0: Welcome to the Môrdreigiau Chronicles

Introducing myself and the amazing discovery I made in my attic!

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Transcript of video if you can’t watch it right now (and be warned there’s rambling ahead):

I have been holding onto this for quite some time until I was ready to show this to you.

I went looking around some of the older parts of the property and up in the attic, I found something.

And this has inspired me to start a series called The Môrdreigiau Chronicles.

Hi, my name is Leanne Shawler. I'm an artist, writer, and I love antiquing.

Here’s an example of my antiquing love:

My mum had a set of books¹ as a child that I inherited, and I loved them. And so I've been slowly collecting them over the years. In the Great Mouldy Disaster of ‘22², I lost one of my favourites.

So I popped onto the online used book marketplace, ABE Books.

(In the video I show off the Cherry Ames books added to my collection, including my favourite, Cherry Ames Flight Nurse.)

Back to The Môrdreigiau Chronicles… I was really thrilled to find this trunk in our attic.

Our house was built in 1914 and we've been here for the last couple of years and we're still exploring a few areas. Most of the place was restored when we moved in but there are a couple of places where there are some old things.

I decided to go take a look in the attic.

And this is what I found.

With my husband's help, I have brought this [trunk] down from the attic. It's pretty dusty. Aside from the mousetrap and some extra insulation, this was all that was up there.

Let's have a look inside. (If you haven’t watched the video feel free to use your imagination here!)

Here we go.

I got it.

Paper.

Ooh, there's some lace over here. You know one of my favorite things is lace tablecloths, right?

Look at that!

That's hand-stitched!

That's beautiful.

I wonder why it's laid out on the... Look at that!

That's really pretty.

That's really pretty.

Argh, more paper … there's something in the paper bag?

Ah! That's a journal!

Okay we need to take this and have a really good flip through of this.

(Back to me chatting to the camera aka you!)

I set up the filming for it because I knew it was going to be like at least a pretty old journal to look through and share with you as my first video for this little publication that I decided to do just for fun. I've filmed everything already from beginning to end.

I knew that I had to transcribe it for you all to read, mainly because the handwriting is a little difficult to follow and it took me some time to nut out the words and I knew it wouldn't work in video format and I've actually cut those bits where I've lifted the letter off closer to my eyes to read it better.

So what will happen in this publication is that for each section (I meant instalment) that I share, I don’t [always] manage to get a whole diary entry in, and some diary entries are short so I’ve lumped them all together.

You’ll get to see me look at those pages in video format [and find the hidden journaling].

Feel free to skip it [the video] if that’s not your bag to watch video and you just want to read the text. It’s just like a little bonus thing I’ve thrown in so you can see how this story has unfolded.

The very first thing we'll talk about is the mystery, because that stopped me right in my tracks as soon as I opened the journal. It's very strange.

And then we'll go into the installments, the diary entries.

So that'll take us about 24 weeks.

And then … I did find another book.

I'm going to share that with you at the end of the 24 weeks, just in case you're curious, or I might drop it in…. I've had a bit of a look at it too… And we'll have a look and see what was in there…. It's very interesting. [←this is me being all mysterious and realising I can’t tell you when I’ll share about it because it would be a spoiler for you.]

This means the story begins in earnest next week with the first instalment! What did you think of the trunk I found? Questions? Comment below. I’ll also start a Chat thread for introductions so we can get to know each other as we read along together!

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1. Cherry Ames Nurse series

2. The Great Mouldy Disaster of ‘22: we moved from the U.S. to Australia and the container containing our stuff suffered some water damage. One box of books and my vintage luggage containing fabrics of various vintages (of which I tried to save as much as I can but the books could not be saved.)