Halloween Parting: A Rest for a Weary Traveler

The autumn roads are long and chilly

But look! A gate lies open and waiting, just for you

Welcome! Do come in...

Ahh, yes, the piano music. I hear it to...

The professor always loved to play on his baby grand... and continues to do so today, 100 years after his death.

No need to look so alarmed! Most of the ghosts here are harmless. Can you hear a pitter-patter of little feet upstairs? Perhaps a small giggle catches your ear?

That's just Clara, who haunts the top floor. Would you like to meet her?

I'll take you up the back way, up the servants stairs...

Don't mind the scratches on the wall... They've been there a long time...

Can you hear Clara calling? She's just past the corner up ahead.

Ahh, there she is! Can you see her there in the mirror? She's quite shy, so you should feel honored if she's let you see her.

Just don't go in to the tower in the southern wing. Suicide Tower, as it's known, is home to a most unfriendly ghost.

Poor Mary, her heart would not mend

So she chose a rather dreadful end.

Wait?! You're leaving already?? Oh, dear, I hope we didn't scare you.

Have a Happy Halloween! Do come back soon! We'll be waiting for you, my dears...

My lovelies! How I've missed you! Well, to be honest, I have still been trying to read all of your blogs, even if I don't comment on them... though some days I don't even get through all of them. Oh what uni does to my time and ability to concentrate! But, unfortunately, I think I will be in school for many many more years to come [I just want to learn everything! Why do I have to choose between arts and science subjects?] so I mustn't grumble. And I'm really happy to be back doing Russian, even if my other subjects don't pique my interest as much as I hope they will.

Major thing I've learned so far this year? As pretty as it may make my waist, a corset should not be worn on days when I have to traipse all over town to classes with a nasty head cold. I quite understand how women used to faint from them - I just wish I could rely on some handy lad coming to my rescue like they do in all the Victorian sketches. They were probably just used to women dropping like flies, so I suppose you developed quick reflexes? My guy friends here, however, probably have no idea what a corset is, and would wonder what I was doing lying on the floor all of a sudden.

Which brings me to my main point: I am so glad

that I've found all of your wonderful blogs where you proudly parade vintage finery, styles, and ideas of how to live. It empowers me everyday not to give in to jeans and a t-shirt (eww!), and to not care a lick about what people think of me. Yet, sometimes, it does get me down. I live in a very small town in the UK, where I am looked at like some curious oddity - and this is even when I don't go full out vintage. What do you, my dear readers, do when life gets you down like this? I've ordered a typewriter off Etsy from Snogirl [go visit-she's a doll], and trying to explain why I wanted one was like banging my head against a brick wall.

And I HATE it when people say: "Oh my God! You're sooo cute!"

Perhaps I'll run away and join a circus - I'll be the Russian speaking - contortionist - burlesque dancer all decked out in steampunk jewelry and clothes.

Hey, it could happen.... maybe.

P.s. the typewriter is a skywriter by smith-corona, developed when mass air travel started becoming a possibility. Can you imagine everyone taking out their typewriters instead of laptops nowadays?