...

In later years to find someone who loved Labyrinth was to find a kindred soul. During difficult periods Froud and Lee's book Faeries was both a source of comfort and a stirring for the imagination. 

And now my own children watch Labyrinth and laugh at naughty faeries and grumpy dwarves, and silly silly Goblins. I don't think Jareth holds quite the same charm for my boys as he did for my pre-adolescent self, but my eldest did say he has a "really fun coat", which is extremely high praise. And I have to cover little eyes as the Fireys pull themselves apart, because they still don't like that bit. I remember my younger brother never liked it either. Except something in them obviously does, for a lot of peeping through my fingers goes on ...

This morning I awoke to the sound of Kate Bush on the radio, singing Wuthering Heights. 

It had not been a good night, as both boys at separate stages had climbed into our bed and their father and I were just too tired to forbid it. {I hate forbidding it anyway; there's something I find so endearing about that rush of little feet on the landing, then that clamber onto the bed followed by a forced snuggle under the chin and the instant light snoring that comes from feeling secure in your parent's arms. If they're teenagers and still doing it, then I might worry.} But it meant that while the boys were happy their dad and I were pushed into the far corners of the bed, each with a pair of small feet on our heads and I believe, at one point, even a toe embedded in my ear ...

So, to wake to the tinkling piano and bewailing lyrics of that song was magical...   I was four when I first heard it, and the memory isn't even mine, it's my mother's. {The first Kate Bush song I remember is Wow. I recall flinging my arms in frantic circles, trying to copy her video.} We were in London on a day trip, back in the time when you could drive to places like the Natural History Museum and park outside, and while sat in the car, waiting in traffic, Wuthering Heights got its first playing on BBC Radio One. Before us was one of London's big red buses and stuck on its back, right in front of our eyes, was a huge poster of the lady herself. So ... we heard Wuthering Heights for the first time in a stuffy car {miles from the moors!} with Kate's large dark eyes looking down on us. I think it must have felt like a burgeoning love affair for my parents ... a love affair I probably nearly ruined when her music became the soundtrack to my life some ten years later, on constant play and rewind.

I remember that aged fifteen I hung around the moors beyond Haworth with my best friend, both of us hoping our own Heathcliff would pass by and recognise us for his own true-loves, but all we met with were 60-year-old walkers with their trousers tucked into their socks, and a lone sheep or two. Oh, and rocks. Lots of rocks. {Such is the fickleness of youth that less than a year later I could be found in the nearest graveyard, hoping Lestat might drop by that night ...}

The radio talked about the various depictions of both Wuthering Heights and its anti-hero Heathcliff, and wondered which was the best. As with many stories translated onto film, the "best" can surely only be in the reader's imagination ..? There are fantastic attempts, wonderfully done, to illustrate for us what is already there, for the story to me feels as much in the landscape as the grass and the wind and the trees that grow bent and twisted. The 1939 film with Laurence Olivier is often spoken of in revered tones and said to be the ultimate version. He was certainly the handsomest Heathcliff, in my small opinion. If I were Cathy I would have eaten heather and slept on stones just to bear his beautiful offspring. But alas! - then there would be no story.  {This is often the case with me; If I had been Bathsheba I would have starved with Gabriel Oak; Mr Darcy is aloof and haughty say you? Not so, sirrah! For there is much virtue in a man who says little. Plus I've always preferred men a little grumpy. Be Rhett Butler's mistress and forget Ashley? - oh, ok, then ...  Marry Gilbert Blythe? - well, why not ...?}

I still read the story at least once a year. I still adore it. As a young girl the drama of such an intense love that could defy death was very appealing. But for a long time now Hareton and Catherine have been my heroes, for their ability to adapt, survive and forgive are more compelling to me now than any demonstrations of self-destruction, no matter how romantic may be their roots. I think it's one of the reasons I love Jane Eyre more and more as I grow older, and the Tenant of Wildfell Hall too. Which shows how three very small, very quiet, very gentle women of the stern Victorian Age had an unerring ability to tap into what emotionally drives people to not just survive, but flourish. And how their tales live beyond the society they were familiar with and ring with truth in a world that they would barely recognise now.

The boys aren't too keen on The Kick Inside so it hardly gets played in the house these days. But I think, when they're asleep tonight {In their own beds this time, please!} then I might take a moment to sit with this song and really listen to it, every wonderful word, as I did when I was fifteen and madly in love with Heathcliff and Cathy. I may even do the dance. I'm sure I still remember it ...

The rain is gentle but persistent. Its friendly rain and I like it so much. I can almost see the trees and flowers in our little garden reaching out for it. The birds are enjoying it too; shaking out their dripping feathers and fighting over our scraps of morning toast.

Its the perfect rain to watch from indoors, with a warm cup of tea and a slice of almond cream cake; to read a favourite book and hear it gently hit against the windows; to quietly sit with a piece of clay and let whatever creature that lies just beyond sight but within sense come into being, as my boys lie asleep on the sofa, exhausted, wellington boots discarded and socks slightly damp from playing in this cheerful, generous, blessed rain ...

Whenever it rains like this I get the feeling of being on holiday, for whenever we go to Cornwall there comes a day, no matter how blisteringly hot the days were before or after, when this sort of rain comes in from the Sea, borne by dark clouds so low you feel you could almost touch them.

I write with this feeling fresh in my mind, for we've just come back from Cornwall. We took a week down there to show our boys Bodmin, Tintagel, and all the gorgeous sights that North Cornwall has to offer, and to be there for the 3 Wishes Faery Fest. It was a different holiday to the kind their father and I used to take - little legs could not make it to The Hurlers or Golitha Falls. Buggy rides across craggy moor and rushing stream were just not possible. But what they did see was exciting for them; exciting for us too, as we saw old haunts through new eyes.

The Sun was kind all week and waited until the start of the Faery Fest to disappear and let that rain that I remember come in. In the way we Brits are famed for we persevered and I believe a good time was had by all ...

But today, sat by the window, watching fat drops blur the glass and slide off my roses, I remember the drip drip sound of water falling from pine trees, and the feel of mud squelching between my toes, all sparkling with the washed-off glitter from many faery faces...

This rain has brought this memory with it. I think it followed us from the moors ...

Created while listening to Priscilla Hernandez's Willow Lullaby, she then took on a personality of her own...

The Willow Tree is so fascinating in its dual nature; its ability to heal and destroy; to regrow from disconnection; the feminine association with the full Moon; and of course, that sinister legend that tells of Willow Trees walking at night...

I feel that I have started on a journey and that I will return to the varied spirits of the Willow. That I am not yet finished -

Or that they are not yet finished with me.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And, sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Would wear them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

So, I kept the first for another day...

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence;

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -

I took the one less travelled by,

And that has made all the difference.