Hello and Happy February!
Is it just me, or did it seem that January felt like a year in itself?!!!
Welcome to the year of the (water) Rabbit!
It’s a year of Hope and the lucky color is PINK (Fuchsia is even better!) I recently spoke on the Chinese New Year and gave each Zodiac their lucky Color and metal or animals. I will give yours to you in your private session
Saturday, February 18th 6-9pm Join me and my friends in my purple tent for Psychic Readings at Mardi Gras in Casselberry in Concord Park Good music, food and good times!
Sundays 19th and 26th 7-11pm I’m at Café Tu TuTango for Mini Readings
Mondays at 11:11 pm on Facebook, join me for a livestream talk on various subjects. Play the emoji game and get a message!
Tuesday, February 7th 7pm on Zoom (message me for payment and Zoom link) Tarot For Lovers. Working with the Major Arcana and the Archetypes on the matters of relationships, love and Soulmates.
Tuesday, February 14th – Happy Valentine’s Day to you!
Wednesdays you can find me giving Psychic Readings at Universal Studios starting at 3pm Readings starting at $25 for 5 minutes up 30 minutes for $90
If you’d like to schedule a private session with me via phone, FaceTime or Messenger, you may book it on visibook.com/psychictorre OR text me at (321) 439-3073 and pay on the website at venusinvelvet.com
Look for my posts and updates on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook-Venus In Velvet / PsychicTorre
Let’s get together this month and see what’s in store for YOU!
Love and Light,
Torré
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Extravagant gardens with year round colorful blooms and sweet scents are one of Polk County’s greatest assets. Blesed with nearly 50 inches of rain annually and an average annual temperature of 72 degrees, our area is ideal for growing eveything from oranges to orchids.
What Became of Cypress Gardens?
F&D Italian Kitchen
LONGWOOD, FL
1000 W State Road 434
Longwood, FL 3275
(321) 295-7216
Location
7 best places in the UK to uncover the legend of King Arthur
Gawain of Orkney, King Arthur’s knight, was the flower of chivalry. The Welsh called him Gwalchmet, or “Falcon of May,” and Gwalchgivy, Meaning “White Falcon,” to honor his valor. When he was in his prime, it was said, the sun itself smiled on him. Yet Gawain was no more than a man, and like other men, he was vulnerable to the magic weilded by the beings of the first world. Once, he was entrapped in a spell for no reason greater than denying the ancient ones the honor they demanded.
Time Life: The Enchanted World
Seekers and Saviors
Welsh links with the Arthurian legend
and here’ another of my UK trips—-maybe when we drove all over?
Devon or Cornwall????
TIPS FOR AMERICANS (OR FIRST TIMERS) DRIVING IN THE UK
Tiny Island has an abundance of religious organizations of all denominations
When many of us go to Key West visiting the local churches aren’t always on our mind—but Key West—like the rest of the world is surprisingly (checkout the link above) rich in these places of salvation and safety, of forgiveness and redemption.
Some are still here:
Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church
223 Truman Avenue
The building above is the relocated and reconstructed in the 1920’s
First church was established in 1878 and was on Duval Street—Key West’s main drag. It was there for about 44 years before the building burned
The original church building was first established in 1878, in the 700 block of Duval Street. It was “damaged” in 1909 according to one source or to another burned in 1922 and the current building being began in 1922
History Of Bethel African American Episcopal Church
Others are re-purposed:
Located in Key West at 330 Julia Street is now the
Rock House Gallery:
Formerly a Bahama Village Church: the Saint Stephen Methodist Episcopal Church was vacated in 1979. Thereafter the building was used as office space, and residential space. In 1986 it was proposed to become a restaurant and bar but that was just not felt to be proper by many, for a former place of worship.
Eventually the The Rock House Gallery found it’s place here and today pieces of art have found a place among the building’s bare beams and stone walls making for an exotic space for the Gallery which in addition to art works also sells furniture.
Historically Black Churches in Bahama Village
www.ChristineGarberRealty.com
This was in a waiting room I was waiting in lately—don’t know anything about the class—it could be helpful>>>>>????
