• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Castle Raven by Laura Black Laura Black. Big Butts, Fat Thighs, and Other Secrets to Success. Big butts and fat thighs are simply metaphors for those things that we dislike about ourselves. From cottage-cheese thighs to the belief that we are a failure because our position was eliminated, our big butts too often become our big buts.With humor. Castle Raven. Katie is an incurable tomboy. Roaming the Highland wilderness, she finds the haunting island of Eilean Fitheach with its ruined castle and spectacular landscape. But the locals shun the island and rumours abound concerning the strange powers surround. The Falls of Gard. The forced marriage of beautiful young Arabella Gordon to the enigmatic, distant Marquess of Gard threatens to blight her happiness until an ominous series of events makes happiness the least of her worries. Strathgallant. Stranger To The Exquisite Treachery Of Love. Beautiful, headstrong Perdita Sinclair, future Countess of Strathgallant, was to choose a husband before inheriting her adopted grandmother's fortune. Faced with selecting one o her four handsome. Wild Cat. PENNILESS AS THE POOREST TINKER Catriona, mistress of Strathlarrig Castle, had seen her family's fortunes squandered by her loving but eccentric father. Then came hope. The wealthy, witty, handsome Lord Carnmore wanted her as his wife. But as. Ravenburn. She e felt alone, and unloved, in her tower room at Castle Raven. Too nervous, her stepmother and doctor agree to bear the strain of Victorian society. Too much in the shade of her fashionable half-sister to be sought after. Yet Katherine found jo. Glendraco. Runaway. from the home of her rigidly Victorian grandparents, beautiful 18-year-old Kirstie flees to Glendraco Castle. Into Mystery that concerns her other grandfather who died under scandalous circumstances fifty years before. Into Romance w. Albany. Raised in the modest home of a loving aunt in the Scots Lowlands, Leonora Albany grows up to be a bold & bonny lass. But not until she turns 17 does she suspect that she's very likely a queen -- the true, blue-blooded heir to Bonnie Prince Charlie! . knaresboroughcastleravens. Why do we have ravens at Knaresborough Castle? Not many people realise that Knaresborough Castle is actually a royal castle , King John to King Edward's the 2nd and 3rd have stayed here, to this very day the castle still belongs to the english monarchy as part of the Duchy of Lancaster. This confuses alot of our visitors . Why is a lancasterian castle in Yorkshire? It has nothing to do with counties. The Duchy of Lancaster refers to the House of Lancaster, to the tudor dynasty. In 1999, I acquired a raven who was named after the main character in a childrens book I had writtien, at the time I knew the then raven master Mr Cope at the Tower of London. He was very helpful. I love history, and Knaresborough has so much, but many local children are not interested , I wanted to change all that, so made my story revolve around several historical places in Knaresborough, the castle, The house in the Rock, The chapel of the Lady of the Crag, and of cause Saint Roberts Cave where my story starts. My idea was to go into local schools to encourage children to read this story, then learn the true history of the various places. I also wanted to take Ravenelf with me, but was unable to get the neccessary public liability insurance. He suggested I approach the Duchy of Lancaster, and the local borough council to see if I could take Ravenelf into the castle grounds, because then I could use the insurance that Birds of Prey displays use , only my cover would be for a raven. Not only did I get the relevent insurance, but I got permission from both the Duchy and the council. Then the following year again with advice from Ravenmaster Cope, I put forward the idea of being a Northern version of the Tower of London to celebrate the millenium , as the castle was part of the crown estate. This was well recieved and not only that but we got a royal raven chick from the Tower of London. So was born Knaresborough castle ravens. We were only going to be at the castle for a year, but the ravens went down so well we have been there for 15 years, we had a collection of 13 ravens but sadly that now stands at seven ravens. SO WHO ARE OUR RAVENS? S he was the first raven we got, as mentioned above she is named after the central character in my childrens book. 