Breeze’s Secret Job.

“I will never tell you another truthful story about me.” Breeze said.

Tulip frowned. She didn’t understand why and asked him to explain.

“Because since I told you about the tree all you do is ask me questions.” He folded his arms infront of his chest. “Stop doing it.”

Tulip smiled. “Okay but perhaps you will answer me this one last question. Why did you stop gardening?”

Breeze scowled at her.

Mrs Groundsel was walking past them. She was delivering a batch of blackberry jam to her friend Robyn and heard Tulips question. She stopped and said, “why would you think he has?”

“Because he is always asleep or sitting in a tree?” Tulip said.

“Not always only when you are around.” Mrs Groundsel walked away.

Breeze climbed his tree and Tulip was tired of asking questions so she went home.

Tulip didn’t forget Mrs. Groundsel’s answer. She decided to become a Fairy detective.  She began to get up earlier in the morning and go to bed late at night. But it didn’t matter, whenever she went looking for him Breeze was always asleep. Izzy asked Tulip, “do you need a sleeping potion? You look very tired and your wings are droopy looking.”

Tulip told her the reason why she was feeling so tired.

Izzy was quiet for a while as she  sipped her tea. Suddenly she said, “I know why you can’t find him working or moving about during the day because he is working at night.”

Tulip shook her head. “No Breeze is not a bat he is that jolly green ogre we keep tripping over on the porch when we have finished baking. He can smell vanilla icing a mile away.”

Izzy said, “tonight you and I will keep watch. I will go to his cave and watch from high above it. You can stay at the edge of the forest. You can follow him.”

***************

 

The moon was bright, the sky a dark curtain behind it.

Izzy was sitting a short distance from the entrance to Breeze’s cave. She was knitting a jumper for a baby rabbit. Tulip was writing out new recipes at the edge of the wood as she waited for Izzy’s signal.

Suddenly Izzy heard Breeze stomping out of his cave.  Spike was sitting on his shoulder. They walked straight past Izzy without seeing her. She waited until they were a little distance away then she send a ribbon of light shooting into the sky.

Tulip spotted the signal. She sent her recipe book back to her kitchen and hid.

It didn’t take long for Breeze to appear on the path from the mountains. Tulip was surprised when he didn’t enter the wood but turned sharp left and walked towards the flat fields behind the trees.

She stayed well behind him. Tulip didn’t want him to see her.  He walked for a long time, through three giant fields.

Then suddenly he came to a small field. Breeze bent low. Spike jumped from his shoulder.

Tulip forgot to watch Breeze she was too busy trying to recognize all of the vegetables she saw growing in the field.

“He is a secret gardener. ” She sat in the hedge for a while and watched him work. He was very good. There were no weeds in his garden just healthy, carrots, potatoes, sweetcorn, peas and beans. Suddenly she had answers to a lot of her questions. It was Breeze who supplied everyone with the vegetables they loved when they couldn’t find them close to Mudpile Wood.

Tulip wanted to rush out and give him a hug. But, she knew she couldn’t. It was his secret to keep or reveal and not hers.

She decided to go home.

Next day at lunch time Tulip was asleep when there was a loud knock at her front door. It was Izzy, ” So you didn’t find out where he went or what he did?”

Tulip said “Yes, I mean no I didn’t.”

Izzy smiled “And I suppose you didn’t bake the giant gingerbread man Breeze is sharing with everyone in the middle of the clearing?”

Tulip looked very innocent and tired. “No, I can only bake small gingerbread men in my small oven.”

Izzy decided not to ask any more questions. “You look tired. I will bring you back some of the amazing gingerbread. Pity we don’t have the recipe, isn’t it?”

Tulip was too tired to worry about her friends twinkling eyes. She went back to bed.

 

The Tree – Breeze’s Link to his tree.

 

Tulip sat beside Breeze. Her legs were swinging back and forth as she sat on a wide smooth branch.

“What is it with you and trees?” She scrunched up her nose against the strong sunlight as she stared up at him.

“I like trees. That is it.” he said with a dreamy smile.

“But…why?” She asked him.

He considered his answer for a while. “I suppose all of my family liked trees. My grandfather grew his own apple trees, the orchard is over there.” Breeze waved his right arm in the direction of Treacle Wood, many miles away.

“My dad loved to weave baskets from willow and he adored willow trees because he could sit in the shade and work all day long.”

Tulip said, “so trees have been a thing in your family for years.”

“Yes.” Breeze said. “Have you any more questions before I take a nap.”

“Just one. Why this tree?” She looked about them, there were many other giant trees in the wood but Breeze always went to this one.

“Because I grew it.”

His answer surprised her. “You grew it?” She looked at him closely.  She could not imagine him planting anything. She tried to picture it.

“You can’t be that old.”