It’s just one DAM project after another.
I love to wander about stores and make original photos out of just items setting aound—I use a digital—but full size camera—but you can use your phone. Mine may not be extraordinary but I think they are fun.
5 Ways to Make Extraordinary Photographs of Ordinary Subjects
Founded for Preservation
Register: https://poker.historiclongwood.com
Longwood Walking Tours
The Bradley McIntire house—check link before more info on this house including opening days and times:
Bradlee-McIntyre House and Museum
TOP 13 THINGS TO DO IN EDINBURGH
If you haven’t been to Edinburgh, Scotland Why not?
Don’t get me wrong I love a lot of Areas in Scotland. Infact Stirling is another city and castle I adore. But Edinburgh with it’s castle set so impressively above the city itself ,
Edinburgh, Scotland – Video – Rick Steves’ Europe
A castle that has never been taken by Seige—and has been setting there guarding the town forever--or so it seems.
When you leave the castle you come to a large open space—this kind ofarea is common by castles–don’t want to allow anyone to have any cover when trying to sneek up on the fortress ya know. And it’s good for entertainment like the Military Tatoo which I saw on my frist trip to
Auld Reekie
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Next you come to the Royal Mile where you walking past memorials for the innocent persons–mostly woman who were excuted here for supposedly practicing witchcraft. There’s also a fantastic Hotel . Well I’ve never stayed there but have had a few meals at their restaurant which is also fantactic and then there’s the church pictured above that was founded by a King–with a biblical name.
Statue of Deacon William Brodie
outside Brodie’s Close.
OK just so you don’t think the Royal Miles is just glee and giggles I’ll tell you about the Deacon:
First let me tell you that if you’re looking for a real life Jeckel and Hyde
You need go no further than
Brodie Close
But let me tell you about the Deacon—–OK we’ve gotta go back to the 18th c to meet one of the town’s most respected citizens who was eventually to be known as one of it’s worst. In fact this differnce like night and day in his personality may have been where Robert Lewis Stevens Got his idea for Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde.
Brodie was born in 1741, a son of a cabinet maker who I understand was well respected—with no alter ego rising its ugly head in the father– and from whom the close was named for (this is a name for alley like exits off of the Royal Mile along which people lived and back in the day usually had a nice layer of feces and urine slowly running down hill on the walk way) and not his son.
The son himself was a skilled craftsman, as well as a member of the Town Council—a leader of the guild of Wright and Masons (from hence the Deacon title. )
dr jekyll and mr hyde 2002
But there was another side of this model citizen–where his taste for a MUCH BETTER life style which his income couldn’t bring him whetted his appetite and inspired his quest for another way to obtain the GOOD LIFE.
The Worst Murders and Executions in Edinburgh’s History
And being an intelligent, if not a very moral, man, he worked out a system where he plied his woodworking skills, as well as those of observation during the days while he along with a crew under his supervision worked at various customer homes and places of businesses. Then after dark he would break into these location and steal their goods to contribute to those aforemention dreams of luxury.
THE ROYAL MILE: THE MOST FAMOUS STREET IN EDINBURGH
But all good things and even a few bad must eventually come to an end and one of his crew—I presumed they work days and nights just like the master—got a bit sloppy which ended him in jail and even back then they were willing to make deals (wow) and his flunky agreed to go King’s (instead of state’s) evidence to save his neck (and I mean that literally).
Brodie, it is said, to have heard about all that and attempted to flee but was caught and returned to Scotland where he was jailed, tried, and finally hung at Edenburgh Tolbooth.
Oh and least I forget the legend is that he reputedly bribed the hangman and fled to Paris. OF COURSE. I guess they hung a look alike????
Deacon Brodie / The Crime Files
And your final stop: Holy Rood
This site was originally a monestary (Holy Rood) which added a guest house for the more promient visitors and this eventually became much more—today the abbey/church (which you can walk around) is in ruins and the guest house is lost (replaced or built around?—they did that a lot in the old, old days)–and is a Royal Palace (it’s close to Scotland’s Parliment as well which isn’t too far off the Mile) which you can visit .
