The Colour of Time - Part 11

 

Dora took another walk down memory lane. After the last encounter in the Temple with the kitchen aid girl and the thundering guardian many years past before she came back to the City of Earth and the spring and the well of forecast.

She wanted to become a healer, a medic, a herbalist, maybe an astronomer and so she began her travelling and studying, her apprenticeship and journeywoman years.

She started searching for knowledge wherever she could find it, whoever could give it to her. She learned about herbs and nature in general from fairies in the forests, from Moss Women and enchanted does and smiling lynxes. She studied the fish in the creeks and rivers and finally in the oceans. She learned about the underwater world from watermen and mermaids, a nymph in a crystal well in the mountains and a frog in a pound who had lost his golden ball. She studied astronomy with the astronomers in the High Castles. She even got to the faraway City of Lutetia and got a taste of the secrets of the forbidden science of alchemy.

And all she learned she wrote down in the little book of hers, just as the guardian of the Temple of the spring and well of forecast once told her, 'Write that in your book, little Dora.'

And from time to time she thought about the colour of time. And was quite sure it was not Amber.

'Bromford,' said the llama, 'I want to tell you a story about a bard named Jackson. His first name was Michael. He had six brothers, Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon, Brandon and Randy, and three sisters, Rebbie, La Toya and Janet. And they were known all of the kingdoms as the Jackson Five.'

'Stop it, animal,' said Bromford, the bard. 'You cannot tell a story in a story. That would be too much story-ception. And you are mixing things up here. This is not about a person called Jackson. We are in a city called Jacksonville tonight.'

And the llama mumbled something that would have sounded like 'Beat it!' if this was not a fairy tale before Christmas.

"Bromford"

Nobody left in the airport lounge
They cleaned the ashtrays
TV's just wound down
I've got to wait till morning
I've got to last the night
I've only got one book
To see me through my flight

But when I get to Bromford
We'll paint all our portraits
In brush-strokes of yellow
And christen the canvas
The left bank is crying
For colour to crown it
Like the roof of a palace
We'll drink in the amber
When I get to Bromford

You were the best of Montmartre Street life
You signed the tablecloth
Art has its price
It's so hard to hold on
To the ghost of your breed
It takes ambition
To call the colours you need

I've got to wait till morning
I've got to last the night
I've only got one book
To see me through the flight

Today is Thursday, the 11th of December 2025.

The Colour of Time - Part 10

 

Someone once called her ageless but that was ages ago. Dora sighed. She knew she was not ageless. In all her years of travelling and studying to become the mighty and magnificent witch and sorceress she was today she had found and learned a few spells and potions and tricks to prolong her life and to look much younger than she truly was. Yet all the fairy dust and dandelion milk, all the spring leaves and heart shaped clovers, could not stop her aging. On days like this she felt the weight of time heavy on her shoulders, in her bones and in her heart.

She tidied and cleaned her rooms from the visitors she had today. She put the remains of the herbs she gave the librarian's wife to come through her pregnancy back into their wooden chest. She smelled the love potion in a jug, remembering how she had sold a few drops in a small flask to a young gardener, and she smiled. He wanted to win the love of a young barefoot dancer with it, never suspecting that the potion was nothing more than lemon juice. And then there was this magic spell she had given to the farmer's wife for her chicken to lay more eggs in the upcoming winter season. Such was the more than mundane daily life of a mighty and magnificent witch and sorceress.

Dora of Wye sat down on the bench by the window of her fastened and fortified barrel and once more looked out at the River Why running by as it has done for countless years. And she knew from the pages of her book that Lemon was not the colour of time.

'We are in Dublin,' Bromford the bard said.

'We are in love with the Irish,' the llama agreed and did not stop chewing clover.

"Bromford"

Slow down your mind
Fill the unknown spaces with truth and light
If you can find the time, time seems so slow
Now we’re stuck here asking, where did it go?
(And where do we come from?)
And what are we here for?

