We have a very wise friend who reminded us that the main wedding season is almost upon us and gave us advice on the use of crystals in connection with weddings. She even provided a list of the best ones to use. What a lovely gift tied up in a pretty pouch these would make for newlyweds or to get for yourselves to enhance your big day…

The set of Wedding crystals consist of:

Sodalite: Encourages rational discussion and the ability to communicate.

Lapis Lazuli: Strengthens the bond and keeps the marriage stable.

Sardonyx: For lasting happiness.

Garnet (or Rose Quartz): Inspires love, devotion and passion. Both of these are great relationship stones.

Selenite: Brings fidelity and optimism.

Rhodochrosite: Unconditional love and tenderness and a sense of security.

We also have some gorgeous traditional wedding day cards and even a Handfasting card (for alternative weddings), on sale in Guru.

#weddingday #weddingcrystals #weddingcards #lovedarlo

Thanks to our fabulous friend, Libby the Gurus will be at The Sage in Gateshead for the upcoming Kris Kristofferson gig. I know I’ll love it as Kris has been one of my main men of music since what seems like forever…

Whilst looking forward excitedly to seeing our hero this time, I can’t help but cast my mind back to another memorable occasion when we had the pleasure of attending not one, but two of his concerts on consecutive nights. The venue was the historic Cadogan Hall, in Chelsea, London. We had great seats  (front row in fact) and were so excited to be there.

On the first night, we noticed that there were some well-known people there to see the great man. Rolph Harris was sitting a few seats behind us (but we’ll speak no more of that). Hahaha.

Not far away from us in the front row was a certain Ian Siegal, a blues artist who we greatly admire, so we knew we were in good company.

Anyway, Kris came on stage. He cut an inevitably ageing, yet fiercely honest figure with just his guitar for accompaniment – and he totally blew our minds. It was all really wonderful and I for one never wanted the show to end. So many songs. So many stories. Such a great man who had beaten the devil and lived to tell the tale.

The simplicity and quality of both his performances almost had me in tears of joy.

Now this Ian Siegal, whom I mentioned earlier, is a bit of a chameleon who can change his look at will.

On this occasion, his hair was tousled and curly. That didn’t prevent him bearing a noticeable resemblance to the actor Mickey Rourke. We could see that Kris kept shooting Ian rather puzzled looks and realised that he actually thought that Ian WAS Mickey Rourke. The songs ended and when he came forward to the front of the stage to do some interacting he made a beeline for Ian and said, “hey, thanks for coming” but still looked puzzled as he must have realised that if this was Mr Rourke then he must have had a facelift or something as Ian is much younger than Mickey is. Nonetheless, he shook Ian’s hand warmly and once again thanked him for coming, then continued on to speak to and shake hands with as many of us as he could. It was obvious he was happy to be doing this and just as obvious that we all loved him in return. Finally, taking one last incredulous look at Ian, he was gone…

The following night we found ourselves back at Cadogan Hall for the second show and there was Ian Siegal sitting in the front row near to us again too. This time Ian (obviously realising what Kris was thinking) had slicked his hair back and now the resemblance between him and Rourke was even more striking.

‘What would Kris think tonight,’ we wondered.

We soon found out as he spotted Ian the moment he came on stage and said, “Wow, you came again.”

The show was fantastic and the added spice of the Siegal/Rourke element just cracked us up.

After the final encore, Kris went along the people in the front row (which happily included us), shaking hands. He stopped at Ian and said, “for a while there I thought you were Mickey Rourke, you can’t be as he’s much older than you are but you sure do look like him,” then these two men shook hands again and the whole incident has stayed in our minds ever since and enriched what were two brilliant nights of music and fun.

We can hardly wait to see Kris again and I am certain he will thrill us once again with his humanity and his music and if we are really lucky the night may afford us another great musical adventure too.

P.S. Just to let you see what we mean I’ve added a couple of photos below.

On the left Mickey Rourke. On the right Ian Siegal.

Mickey Rourke

Ian Siegal

Robin Askwith is a very cool guy and he gave us a mention in our local paper today. We Gurus can hardly wait for him to return to the Film Club at Darlington Forum on April 1st., with his excellent and very entertaining one-man show.