“For an ogre I am not. But I am still many years older than this tree.” He smiled then said,  “I remember the day I planted it. I was mad at Mrs. Groundsel. She called me a lazy young ogre who couldn’t be bothered to do anything.” Breeze yawned. “So I decided to show her I could do something. I planted the seed. I  came back every day to water and talk to it. Trees like company. It became like a …” He tapped his head with his fingers searching for a word.

“Hobby?” Tulip suggested.

“Pet.” Breeze said. “I grew fond of it and that was that.”

“That was that.” Tulip repeated. “Did you plant many more?”

Breeze nodded his head. “Loads, there was only five trees here when I started, now look.”

Tulip looked at the many hundreds of trees.

“You really are a s ..” she began.

“Strange ogre?” Breeze said.

“Surprising ogre. I think you deserve a blueberry muffin after all that work. I will bring it by later.” She flew away and left Breeze to have a nap.

 

 

We won an Award!!!

We are all really happy, a big thank you to davidmbeecroft. He has awarded us the Liebster Award.

 

Before I explain the rules of the Award and answer David’s tricky questions I would like to say this about him: he has a way with words that stops you in your tracks and makes you think about why you do stuff. This, for me is a much needed few minutes of reading. I love his thoughts for today. Check out his blog on the link above and judge for yourself.

 

THE LIEBSTER AWARD

Which in our minds is a giant twelve foot shiny button that cannot stay still as it flashes like a rainbow coloured traffic lights.

 

 

 

The Questions were answered by Breeze with notes /remarks by Tulip in brackets.

Q1: Do you like tea?

Yes if it is flavored with vanilla muffins.

(What he means is he drinks muffin soup )

Q2: What are you having for dinner tonight?

Pumpkin Stew with wild rice and mushrooms and I can’t wait for it.

(Cooked by Mrs Groundsel because all Breeze can cook is eggs, boiled, fried, scrambled or poached)

Q3: If you could have any super-power, what would it be?

To be able to shrink as small as a fairy.

(He wants to be able to fit into my kitchen and eat all the muffins and cakes!)

Q4: Do you have a super power/ ability?

My current super power is climbing Trees. I am the only Ogre who can do this.

(He learnt to do this to avoid going to school or working)

Q5: Why?

I climb trees because I love watching clouds and the world below me. It is also a pretty powerful place to sleep.

(He is hidden from view and can sleep his days away instead of working)

Q6: How strong are you?

I can lift a 200 year old tree full of birds.

(It comes in handy if a tree falls to the ground)

Q7: What colour eyes do you have?

Dark brown.

Q8: How are you today?

 I am a little tired because I helped Hamish paint his house a beautiful shade of purple.

 (This means they painted the house, themselves and their pets, and the surrounding trees purple. Some of the birds were pretty angry to find their nests were now a yucky shade of purple.)

Q9: Snog, marry, ignore? I prefer to ignore.

Q10: What pet would you like to own?

 I am happy with my pet frog. Spike has a remarkable love for dancing.He does not sing much but he loves to dance especially hip hop dancing.

(Luckily frogs hate cup cakes.)

Q11: What is the happiest you have ever been?

 When I was a toddler I fell into a batch of marshmallow Icing. It was better than any present. (This is true I was told he ate his way out of the bowl)

And the last part of the award is to pass this award on to other bloggers so here we go:

1 Gluestickmum

2  The entrepreneurialwife

2  Momgoeson

4 Confessions of a crummy mummy

5  ecschmit87

6  swimintheadultpool.com

Now for the tricky part your list of questions are as follows:

1 If you were stuck on an island what is the one thing you would bring with you?

2  Which do you prefer exercising or reading or blogging?]

3  Why did you start blogging?

4 World War three has broken out what do you do?

5 What is your favorite film?

6 Do you still hang out or keep in contact with your school friends?

7 List your top five favorite foods

8 Are you a city person or a country person?

9  What makes you happy?

10 what makes you sad?

11 What would you like to be when you grow up?

A map creates chaos. Part two.

Breeze left the group to work on their new problem. How to make sure a house would not be moved. He knew this would be tricky once there was a magic spell involved. He believed it wouldn’t matter if you tied it to a mountain because magic is magic and always works.

Minutes later he was sitting on Tulips decking eating a warm cherry scone. “This is nice” he said staring at the scone.

Tulip smiled then said, “But?”

“But I don’t care if the fairy cakes are a day old I will still eat them.” He looked sadly at the cherry bun. “Besides I hate cherries almost as much as I dislike bold tiny witches.”

He told Tulip about the map and explained why there was sounds of hammering and banging coming from the wood. They sat for a while and thought about the problem.

“I think the only way for Lovisma to listen is for us to turn her trick around.” Tulip said.