'The magical World of Ravenelf' which is available to buy from Amazon.Ravenelf is now 16, she hatched on the 29th of March 1999, bred by a well respected bird breeder in Cumbria. Sadly Peter has since died from cancer, but over the years he has bred some fantastic ravens. Ravenelf is now semi retired, due to having had two broken legs, one the result of a dog attack, the other from Our male raven who we hoped she would pair up with. It was strange, I was in the house when something told me to go out and check the avairy, when I got there I saw Ravenelf on the perch and knew straight away, that her leg was broken, it was repaired successfully by zoo vet Johanna Storm. The only ill effect has been that Ravenelf developed what is known as bumble foot, an infection in her foot, that was treated, but once a bird has had this condition, it can be reoccuring, which is the case with Ravenelf, so now it is a chronic condition treated with of all things cream used for piles. Apparently the steriods in the cream reduce the swelling. Like two of our other ravens Ravenelf uses human speech. H.M. RAVEN GABRIEL This is our royal raven, when Gabriel came from the Tower of London, we belived she was a male raven, that we could pair up with Ravenelf. But when a DNA test was done, it came back female. Which at first I refused to accept, so another test was sent off to a different lab, but it came back with the same result. But as gabriel can be used for both sexes we left her nameas it was. She was hatched on the 10th of April 2000, and came to Knaresborough castle aged just three weeks old. She spent the early part of the summer sitting under a tree in a basket untill she feathered out enough to perch on the curtain wall with Ravenelf. In all her 15years I have never heard Gabriel sing, ( ravens are the worlds largest songbird ) neither has she ever said anything, even though Ravenelf speaks to her on humerous occassions everyday.She does however do a wonderful owl impression her hooting is second to none, we get a wild tawny owl in the garden so she mimics him. What can I say about Izzie, she is the raven world's answer to a hyperactive child. Before Izabella came Gabriel and Ravenelf were allowed to sit on the curtain wall without their jessies on. They did not pose a problem to our many visitors But all that changed when we got a certain izabella, due to her continued disruptive behaviour by this particular young lady, the ravens now have to be fastened when on public display. So what did she do? Well it all started off light hearted, Izzie decided she wanted to greet people in her own special way, by flying on to people's shoulder and saying "hello" to them. But after a while she stopped doing this and instead would launch herself at any visitor who stopped to look at her. Not only that but she became quite mischievious, she would fly off with people's belongings, or take golf balls from the pitch and putt, leaving many children crying because she had taken their ball, she would fly down to the river drop them in the water, then fly back around for another one. I felt like a ball boy at Wimbledon because I had to have a pocket full of golf balls to replace the ones Izzie flew off with. She liked a spot of gardening, much to the chagrin of Nigel the head gardener , who was dismayed that she wanted to pull up the plants when he had just planted them. So we gave her the nick name Alan Tichmarsh. She had to other nick names, one was Francis Drake not because she liked boats, but because she wanted to play bowls, and I spent most of my time shooing her off the bowling green so people could play uninterupted, although one chap was happy to let her play because he said she might help him win. Her most recent nick name is David Bailey, because she has taken up photography. One Saturday I was busy chatting to a local resident when Izzie decided to get up to mischief, she spotted a potential victim and like a spider drawing a fly into its web, Izzie did like wise with this poor unsuspecting visitor. She went to a litter bin, pulled out an empty plastic bottle took it to her favourite spot on the bowling green, once there she lay down with the bottle in her foot, she then started to caw, this lady was sat on a seat overlooking the bowling green eating her fish and chips, she saw Izzie was i n some distress or so she thought , so rushing to her aid she left her lunch and camera on the seat while she went to Izzie, who moments later dropped the bottle, flew on to the seat and made off, not with the fish and chips, as you would expect, but with the camera, she then flew onto the museum roof, by this time I was aware of what was going on and rushed across to the lady.

Load more

  8

Copy Link