HELEN KAMPFNER

You do write these blogs so well, Richard. This one is the best written and most engrossing take on a musician that I’ve read in ages.

I have the Complete Recordings. I bought them some years back, not because of my own journeying into blues, but because somebody who did more than my superficial browsing suggested I should. All I can say is that…[Read more]

Two super entries, both darkly entertaining. Perfect for a Halloween mood, maybe.

Alex, love your dry style. I’ve been in that hotel and ironed that shirt for a meeting. Even drunk those beers. Never been in an earthquake though, unless you count the feeble growling that “hit” the south of England a few years back – much like a truck driving by.…[Read more]

UNTITLED 452 words

A leaf, the colour of burnt sugar, dried and curled into the shape of a piranha’s open maw, drifted across the path in front of her. Good. Enough of a breeze, then, to keep her cool. The last thing she wanted after her run was to turn up at Jake’s night out with a face the colour of a baboon’s bum. She checked her watch…[Read more]

Far TMI!! Our first autumn spider in the kitchen sink this morning (usually they wait until Steve’s away and I’m stark naked before ambushing).

Thanks for a wonderful prompt Clebs. I thoroughly enjoyed writing my piece and it feels as though it might develop a bit. Plus, you got a pretty wonderful bunch of other entries. Well done all.

Well done, Ath. Great voice (as always!) And thanks, Clebs, for prompting me to write something (anything!) even though I had no idea where I was going with it 🙂 (The only thing I was sure about was that whoever Amelia is, she’s no benevolent being).

Sandra, I’d like to see more of yours if you develop it and Alex, good job on taking the…[Read more]

Well deserved, Athelstone, and thank you Clebs for the topic which at least sent me back to the primary sources to size up the task again. Thanks to all entrants for a feast of post gathering events.

Not quite fulfilling the brief but it’s this or nothing.

The post-gathering I should most like to write the aftermath of, did time and ability permit is the one which took place following the reading of the will of Thomas Hutchinson Goodfellow, my husband’s great-grandfather, following his death in Tottenham in 1891, age 73.
That it was…[Read more]

After the Gathering

There was never an invitation. No surprise email in your inbox, no speculative phone call while your mouth was full of the last of the chocolate brownies, and no snatched conversation as you unloaded your shopping in the supermarket queue.

‘Have you heard? Amelia’s having another one of her get-togethers this weekend. It see…[Read more]

After the Gathering

I shan’t go next year.

I mean, Tom wasn’t there. Jackie spent the whole evening talking to Spence and nobody can get a word in with those two. And Pete. That was a shock. Pete’s joined the choir eternal. Playing three-card brag with St Peter more like.

‘So you don’t have to.’ That was his thing. I remember when he broke hi…[Read more]

On my third attempt. The previous two kept wanting to turn into short stories!

Well done @clebs. I said it’s excellent – and it is!