“How?”

Tulip considered her answer carefully.  “You say everyone is tying their houses down well I have an idea that might fix this problem. ”

Breeze took some cherries out of the scone handed them to Tulip before popping the scone into his mouth. “Will she like it?”

Tulip laughed “She will hate it. We will work on our plan and before we go to sleep tonight your worries will be over.”

The sun woke Breeze up by dancing about in the sky. When Breeze peeped out of his cave door he saw why the sun was dancing.  Lovisma was on her broomstick. She appeared to be carving monsters out of the clouds. He sat and watched her for a moment. She was good. When each monster was carved it woke up and chased the last monster she created. The sky was full of hopping cloud monsters. The sun was trying to peep through the sky of moving monsters.

He shouted to her. “Morning Lovisma.”

She flew close to his door. “Morning Mr. Breeze. Grace said you loved my map.” She was hovering in the air level with his eyes. “Did you really?”

“I did but I have some questions for you perhaps we should go and look at it.”

When they got to the map they saw there was a group camping around it. They were asleep until Lovisma giggled and pointed at the tail of her broom stick. The tail twitched making a sound like a huge bell. The loud boooooommm shook the leaves from the trees.

Breeze shook his head. “That wasn’t a nice way to wake everyone.”

“It was fun. What is wrong with my map.”

“The houses are in the wrong place.”

Lovisma smiled. “I don’t thinkthey are,” she turned to the small group and asked them, “what is wrong with my map?”

Everyone roared, “the houses are in the wrong places.”

The most amazing thing happened every house in the wood rose high above the trees, there was a rainbow coloured ribbon linking each house together.

Lovisma looked at the ribbon.  She scowled. “hat is odd I don’t remember that, what is it attached to?”

Her eyes opened wide when she saw what was at the end of the ribbon. “It’s….My house, put my house back where it belongs.”

Tulip and Izzy appeared beside her. “We can’t put your house back until you put everyone else’s house back where it belongs.”

Lovisma got mad. Her broom stick flew away. Her hat jumped off her head. She spun about and shouted but the fairies ignored her. In the end she had to put the houses back. She stomped off to find her broom stick before any thing else went wrong on her.

A map creates chaos.

Breeze felt happy after his swim with the hippo’s.  He was a little bit dirty, this was due to Grace’s love for mud fights. But it was fun and Breeze did like mud.

His happiness vanished when he saw a crowd of animals and elves staring at Lovisma’s map.

Hamish asked Breeze, “Is this a joke,  nothing is in the right place.”

Elvis a rabbit who couldn’t sit still was running around the group shouting “It is a trick. She will turn you all into horrid monsters.”

Breeze said, “No it is simply a painting. Not a great painting but a painting.”

Mrs. Groundsel had a baby pixie in her arms. “It is a terrible painting, little Dee keeps crying when she looks at it. What I am afraid of most is that none of our houses are in the right place.”

Hamish looked interested when she said this. He slowly said, “maybe this is where they will be tomorrow.”

Martin a dwarf who loved decorating his house, jumped to his feet and shouted, “she is going to mess with our houses, best to tie them down.”

The group ran in every direction, everyone shouting, “yes tie them down, good and tight.”

Breeze sat on the ground and thought about this a little. This problem felt like another trick and he would need a spell or two to solve it.  He set off for Tulips house.  “I do hope she is baking I could use a really huge fairy cake just now.”

Lovisma’s Masterpiece

The very next morning there was a loud rumbling heard in the wood. The ground was trembling. Trees were shivering so much birds were being thrown out of them.

Breeze climbed to the highest point of his tree and looked in the direction of the noise. He smiled. “It is no wonder everything is quivering and quaking, it is Grace the hippopotamus and her friends coming to visit.”

He slid down the tree and went to meet them.  Grace and three other hippo’s stopped before Breeze. “It is a special delivery for you.” Grace huffed and puffed from beneath a large chunk of a tree.  Carefully they lowered it to the ground.

Breeze groaned “it is Lovisma’s map.”

Grace said, “you are very clever for an Ogre. We will tell her you liked it.” She turned to her friends and said, “Job done lets go for a swim.” The hippo’s thundered off leaving Breeze staring at the map.

 

He muttered  “I think I will go swimming too. I will leave this map here and maybe some bark munching invisible monsters will come and eat it.”

He raced off before Lovisma appeared.

 

 

 

Breeze receives a map with a worrying note.

Breeze never gets a letter. When a letter was dropped into his lap while he was asleep  it surprised him so much he fell out of the tree. He landed on a pile of soft leaves with a gentle thump. He lay there blinking wondering what had happened then a large flag landed on his head.

