Clebs

The original idea came from Harry Bingham on the WordCloud, who presented a bottle of something similar to Champagne as a prize each month. When it began to fall apart it was taken up by Wrathnar the Unreasonable (sans Champagne) and then by the winner of the competition each month.

It was adopted by the Den when the Cloud finally closed

Great monthly comp, Libby. And a well-deserved win for Seagreen.

Thanks for the prompt Libby. It seems to have been an age since I  tested the writerly muscles…

And I second Jill’s call for virtual medals all round! 🙂

John on holiday

John.

This is the strangest holiday ever. Chris should have been here. She even did all the bookings for us, and now I have to explain to everybody why it’s only me. The weather is perfect. Not too hot, not too cold. She’d have loved it—walking along the coast, looking down on the seabird colonies. Salt, warm seaweed on the narro…[Read more]

The Space Between the Notes (334 words inc title)

It was more than a holiday; it was a ritual, starting with the drive north. The choice of music; what the kids called my soppy stuff – Savage Garden, Beautiful South and sshhh, don’t say it out loud, Barry Manilow – and the way I always packed the car with a hundred and one things I wou…[Read more]

Your thought about the V16 engine and the 1966 formula is indeed intriguing, but if anyone at BRM did seriously consider it then I think it would have come unstuck on the fuel question if nothing else. It is my understanding that one reason for the Alfetta’s inordinate thirst (1.5 miles to the gallon in its final form!) was that it relied on…[Read more]

Great blog as usual Richard. It’s a fascinating story. One of those that has so much promise of what might have been, yet also so typical of the often shambolic British way of going about things that one feels it could only ever have ended up this way. Look at the contemporary British aviation industry – much brilliance and yet so much avoidable c…[Read more]

Jill, the Den’s Activity Page posts extracts changes (replies, new topics etc) from the public sections of the Den. You replied directly to the Activity Page version of this thread – you can check by selecting “Activity” from the menu at the top of all the Den’s pages. It’s all still there, although you’ll need to scroll a *long* way as my…[Read more]

Jill’s entry grabbed my attention straight away, because although my own childhood was a few years later, so much was the same. And yes, all the shops shut. In fact, almost everything shut on a Sunday apart from Church and Sunday School. “Hear the pennies dropping” for those who remember it. So much centered on the home back then. A wonderful…[Read more]

A brace of fabulous entries this month. Real life has struck at an awkward moment with silly demands on time. I hope you won’t mind too much If I pinch a day from the next comp. and post the results tomorrow evening. So sorry about that.

Echoes of a life twinkling in time.

As years roll away from me I look back at reflections caught in memories rainbow.

I know I was lucky. My childhood was idyllic, because woven among the colours of my life and simplicity of youth, the feelings of each moment are held, perfect and bright, like small lights of sheltering warmth against the…[Read more]

Dear All,

Please note that this doesn’t have to be about an object. From the theme up there (points up) “an object, or an event, or a saying, or anything at all really that you remember as commonplace when you were young”

Me too, Sandra,  mine’s a  green one . I also have  my  grandparents  twisted  metal  meat  skewers  too.  🙂

Thank you, Jill. I forgot to set a word limit, so I take your entry as “the bar” and set it now at 400 words.

Incidentally, I wanted to call the girl Aelfwin but I had trouble getting the A and e to combine into a proper “ash” at the start of the name. Then it occurred to me that a drunk Teabreak would be unlikely to remember that anyway, hence “Alwin, or something like that.” I think Alwin is still sometimes used as a female name, but I could probably…[Read more]