Bella

Okay Sea, that ‘honesty snagged my conscience:

The  last time I cried was as I attempted to sleep,  having earlier been admitted to hospital after my husband Steve correctly diagnosed the oddness of my being unable to control my fingers, while doing the Saturday General Knowledge as potentially a stroke. Quoting ‘FAST’, he did everything right…[Read more]

<p style=”text-align: right;”>Sorry Sea, I’ve been racking my brain (while fighting off Ken Dodd and attempting to pack for some days in the  Hebrides) but am totally bereft of  words about tears.</p>

William James seems like an interesting man. He’s an example of something less common these days, a polymath. He studied widely across medicine and philosophy, developing expertise in both fields so that he taught physiology, psychology and philosophy (at different times) at Harvard, whilest finding time for an apprenticeship as a painter, and…[Read more]

Thanks, Ath, for  this months  competition  theme, what a great crop of entries it  garnered.

Congratulations ,everyone, for the interesting and well crafted   reads and well done Sea for being the one taking the  lead into  the July   challenge.

Oh, hooray, and congratulations @ Seagreen, but similarly to all for a varied and thought-provoking selection of ‘last times’. Thank you too Ath  for the prompt – a subject which I ponder increasingly  frequently.

Bumper crop springs to mind, but the cliché is wrong because these stories didn’t just spring up, they were all lovingly made by hand.

Janette’s story reminds us of the way that roles are exchanged as age demands. More than this, it reminds us that life is full of last moments each important and deserving of attention and memory. There is a wist…[Read more]

Any more takers? Last chance today. That could be the subject.

Just pulled the last bit of candy floss from my brain, looked at some famous last quotes “Julius ‘Groucho’ Marx and Noel Coward.” Played with some authors and their book titles, used some well know sayings and came up with this bit of fluff.

<u>The last question</u>

I was surprised when the invite appeared mysteriously on my lap.

F…[Read more]

Jill, it’s so good to hear from you again, in spite of what you’ve been, and are, going through.

I think any response that isn’t on a level with your own experience of positivity is likely to sound trivial, or at least less significant. But it is a fascinating topic. It’s often said that realists have a less positive expectation of outcome, but…[Read more]

Two fabulous stories and still half of the month to try your hand. What luck!

It was, and still is, a very good blog indeed. I remember it well, and on the strength of your recommendation I bought Pavane. It is a unique book, with an extraordinary atmosphere. Since reading it I’ve returned many times to check on parts and to reread. It really is remarkable that it isn’t better known. It’s somewhat depressing that a book so…[Read more]

Congratulations, Ath,  for your interpretation with a twist  and well done  Sandra, Sea and Libby as well.

I enjoyed everyone’s entries.

Its always interesting to  see others  take on  a challenge prompt.

When I say that I seriously didn’t think I’d win – I mean it. There was a fistful of really great entries. Thanks to Janette for the prompt and to my co-entrants for some great entertainment.

Congratulations Athelstone, and thanks to Terrie, Sea and Libby for their responses to Janette’s  May challenge – all so entertaining – and for the summing up.

May

The cactus on the table, out there on the decking, it’s gone mad. Look there are four new paddle things growing off it. Mr Hoskins from next door says they’re called “cladodes”. He should know, seeing as he’s a botanist or something at the college. It’s a modified stem, apparently, which serves the function of a leaf. He came over for a cup o…[Read more]

Renewal Dance

Below a patchy canopy of leaves, sunlight falls in dusted shafts of light, highlighting small tufts of fluffy-winged seeds, spiralling and soaring in the breeze and somewhere, within the cool, dark, caverns of under-earth, the chime of rock, root and soil begins its soft, ceaseless, song of renewal.

Stirred from slumber beneath the…[Read more]

Lyrical determination (thin on legend)

2001, around eleven, on the first day of May, lying on a sun-striped bed in an attic studio, John Martyn exhorted, ‘May you never’, in a voice fluffy and worn as the sheet beneath them and a saxophone further ramped  up lust while Fran Lloyd satisfactorily surrendered her virginity to Ivo Kinnersley. Ivo,…[Read more]