It's What's in your Soul that Counts

I’ve been fortunate to have had a week off work taking a break. The weather has been reasonably kind for the time of year and it’s been nice to see the daffodils out and spring manifesting itself in so many ways not least of which people starting to feel better.

I’ve been helping a friend decorate her flat. Now I am not a decorator. Never have been, but I can slosh some paint around and I am an average DIY-er so I can put things on walls and a proud moment came after I laid a vinyl floor and it looked spot on. I took a bit of a methodical approach to this never-before-done task and it turned out well. My knees however did suffer!

However after three solid days, I’d had enough. I paid a visit to York with my friend Linda and went to Hornsea, just on the East Yorkshire coast to the Freeport, a small shopping centre on the site of the former Hornsea Pottery site.

I have achieved some good things this week and that includes spending a small budget on a new set of clothes. 

On Saturday night I went to see medium Derek Acorah do a demonstration at the beautiful small Plowright Theatre in Scunthorpe which is in Northern Lincolnshire, a town famous for its steelworks and less famous for its football team.

My followers will know I am a psychic medium of small skill however, seeing someone with big skill is always interesting. Mr Acorah is a fairly ordinary bloke. A family man with a background as a professional footballer a few years ago, he has had a rocky ride professionally as a medium because of his association with a television programme doing psychic investigations. I think, not to put too fine a point on it, lost his way a little from an outsider’s perspective and perhaps his reputation among some suffered as a result.

However, above all, Derek is just a decent, hard-working, nice man who is now going back to what he does best, plying his trade doing public demonstrations to small audiences (the Plowright has about 500 seats) as a very good journeyman medium. My assessment of the demonstration is that he gave audience members a lot of evidence about them that he could not have possibly guessed through cold reading, cheating or any other method and this came through having been delivered with compassion to those he gave readings for along with is gentle humour, occasionally laughing at himself.

I have been to many mediumship demonstrations over the years and I have never had a message from spirit publicly. Frankly, there are more people that need compassion and hope and their faith restored than I.

None the less, it made me think about my faith again as experiences often lead me to do. I don’t think my faith can be found with a label or readily pulled off the shelf. I guess that my idea of a divine being is unlike most people, other than a few Spiritualists perhaps because the thing is, it’s personal to me, to my personality, my experiences and how I can cope with the logical side of modern day life and living as well as the less tangible but equally as powerful spiritual way of life.

The problem in the UK however is that the current Government doesn’t want too many people thinking for themselves and esoteric subjects are becoming isolated and frowned upon. EU legislation states apparently that mediums and psychics must always tell their client or audience that their work is for entertainment purposes only. My insurers tell me that this is what I have to do when I work.

This is a gross insult and a slap in the face to me personally as it attacks my faith by minimising it and implying it that it is a sham to titillate audiences with. This upsets me deeply.

Of course there have been mediums and psychics who have been fraudulent and taking advantage of unsuspecting and vulnerable people. This is a despicable act and the law can deal with such people. Yes, the public deserve protection. However, the idea that what I believe in in my heart is just entertainment is abominable. The high churches across the globe despise psychics and mediums for their faith and beliefs. Why because it challenges that with which the grater populous of the world has been controlled and brainwashed with for years.

Now let me say before you storm off in high dudgeon, that I wholly respect an individual’s belief system no matter what that may be. You have one, good for you. If you have faith, then join the club, so have I. What upsets me is the establishment belief system that impresses itself upon people and uses legislation to tell people what they can or can’t believe in and this of course cuts across a whole swathe of beliefs, faiths, religions, cults etc.

For now what I would say without prolonging the argument is believe in what you believe in, have faith because to have faith and belief is the future, but leave others to believe in what they want to believe in. Some faiths damage people, that’s what they set out to do, others do damage unwittingly and indirectly as this blog will reveal in due course, but what’s important is how you feel, how you conduct yourself in society and what lies within your heart and soul.

So, on a lighter note, enjoy your week, look forward to spring setting itself in in the weeks to come and make it a positive week too! Smile

Chat soon

Ta-ra.

Bright and Breezy Mere

Looking west along the Hornsea Mere

 I met up with good friends Barry and Shirley Ann  Chessman today in Hornsea, their home town on the east coast of East Yorkshire. It's just over half an hours drive away on a good day so I visit as often as I can but not often enough. Hornsea is a lovely little town, quite compact and self sufficient and although the railway was closed down many decades ago, roads to Hornsea aren't too bad considering they are rural.


Like most coastal resorts in Victorian days, Hornsea was very popular indeed and on good weather days, it still attracts many visitors and it has a local market on a Sunday which brings people in. In some ways, I suppose I have an affinity with Hornsea because I have ancestors who come from that part of the county. The local family names were Usher and Hillerby and there is a Hillerby Lane in Hornsea today. Nelson Usher, my third great grand uncle, born in 1824 was the coxswain of the local lifeboat and a painting of him in watercolour resides in the Hornsea Museum today.

Feeding time, the swans are most vociferous

Apart from the attraction of walking along the promenade in Hornsea and experiencing the bracing sea air from the North Sea, the town has a mere. The word mere is Old English but has a place in the language of many countries and means 'an arm of the sea'. Although not connected to the sea, this huge inland freshwater lake is less than a kilometre from the sea and is fairly shallow and provides a habitat for wildlife and leisure facilities for sailors in leisure craft. 

A variety of birds on the water's edge

Owned by the Wassand Estate, the mere covers 476 acres and is the largest lake in Yorkshire. The owners of Wassand Hall bought the lake, used today for fishing and bird watching too, for a mere £50 in the 16th century (forgive the pun.) Something I have learned about the history of the mere is that it was formed by glacial activity and today it has a Special Protection Area status because of the diversity of the fen area surrounding the mere which includes much flora and fauna.

Sunday afternoon jaunt on the water

As I finish this brief blog, I have just watched  Felix Baumgartner live on YouTube jump from a capsule suspended from a helium balloon a total height of more than 120,000 feet and at freefall speeds at over 700 miles an hour at higher levels. Well done him, I got vertigo just watching him jump!

I hope you've had a good weekend.

Chat soon

Ta-ra.