The Trespassers

Dear listener,

Here is a cautionary tale that I have derived from a story that one of my school teachers used to tell. He used to tell it to people who wanted to drop one or another of their GCSE subjects. When you have listened to it you may wonder what relevance it could possibly have to education ... but I think the message is clear enough. Not to give too much away, but there is a certain way of dealing with problems that may not be the best in the long run.

Bringing an appropriately transylvanian atmosphere to the soundtrack, we have the Kyiv Chamber Choir's "Hymns of the All Night Vigil" and a bit of dark ambient wonderworking from Robert Rich's "Cowell Theater" album, both of which are available from the scrumptious Magnatune website.

Here is a link to the audio file; but - if you have not already - how about subscribing with iTunes or adding the feed into your podcatcher so you never miss another episode. Hopefully we will be kicking things up from fortnightly to weekly episodes in the not-too-distant future, so stay tuned.

Tim (sound engineer extraordinaire) worked really hard with me to bring this episode for your listening pleasure so we hope that you enjoy it. Thank you for listening, and if you did enjoy it, please let us know with a comment or something.

Sweet dreams,

Seymour.

The Cat and The Mouse

Dear Listener,

Traditionally we know that cats and mice do not get on with one another - it's a cat-eat-mouse world! But here is a story that just asks "what if" a particular cat and a particular mouse should break the mould because of their love for one another?

This is a story adapted closely from one of Grimm's Fairy Tales. The brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were collectors of European folk tales, publishing some of our best loved and most often recited stories in the early 1800s. Unlike the "disneyfied" fairy tales that have become popular in our own time, the stories that the Grimm brothers collected tended to be dark and obscure ...

The rather evocative, at times dark and obscure, solo violin of Anthony Salvo accompanies this tale which I hope you enjoy. If you like the music you can download it yourself from magnatune.com

To listen to this week's podcast you can click on this link but I really recommend subscribing to the rss feed (there's a selection of feeds at the top right) with a podcatcher like Juice or iTunes - then you won't miss any future episodes.

Enjoy!

Midsummer

Dear Listener,

Our greatest enemies were the stinging nettles ...

As a teenager, I lived a stone's throw from the river Thames and spent every opportunity I had to fish in it, swim in it and mess about in boats upon it until I knew every thread and backwater of its course through the valley.

This week's story is an unembellished fragment of autobiography from that time in my life and I hope I have been able to picture it for you.

The background music is by Healing Muses, available from magnatune.com as always. To listen to the episode you can use this link, or get the feed by RSS or iTunes..

I hope that you enjoy it.

Greatness

Dear Listener,

Prince of many kingdoms?

What is greatness, anyway? I guess we all have a different idea of what it means to be "great". Here is a story about someone who was rather like a lot of us, and certainly a lot like me, who had never really thought it through.

My masterful sound recordist, Tim, has got me onto a sensible recording schedule, which should mean that these podcasts go out on a steady fortnightly basis from now on. Also, in case you were wondering, I intend to keep on publishing here until the stories dry up which is not likely to happen any time soon as I get at least two new ideas for new ones every week.

Let me point out the stunning artwork for this episode, too, by Robyn. She has been working on illustrations for all the stories.

You can download the podcast by clicking here or subscribe on iTunes or paste the feed into any other podcatcher.

Thank you for listening and ...

Enjoy!

One Stormy Night

Dear Listener,

What are archaeologists really looking for?

This week's story is longer than the usual Borders of Sleep fare and certainly longer than I would normally podcast; but, I am still wanting to try out different things and see what people like. I did consider putting this into parts I and II but I thought you might find that annoying.

That said, this story is long, but not as long as the time for which one of the characters has been absent from himself.

When I wrote it, it seemed to get a life of its own and to run away with me, but hopefully not like the horse in the story.

There is a lot crammed into it, but not quite as much as you will see crammed into a certain item of clothing that you will hear about.

The airy and dark acoustic guitar soundtrack is from The Glass Desert by Harlan Williams and it's available from Magnatune.

You can download the podcast by clicking here or subscribe on iTunes or paste the feed into any other podcatcher.

I hope you enjoy the story, but feedback of all sorts is always welcome. Tim and I were just saying how great it is when a listener coments - it really makes our day.

Thank you for listening.

Tree and Stream

If you were water, what sort of water would you be?

Would you be the water in a stream or the water in a tree?

Or would you be ice or vapour?

And what would it be like to be able to see the path of an ant or a star with the same clarity as we see the path to our own front door?

In search of a stag ...

All of these are questions you may ponder as you listen to this story about a wayfarer, and a tree ... and a stream.

The soothing soundtrack on this episode comes from the album: The Once and Future Harp by the Wesh Triple Harp player Cheryl Ann Fulton. It is available from Magnatune who don't pay me anything to say how great they are ... they just are.

To download this week's episode you can click on the post title or here. But remember the best way to make sure you don't miss a podcast is to subscribe to posts using the RSS feed and your podcatcher or aggregator or Google Reader or whatever you use.

Water in the Desert

Here we go, at last, with another story. As we get into a rhythm with writing, recording and publishing these, they shall be generally appearing on a fortnightly basis. Each story is self contained and will be between 8-18 minutes long. My thanks to everyone who has been asking about when the next story is coming out.

Like paper cut-outs ...

Here's a story that is a precise retelling of a dream that I had many years ago. Make of it what you will; but, for my part, I have never been able to escape the feeling that there is more life to be had if we would only stop being so clever about everything.

This week's soundtrack comes from the album: The Lost Mode  which is a really lovely fusion of medieval and middle eastern modal music. It is available from Magnatune which is a wonderful music download site that you should definitely check out.

To download this week's episode you can click on the post title or here. But remember the best way to make sure you don't miss a podcast is to subscribe to posts using the RSS feed and your podcatcher or aggregator or Google Reader or whatever you use.

The Prince and the Bird

Welcome to the first episode of Stories from the Borders of Sleep. This weeks' episode features an original story by me entitled, The Prince and the Bird.

It became a millstone around his neck ...

Do you ever feel as if the landscape around you mirrors your own self in some way? That's how the hero in this week's story felt and he was surprised at what he discovered about himself there, too. But was he really a hero? I'll leave that for you to decide.

The soundtrack for this little fairytale comes from the albums: Hidden Sky by Jami Sieber, and Lines Build Walls by Ehren Starks. Both of them are available from Magnatune which is a wonderful music download site that you should definitely check out.

I'd be delighted to hear feedback of all sorts and hope you enjoy the podcast.

Click here or on the Title to download the MP3 (12MB)