Need to get some lab work done—got this from my doctors office:
Go to this site to locate a place near you and for the address of those Shown on the map above as well:
www.labcorp.com
Celebrate Harriet Tubman’s 200th birthday at these 5 sites*
Margaret Harriet Tubman: Born into slavery in Maryland (*Tubman’s exact birth date is unknown, but estimates place it between 1820 and 1822 in Dorchester County, Maryland.). Tubman began working as a Union nurse in 1862 at the request of Mass. Govern John Andrew, serving in the field from South Carolina to Florida and at hospitals in Virginia. She led troops during a South Carolina raid that liberated more than 700 enslaved people. And she served as a spy.
The Caregiver by Kate Bolik
Smithsonian Magazine
Dec 2021
Retracing Harriet Tubman’s Steps on Maryland’s Eastern Shore
Picture is my grand parents but didn’t have anybody else to put here
Sorry
I hate it when I see old people and then realize we went to High School together
Longwood Inn—another of my pictures
Where to find Constantinople Today: On the Trail of Constantinople in Istanbul
“Constantinople, the glory of the Greeks, rich in renown and richer still in possession” So wrote a chaplain to Louis VII who accompanied his Master on the Second Crusade. The city had been founded dsome 800 years earlier, in AD330, by Constantine as a “New Rome”–it too had a senate and was built on seven hills–and as a new capital was rapidly provided with the necessities of civilized life: palaces and public buildings, a hippodrome, monumental squares, market and baths. As befitted the capital of the first Christian empire, there was many splendid churches but no temples or pagan gods.
The Plantagenet Chronicles
Edited by Elizabeth Hallam
22 MUST-HAVE EXPERIENCES IN ISTANBUL, TURKEY
15 Best Things to Do in Casselberry (FL)
ENTRANCE TO THE CASTLE
in 2016—-and you can go back to Mid May in this blog to see my 2 weeks in the UK and then a month here in TIntagel—-where I fell in love with the people who treated me so well, the town with its tourist all about during the day and then a quieter and more village atomsphere by night—the whole month of June I learned of village life from a room above a local pub—-I learned of the people—not as a tourist peeps at people walking by—but as you meet neigbors and people you live with and then return to their company—-and loved to hear–“-Are you sure you’re a Yank or an American?”
The Making of Tintagel Bridge
The bridge wasn’t there then–there were plans but not instititued yet—I have heard that since the bridge has gone up the visitors to the town have increased greatly—I am happy for them, but If I returned I would certainly miss the quiet and the evenings with people that I had met and who had been kind to me. I would have infact used the Bridge though—as I’d sprained my knee a bit visiting some historical sites on my earlier journey and couldn’t do the deep stairs require to access the royal citadel of Tintagel castle the month I was there.
Was This The Castle Of The Legendary King Arthur? | Extreme Archaeology | Absolute
it certainly has my vote—-and if you haven’t seen it you really should I’d love to go back again. But don’t take my word:
Sweet Nightingale | Songs of England #2 | Tintagel Castle, Cornwall
Mighty indeed was Tintagel, fortress of the Dukes of Cornwall, looming on a slate cliffed headland high above the sea. No amy could breach its defenses. Yet on a winters night between one year and the next, a frail creature, no more than half a man, stole away with the castle’s treasure and took it into his own keeping.
Postcards from Tintagel: Drone Footage
Thus was the infant Arthur, heir to Britain, placed under a shield of magic, not to be seen again for fifteen years. Merlin the Enchanter was the man who took him from the fortress where his mother lay. Merlin was the man who hid him.
The Fall of Camelot: The enchanted world.
Places to see in ( Tintagel – UK )
Another of those fun pictures I take in stores
Ireland’s official holiday and travel guide | Ireland.com
Clothing: Ireland is an easy going place and casual clothes are acceptable everywhere even at the fanciest restaurants. Because the weather is changable layers of sweaters and shirts can be added to and removed are recommended. A light weight water proof jacket with a hood is indisposable
Irish Country Inns
Karen Brown’s
17 Ireland Travel Tips You Need to Know [in 2023]