Hilary

Well done,Terrie.  Look forward to your challenge for January.  Enjoyed each entry very much.  Thank you, Athelstone for your kind comment on my contribution, which was fun to create!  Wishing you all a Very Happy and Healthy, Creative New Year.  Jill x

Well done Terrie, and everyone else who between them provided a kaleidoscope view of Christmas, and thank you Ath for prompting me into putting a long-held memory into words.

Right, here we go.

Is there anybody who hasn’t had at least a small part in the production of a nativity play? Jill, that’s just how they go. A perfect evocation. And your story has a Christmas miracle as well – or was it a mischievous young actor?

Janette, I was there in that supermarket. No, really, I was actually there I think, barging past…[Read more]

OK, it’s a fraction after midnight so 2026. I’ve read them all. They’re annoyingly good. So sorry, you can all wait until tomorrow is well and truly underway. Happy New Year!

Wouldn’t be Christmas without the occasional disaster.

A never-forgotten Christmas

The telegram sent by my new-made grandfather, telling my father of my safe arrival, at five minutes to midnight on the twentieth December (and, according to my great-grandfather’s fish scales, weighing 6lbs 4 ozs) is explanation enough of why I don’t remember my first Christmas. To establish whether it was my sec…[Read more]

Running the Christmas Gauntlet

Brace yourself, girl. Everywhere is going to be madness today. Most of the throng will be feeling much the same way … which means shouting and kids screaming; means shoving and pushing … but take a deep breath. Concentrate on the list. You’ve successfully run the Christmas shopping gauntlet before.

The veget…[Read more]

Nativity Mystery – A lighthearted tale

540 words excluding title

Miss Farthing sighed wearily and then screamed ‘Be quiet!’  She could stand it no longer.  This was the last rehearsal of the Nativity play at Priory Primary School before the performance in front of parents and governors and it was utter chaos.  Some children had swapped co…[Read more]

Ah, thank you Terrie. After reading the others I feel very lucky! I’m a bit late arriving – so apologies. I’ll get right to the December comp.

Congratulations, Athelstone.  I look forward to your December challenge.  I enjoyed the other two November fireside tales very much too.  Thank you, Terrie for setting an interesting challenge, which brought out the Grandma in me, although I have grandsons not a granddaughter!     Jill x

Percy.

Percy was old. I knew that because everybody knew that. I went to see him because I was invited, and young, ambitious journalists don’t refuse invitations from Percy Fullbig’s people. The man who had seen it all, and predicted much of it. Predicted the Second World War, Vietnam, various troubles in the Middle East, the Financial Cra…[Read more]

Sorry, Terrie, no way do I have head space to do anything for this. Will aim to Do Better next time