I’m not an outdoorsy sort of witch. In fact other than being on my broomstick, upside down above the ground and zooming along with Zanzibar hanging on for dear life, I’m not an outside witch at all. My idea of heaven, a concept not many witches enjoy, is writing down spells and recipes for my Cauldron Cook Book, and curling up among the remains of last month’s food on my sofa and reading a great spellbinding book. Not a mystery or crime thriller. Spellbinding is exactly that – ways to bind spells together and see if the results work better than when spells are on their own.

So not being outdoorsy at all, so I was very surprised when a few years ago Zanzibar my cat decided we should go on a camping trip. He’d got it into his head that mice and fish are better eaten fresh, and that camping and hiking were the way to do it.

Much against my better judgement I agreed.

We loaded up my spare broomstick with all sorts of vital camping gear and equipment we simply couldn’t leave behind in the cave. We took a cauldron because witch and cat gotta eat. Right? We also took along an ancient, dusty tome called “Spells and Recipes for the Outdoor Witch” – a book I’d never even opened. I suppose looking back on it, I should have realized that Zanz had wanted to make this trip for years. The book was a present from him on one of my earlier 409th birthdays, so perhaps it was very dense of me not to have put 2 and 2 together and made 408.

Off we went – I had no idea where we were going. Zanzibar was jiggling up and down, his travelling hat pulled down over his eyes, trying to look like “Mr. Kewl Cat.” It didn’t work.

The broomsticks knew where we were going – Zanz must have told them. He was being very secretive and I wasn’t too happy about that either.

After what seemed like an age – we landed in the dark of night on the shore of a lake surrounded by very tall trees. There were few stars and no moon so there was very little light. We stumbled around in the dark, until I finally decided to try to remember the spell for creating a sort of a tent to cover us.

“We need to light a fire under the cauldron so we can make the spell” I told Zanz who was helping me set things up. “See if you can find some twigs and branches.” Zanzibar scurried off and soon came back with a nice big pile of sticks which he organized under the cauldron. Then, spinning around very fast – he literally made sparks fly – and one of them caught on the kindling under the cauldron setting it quickly alight.

Two things happened in quick succession: the flames caught and began crackling merrily followed immediately by a loud sob and the sound of someone crying loudly in the night.

To be continued……..