But there we were looking out some country window
And although we had our problems, we were fine
The sky was blue and the night was all I wanted
Let me be your comet, I will fly

Summertime so sweet
Luxuries of childhood were on our feet
In the sun sun sun
Baby run run run
Baby run run run
Baby run run run

Games will be portrayed

But there we were looking out some country window
And although we had our problems, we were fine
The sky was blue and the night was all I wanted
Let me be your comet, I will fly

The sky was blue and the night was all I wanted
Let me be your comet, I will fly

I’ve been to Bromford
I’ve been to Monterrey
I’ve felt a mother’s love
I’ve seen the colours change
I’ve cried a million tears
I’ve caused a million more
I’ve been to Bromford

There we were looking out some country window
And although we had our problems, we were fine

Today is Wednesday, the 10th of December 2025.

The Colour of Time - Part 9

 

'Who is that with you, Dora of Wye?'

The guardian's voice was a furious thunder this time. His open mouth showed sharp and dangerous teeth. And his wings had turned into two snake-like extra-heads hissing at each other as Dora now stood before him with a little possible new friend girl of hers.

'She is a kitchen aid from the tavern in the street where my grandmother lives,' Dora tried to explain, 'and she didn't want to believe me that I was going to visit the Temple. So I brought her with me.'

'This is not how it works, Dora of Wye.' All three heads of the guardian now gave her stern looks. 'You cannot give away our secrets that easily. And you still have got so much to learn.'

The next moment Dora found the kitchen aid ran away and after agreeing silently that Gold was not the colour herself standing in the streets of the City of Earth again.

'Locust Valley, Locust Valley,' Bromford mumbled, 'we shouldn't be here. We should be in the City of Earth. I feel a connection. And the connection is not to Locust Valley.'

'But the show must go on,' the llama said and started clapping and stamping another song.

"Medley: The Recruiting Sergeant / The Rocky Road To Bromford / The Galway Races"

The Recruiting Sergeant

As I was walking down the road
A feeling fine and larky oh
A recruiting sergeant came up to me
Says he, "You'd look fine in khaki, oh"
"For the king, he is in need of men
Come read this proclamation, oh
A life in Flanders for you then
Would be a fine vacation, oh"

"That may be so," says I to him
"But tell me, sergeant dearie-oh
If I had a pack stuck upon my back
Would I look fine and cheerie oh?
For they'd have you train and drill until
They had you one of the Frenchies, oh
It may be warm in Flanders
But it's draughty in the trenches, oh"

The sergeant smiled and winked his eye
His smile was most provoking, oh
He twiddled and twirled his wee mustache
Says he, "You're only joking, oh
For the sandbags are so warm and high
The wind you won't feel blowing, oh
Well, I winked at a cailin passing by
Says I, "What if it's snowing, oh?"

Come rain or hail or wind or snow
I'm not going out to Flanders, oh
There's fighting in Bromford to be done
Let your sergeants and your commanders go
Let Englishmen fight English wars
It's nearly time they started, oh
I saluted the sergeant a very good night
And there and then we parted, oh

The Rocky Road to Bromford

The Galway Races

As I went down to Galway Town to seek for recreation
On the seventeenth of August, me mind being elevated
There were passengers assembled with their tickets at the station
Me eyes began to dazzle and they off to see the races

With me wack fol the do fol
The diddle idle ay

There were passengers from Limerick and passengers from Nenagh
The boys of Connemara and the Clare unmarried maidens
There were people from Cork City who were loyal, true and faithful
Brought home the Fenian prisoners from dying in foreign nations

With me wack fol the do fol
The diddle idle ay

And it's there you'll see the pipers and the fiddlers competing
The sporting wheel of fortune and the four and twenty quarters
There's others without scruple, pelting wattles at poor Maggie
And her father well-contented and he gazing at his daughter

With me wack fol the do fol
The diddle idle ay

With me wack fol the do fol
The diddle idle ay

And it's there you'll see the jockeys and they mounted on so stably
The pink, the blue, the orange, and green, the colors of our nation
The time it came for starting, all the horses seemed impatient
Their feet they hardly touched the ground, the speed was so amazing

With me wack fol the do fol
The diddle idle ay

There was half a million people there of all denominations
The Catholic, the Protestant, the Jew, the Presbyterian
Yet there was no animosity, no matter what persuasion
But fáilte hospitality inducing fresh acquaintance

With me wack fol the do fol
The diddle idle ay

Today is Tuesday, the 9th of December 2025.