I blinked furiously as the sun seemed to be searing into my retinas and hurriedly shuffled off after Violet as she began heading towards the train station, feeling as if I were marching off to meet, well perhaps not the firing squad but perhaps to an appointment with a large burly man wielding a cat o'nine tails. Although it is not my cup of tea, there would be some folk who would pay for that sort of appointment, as I, Phineas Matova, Man About Town, have discovered in my wanderings....I digress.

A chill wind seemed to blow from the northeast as I staggered after my cousin, clutching my coat around me and shivering. Thinking that I could perhaps stall our progress to the train station, I racked my brain for a quick diversion that would seem believable. The only thing that I could come up with on the spot was feigning a fainting spell.

"V-Violet..I don't feel so well" I took a few halting steps backwards ( I am a trained mime) and clutching at my forehead, fell to my knees (being careful also to not muss my trousers or hair)
and let out a heartwrenching (I thought at least) moan.

My cousin turned and looked at me, with the sort of look one would reserve for say an unpleasant bug, rather than a cousin in grave distress. She sighed a bit and said

"Phineas, quit arsing about. You're making us late for Auntie Junipers train and believe me, I do not want to hear her complain for the next fortnight about how we abandoned an old woman"

"Alright, fine. But I might have been fainting!"

"Come along Phineas!"

I stood up, carefully brushing my trousers off and trudged off after her.

to be continued

A very trying morning...

So, this morning as I was getting my beauty rest, I was awakened, rather roughly I might say, by my cousin Violet. I blinked and shivered as the wet rivulets of Arctic water trickled off my nose like a tiny waterfall and sputtered "Was that absolutely necessary?".

Violet rolled her eyes heavenward and uttered in a voice tinged with impending hysteria; "Yes, Phineas, it was. Please get dressed. We need to go fetch Auntie Juniper from the train station."

A chill ran down my spine that made the water pooling in my bed seem blessedly tropical by comparison. Violet gazed off into space fixedly for a moment, so fixedly in fact, that I had begun to believe that she was having a fit and whilst attempting to force open her jaws in an attempt to keep her from swallowing her tongue, she appeared to become increasingly agitated

"That's alright, Violet, just let it pass.." I said in my most soothing voice as she jerked away from me and said "What the devil?" Normally, I would have received a swift kick in the shins for my trouble, but she merely shook her head mournfully, uttering "just get dressed..her train is arriving this afternoon and she's expecting us to be waiting for her" and leaving me to attend to my toilette.


Having dressed and shaved and feeling somewhat more human and less like some nocturnal creature that makes it's home in the woods, I made my way groggily down to the kitchen and poured myself a cup of tea. I pondered the arrival of Aunt Juniper and what that would mean to my current existence.

Would I still be the same Phineas Matova, man about town? Would there be the long nights of carousing or would I be forced to stay home in the evenings, rubbing aunt bunions, threading needles and listening to stories about her rheumatic cat? I shuddered involuntarily. Granted, she was not Aunt Maria, the most feared of all the aunts, but still, it was not good news.

(hic)


to be continued..