This is the second and concluding volume in our ‘Secrets of 24 Blackwellgate’ two-parter and the author is Beryl Maughan Hankin. (Book two’s price is £5.99 and book one is still available at £6.99)

This is the second (and final(the final book in this mini-series about the strange goings (including time travel) connected with our shop. It (and book one), are available from our physical shop or online from https://guruboutique.co.uk/product-category/books-cards-and-stationery/

Crown Street Library (which was recently in danger of closure) was given a reprieve and hopefully will flourish well into the future in Crown Street. Thank you to all the people who campaigned so hard to make this happen.

Under pressure from public opinion, Darlington Borough Council had to decide the future fate of this iconic institution which was gifted to the people of the town to be used as a library forever, by the Pease family.

For financial reasons, the cabinet members on our council had decided that it was in the best interests of the town that the building should no longer be used for this purpose. The members of DBC were asked to decide whether or not the building which is in Crown Street, would cease to be a library and the books and archives and art collection split up and relocated in The Dolphin Centre (a sports and hospitality complex) and various other places around town. At the eleventh hour and after a lot of stressful and expensive legal tussles it was finally decided that our library should remain open at its traditional location. We believe that Darlington’s main town library belongs in this particular building and is an important part of the heritage of our town. Furthermore, we want to see it stay intact and go from strength to strength for as long as it possibly can. This place is the soul of the town and to lose it would be to lose part of our Quaker history and not only dilute our own sense of identity but deny future generations their hometown pride.

Photograph by Peter Giroux

Since the late 1970’s we have had the privilege of stocking candles made relatively locally to us in Alston, by our friend and one of the finest candle makers ever, Ted Thompson. Apart from keeping small shops such as ours stocked, Ted has supplied candles to some more high-profile clients. His candle lit the celebrations on Glastonbury Tor on Millenium night, they have featured in Harry Potter films and they light parts of the famous Globe Theatre.

These are his hand dipped pairs which can be obtained in many gorgeous colours (he also supplies us with a fine range of beeswax candles). The colour runs right through each of his coloured candles. This lovely product looks great and burns beautifully too. The retail price for a pair is £2.80 and they are available on our website.

The title of our book which was published in September 2016 is ‘THE SECRETS OF 24 BLACKWELLGATE’ – the short stories in this book are written by three friends, Rachal (Moonflower) Davidson, Bridget Lowery and Beryl Maughan Hankin. (Price £6.99)

Available from our physical shop, from Amazon and most reputable booksellers to order or direct from us by mail order at https://guruboutique.co.uk/product-category/books-cards-and-stationery/

A little bit about this publication:

The quaint, small but historic building numbered 24 Blackwellgate is central to our stories, as can be gleaned from what follows:
‘The stories in the book tend towards the supernatural, including ghostly goings on, time travel, witchcraft and other spooky stuff.
They also touch upon social issues of the times they are set in, such as attitudes towards family values, same-sex love, relationships, religion, the class system and so on…
They will continue to flow from the author’s imaginations and into print to become a series. The first compilation covers various periods in time up to and including the 19th century. Any subsequent books will deal with different timescales right up to the present day.
Intentions:
This series centres on an attractive little building known as number 24 Blackwellgate, because we think it deserves to be famous simply for having managed to stay standing for so long whilst most of the other buildings around it have been demolished and rebuilt in different styles.
We three hope to expand our tales to take in Darlington in general, as we would love to clothe this beloved town in a mantle of legend, folklore, romance and mystery.
Whether part of the action takes place before number 24 was even built (as in Bridget’s story), in the tunnels below it (as in Rachal’s story), or in the rooms within it (as in Beryl’s stories), this surviving architectural gem of Darlington featured on the book’s cover in a drawing which was kindly gifted to us by the wonderful Paul Magrs, is the original inspiration behind our efforts.

In addition to this volume, the concluding book two in this mini-series has now been published. Full details of which can be found in another post on this blog, or on Guru Boutique’s main website.