Last Sunday's letter promised you the neighbours, and the button underneath played the sky instead. Freddie has looked into this and found the button responsible.
So, the sky first. Sky Nights, Vol. 1 is six slow stories with the sky in them: the moon, the sun, a young cloud and one long night at the lighthouse. An hour, back to back, and it is still in the feed on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
The village hour
Tonight the neighbours are in the feed, properly. Meet the Village, Vol. 1 is about the ones Freddie lives among, who make the village the village. Señor Tiempo, whose clocks refuse to tell standard time. Francisco, who keeps a library under the dune. Horatio and his mosaic. Captain Coral and an old shell. And Pedro, up before the Seagull Parliament.
Five tellings, back to back, as one night. It opens in the clock shop and ends on the cliff above the harbour, with the parliament in session. Set a sleep timer or let it run.
The Clockmaker Who Forgot Time (Night 11)
The Secret Library Under the Sand (Night 26)
Horatio's Mosaic (Night 29)
Captain Coral's Favour (Night 30)
The Seagull Parliament (Night 6)
There is a longer version of this night on The Settle Premium: the same five neighbours, each story told once and then once more, slower, so that the second time you already know how it ends. Nearly two hours, with the sea running on after the last one.
And then, Season Two
Season One was thirty-one nights in which the keeper sat in the lantern room and told you about Freddie. There are more collections from it still to come on Sundays.
Some readers told us they listen with their children. That is lovely, and it also told us something. Put a small dog in a crown at the centre of a story, and it sounds like a story for children. These were always for the grown-up who is still awake and wants a little magic before sleep.
Season Two turns the chair round. The old notebook is full, and the keeper's chair is yours.
Each evening there is one slow thing to do on the coast, and it is whatever the coast is really doing that week. A last swim in the hidden cove while the water still holds the summer. The night the clocks go back, in Señor Tiempo's shop, giving every clock its spare hour. The first rain on dry stone. The olive terraces, and the chestnut carts back in the square. Then you walk out to the lighthouse, climb the stairs, and the light comes on by itself. It keeps the watch, so you don't have to.
Every night is set on a real evening this autumn and winter, with that evening's moon and that evening's wind.
Freddie still comes by. Not every night. Some evenings he is waiting on the grass below the tower. Some evenings it is only you, the stairs and the sea, which he considers perfectly fair.
Here is the first minute and a half of it.
It comes to the free feed on Sunday 18 October, one new night every Sunday through the winter. From late October, each one goes out on the very evening it is set.
On The Settle Premium it has already started. The Keeper's Chair came out on Thursday, and The Last Swim of the Year came out tonight at eight, UK time. Two new nights a week, each one told twice, the second time slower.