Pilgrimage

 Yesterday I had a reason to be out of town so I spent the day in Leamington Spa. I found my way to this unassuming street of mixed owner-occupied and council flats. No seriously, this is Royal Leamington Spa after all, and they don't let you forget it. Although after lunchtime the streets began to fill with chavs - I really felt quite at home. I came to Clarendon Square to find a house associated with a great man. Across the square I spotted a blue plaque and rushed over to find that it was merely that Napoleon III had lived in that house.

 Instead this was the house I was looking for, no. 30. Please note that I did not go to the library and ask whether the road has ever been renumbered: my relative confidence on this is based purely on the fact that the numbers on all the doors look as if they have been there for a good long time, and may even be original. Assuming I've got it right, it was in this house, on 12th October 1875, that Edward Alexander Crowley was born. He is better to known to us magical people as Aleister Crowley, and his name wasn't the only thing to change as he got older. When he was naughty as a child, his mother used to say to him, 'You beast!', and he came to think of himself as The Beast. When I was nuaghty as a child, my mother used to say to me, 'You're a holy terror.' And we know how that has influenced me!

Incidentally this collecting box for guide dogs is at the railway station at Leamington. I hadn't thought before I saw this that the Goddess could have a soft spot for blind people in particular. But the dog Goddess definitely likes this, and they've unwittingly put three dogs on it: she loves things in threes! The last time I was in Leamington someone had dumped an empty coffee cup on it, which she thought was hilarious. She is enemy of the sun, and friend and companion of darkness, so no wonder if she would have a love of those with difficulty seeing (on any level). May she grant us the light of her torches where we have difficulty seeing the way ahead.