“Ouch. I didn’t order a hat or a flag” he mumbled lifting it from his head. He sat up and examined the flag. “You are not a flag. You are a map.” He grinned but there was no one around to grin at so he rolled the map up and ambled off to Tulip’s house.

“Look what I got Tulip it is a map.” He peered in the window at her.

Tulip was putting the finishing touches to a pixie’s birthday cake. The icing was tricky. It was purple with pink spots on it. The pink spots were misbehaving. They kept sliding off the cake.

“Let me help.” Breeze offered and caught a row of spots before they slid to the floor.

She scowled at him. “I’d best finish it later.”

“No please don’t stop because I am here.” He smiled.

“If I don’t stop trying there will be no icing left as you will keep eating it.” She walked out of her kitchen and sat on a swing on her decking.

“What is it a map of?” Tulip scrunched up her eyes against the morning sun.

Breeze stood in front of her and he blocked out the sun. “Here, look, what do you think?”

 

Tulip looked at it and smiled.  “It is a good map. Did you read the note?”

“What note?”

“The one that says this is Elegant’s rough map of Mudpile, her finished one will follow tomorrow but Lovisma thinks hers will be much better. It is going to be a competition.”

Breeze groaned. “That means a witch fight. Perhaps I should go on holiday.” He rolled the map up and headed home with a large chunk of icing in hand.

A little more about Witches.

Late one night, when the wood was quiet. A soft  swooshing sound was heard in the night sky.

Breeze peeped out of his cave door and saw an odd thing in the sky.

 

He went back to bed and dreamed of flying witches hats.

The next morning he told Tulip of his dream.

She smiled then said, “I don’t think it was a dream. Because the witches have moved their home.”

Breeze frowned. He closed his eyes and said, “It is down by the giant grasses at the edge of the wood. That is where I saw it yesterday.”

Tulip shook her head. “Well it is gone, poof, gone in the night sky. They said they would let us know where there new address is.”

Breeze chuckled. “Lovisma has gone.” He rubbed his hands together, “no more nasty pranks. This is too good to be true.”

“Don’t be silly they have only moved, not gone. We will find out shortly where they are as Elegant is drawing a new map of the wood. She is tired of everyone complaining that they don’t know how to find a shoe maker or a baker.”

Breeze sighed. “Now that is stupid all you have to do is sniff and follow your nose. The smell of leather means shoes, the smell of cakes or bread means the bakers.”

He left her and went for a nap. He knew better than to worry about a silly map as there was nothing wrong with his nose..

Elegant to the rescue.

The yearly event  for witches is the “Broomstick Dive and Duck Ball”. It is a night of feasting, music, competitions and games.

Lovisma loves the competition called, “Whackiest disguise for a broomstick.” Last year she disguised her broom stick as a sausage roll. A giant warlock tried to eat it and broke a tooth. Lovisma didn’t hang around to collect her prize.

Elegant loves the “Design a witches hat” competition. Last year her hat looked like a giant board game complete with rolling dice and moving figures.

This year the two witches began their preparations early. On the night of the ball, they took great care with their appearance. Elegant ‘s gown  was midnight blue sprinkled with tiny glittering stars, her shoes and hat matched.

Lovisma spent ages planning her outfit. When she appeared beside Elegant, she looked like a giant swirling lollypop.  They called their broomsticks and got ready to leave for Warlock Twittchets house. 

Suddenly a loud scream was heard followed by a dog howling in pain. “What is that?” Elegant asked.

“I don’t know. Lets go.” Lovisma sped off into thenight sky.

Elegant looked towards the wood. The howling was dreadful. “Oh, dear.” She mumbled and flew after Lovisma. When she caught up with her sister she said, “I need to help it.”

“But you will miss the fun. Remember last years popping cheesecake. It was fantastic.” Lovisma said.

“I will catch up later.” Elegant said and went into the wood.

She found Tulip and Hamish trying to get close to a huge dog.  He was standing on three legs, the third one was bent and blood poured from it.

“My magic isn’t strong enough. He is in great pain.” Tulip whispered to Elegant.

“We will work together and fix this.” Elegant said.

Even with magic it took them a long time.  When his paw was mended and bandaged. Hamish  said, “We have to get him home.”

Tulip agreed, “yes he can’t stay here he will frighten everyone but where is his home?”

Elegant thought about the problem and declared, “there is only one way to do this.  We need a potion from the bubbling cauldron. Hamish, we will be back in a jiffy.”

The bubbling cauldron was asleep. It didn’t like being wakened and asked to work. Eventually Elegant persuaded it to allow her to make one potion.

When they returned they added the potion to water. When the husky drank it he told them his story.

Elegant was happy to return the animal to his home but she felt a little sad she had missed the fun at the ball. The next day when everyone in Mudpile Wood  heard of Elegants kind act, they decided to hold a party in her honor to thank her.