Andrew Wille

Doug

I could be expelled, or even stuck in a young-offenders institution, but, honestly, I can’t see how they’ll ever pin it on me.

Doug isn’t a nice kid. At ten, he’s the spitting image of his dad; spitting being the operative word. He’s well on his way to being as big as him, too. Which is big.

Doug hates all the other kids at school.…[Read more]

Right – it’s ramshackle and unplanned, but at least I’ve done one!!!

To breathe.

That’s it. That’s what you need to do to win against this particular enemy. He’s always been there, this one. He’s one of my earliest and definitely my most constant childhood memory. Hunched forward in the dark, fear and aloneness so present in the room th…[Read more]

Not exactly ‘Overcoming Adversary’

Truth is, I can’t think of anything big enough in my life to count as ‘adversity’. (If it was big, I either ignored, walked painlessly around, or didn’t even notice it.
So I’m giving you, ‘My writing journey‘, which is as close as I can get.

If we’re talking about ‘proper’ conscious writing; wanting to set d…[Read more]

Sorry. Book stuff is hectic just now. I do love these comps & have had several publications out of them so they are really worth doing. But …. *wails* I have no time!!

Knicks, you very closely echo my thoughts about participation in the comps (and in the Den as a whole, to be honest, despite Ath’s striving to make it a more use-friendly site) but I think the answer IS just to press on with setting one – if we join the non-participants, they have us beat.
And yes, I do know how Life leaches away time, am well…[Read more]

I should spend less time on the test site and more here. Cracking story, Knicks. Well done. Thanks for the competition, Sandra. I found it tough but fun.

December destined to be a quiet month, I suppose, and very few of you seemed to have suffered from the prurient curiosity about the activities of Jack and Jill’s activities I did, Nevertheless the two entries submitted were a pleasure.
Ath’s trawl through several nursery rhymes returned me to childhood, browsing through books illustrated by the…[Read more]

Just realised deadline is today – I’ll be back ASAP to read and muse over a decision.

Also “An IOPC spokesperson told PA Media: “We can confirm that on 17 December we received a referral from the Metropolitan police service [MPS] of a complaint about an alleged party at Downing Street in December 2020.

“Having fully assessed the referral we have decided it is invalid and we have returned it to the MPS to handle as it det…[Read more]

Absolutely!

I do not like wearing a mask when I go shopping, but it is a tiny hardship compared with, say, passing on the virus if I unknowingly had it, to somebody else. I’m so tired of hearing people, my neighbour for instance, declaring that he will “never” wear one in a shop because he’ll “never catch it that way”. He’s a tree surgeon and…[Read more]

Thanks, Ath, though I’m not sure I’d welcome being 21 again, in many ways (all those nights with screaming babies!!)

…Oh, and a very happy 21st to you!

Up the hill

Popular Oldwell couple Jack and Jill Bouquet are recovering in hospital from what police described as a “vicious and unprovoked attack” on Saturday night. Regulars at the Old Well pub on Old Well Hill were alerted by calls for help around 11:00 in the evening. Landlord John Spratt described how he and his wife found Jill Bouquet col…[Read more]