Newbie

Anyone else getting question marks instead of the smiley face?

Oh, crikey! This has caught me on the hop. Such a great catch of entries!

Squidge – thanks for the prompts. I wasn’t convinced I’d be able to do them justice.

Libby, Sandra, Janette and Alex – there wasn’t a single story I wouldn’t have picked to be a winner ????

Congratulations @ Seagreen, and thank you Squidge for prompt words, comments  and competition – a lot of fascinating uses of the three words.

A great batch of entries. Sadly, my good idea didn’t finally coalesce until I was dozing off last night.

UNTITLED (300 words)

Betty Hoskins – aged 95 years – and probably a pipe smoker for the last 85 of them. She’s at the allotments, perched on a ragged, weather-beaten wicker armchair beneath an arch of bamboo rods and green netting, enveloped in a haze of what she calls her ‘medicinal’ blend.

It’s late evening, the sun is bedding down behi…[Read more]

When My Favourite Employee Really Gets Going, He Quotes Churchill

(300 words)

I stop in Steve’s doorway. He looks up from his laptop. Angled at his side, his PC screen glows with the photos and primary colours of our online edition.

At the opticians recently, he told the young woman he’s a journalist on the local rag and when off duty he rea…[Read more]

Congratulations to Squidge for winning and to the rest of us simply for being amazing ????

Also thanks to Sandra for shooing me in an unexpected direction ☺️

“Stealing and giving odour “ [Twelfth Night]

From my very first whiff of the pipe tobacco I was a sucker for the scent of Balkan Sobranie. Given its name, thirteen-year-old imagination conjured red-jacketed hunters chasing yellow-eyed wolves through night forests. My Dad’s dour, ‘Four Square far cheaper,’ confirmed its blend  of leaves — Latakia…[Read more]

Oh blimey! Did not expect that at all… Wow, thanks, Sandra.

Everyone else’s was fab. Feel a bit of a fraud having popped in here for the first time in ages and getting to set this month’s challenge, but I’ll do my best x