Sandra

  • Sandra posted a new activity comment 4 years, 7 months ago

    Steve says school leaving age was 15, but you could stay on. Also see wikipedia Raising_of_school_leaving_age_in_England_and_Wales

    • Thanks, Sandra. I’m trying to find someone who could have or did leave at Easter. Better still, someone who remembers if it was mandatory or whether there were exceptions. My MC wants to stop on, but her parents are insistent she leaves asap. However, if something meant she couldn’t or shouldn’t leave at Easter …

      It’s a long shot, and I’m fast…[Read more]

  • Sandra posted a new activity comment 4 years, 7 months ago

    I was 16 at Easter 1963, so can’t help you there, sorry.

    • Steve says school leaving age was 15, but you could stay on. Also see wikipedia Raising_of_school_leaving_age_in_England_and_Wales

      • Thanks, Sandra. I’m trying to find someone who could have or did leave at Easter. Better still, someone who remembers if it was mandatory or whether there were exceptions. My MC wants to stop on, but her parents are insistent she leaves asap. However, if something meant she couldn’t or shouldn’t leave at Easter …

        It’s a long shot, and I’m fast…[Read more]

  • Sandra posted a new activity comment 4 years, 7 months ago

    I can’t think leaving at Easter would’ve been that likely, because of ‘O’levels.

    • Hi, Sandra,
      I was one of the ones who had to stay on an extra year and leave aged 16 (in June 1974 – oops, showing my age!), which I was pleased about because I wanted to sit exams and my parents wanted me to leave to earn a wage. It was a common thing then, that some kids were expected to leave the earliest opportunity to ‘bring home a wage’, and…[Read more]

      • I was 16 at Easter 1963, so can’t help you there, sorry.

        • Steve says school leaving age was 15, but you could stay on. Also see wikipedia Raising_of_school_leaving_age_in_England_and_Wales

          • Thanks, Sandra. I’m trying to find someone who could have or did leave at Easter. Better still, someone who remembers if it was mandatory or whether there were exceptions. My MC wants to stop on, but her parents are insistent she leaves asap. However, if something meant she couldn’t or shouldn’t leave at Easter …

            It’s a long shot, and I’m fast…[Read more]

  • Sandra posted a new activity comment 4 years, 7 months ago

    Thank you Raine for so topically filling the breach, setting and judging (always the hardest part) the monthly comp. I am making good progress after stroke + surgery so hope to be back to full-strength participation soon

    • *giant hugs*

    • Oh my goodness, Sandra, I had no idea you were going through such a hard time. Pleased to hear you’re making good progress. Take it easy. Best wishes to you and yours. xxx

      • Thanks, Newbie. I count myself lucky to have come through it with minimal side effects – and a huge warm glow from the quantity and breadth of caring messages which have come my way from friends and family.

  • Sandra posted a new activity comment 4 years, 7 months ago

    Take care of yourself and take time to recover.

  • Another pieced-together piece, and only 245 words, but best I can manage.

    Bourbon dreaming

    A bottle of Makers Mark from my husband for Christmas and a wine-free tea (Köstritzer Schwarzbier instead) so I took a glass of bourbon to bed with me, along with John Rebus.

    And I dreamt, more vividly and memorably than usual, with more logic than usual…[Read more]

  • Sandra posted a new activity comment 4 years, 8 months ago

    Knicky, I have tried/am trying but have nothing yet .. and may not do so. Sorry.

    • It’s okay. No pressures at all. Hoping to get at least 5 entries by the end of the month. Still time yet ✨

  • Late to this, but well done indeed @Knicky, for a poetic tale. Also to @Athelstone – I too had a lane like that in the place where I was born, which decades later had its magic buried beneath tarmac.
    Thanks @Seagreen for the challenge and the feedback – I did enjoy the opportunity to just play.

  • Sandra replied to the topic Chit Chat in the forum Group logo of Coming HomeComing Home 4 years, 9 months ago

    I’ve my fingers crossed Piety will hook up woth Freedom Jones.

  • Sandra replied to the topic Choices in the forum Group logo of Coming HomeComing Home 4 years, 9 months ago

    boat
    cheese
    Martha

  • I remember …

    Two roads diverged in a yellow wood …

    except it wasn’t the wood that was yellow but the fallen leaves, many of which were tinged with gingerbread brown. And it wasn’t a road they covered but a track. At least, one was a track. Green grass centred and, from the narrowness of then wet mud indentations, cartwheeled. Which thought too…[Read more]

  • @Seagreen, the ‘lightweight’ of your entry was in the well-chosen words; that they so well-expressed the solidity, the impact of that moment was the really clever bit. Thank you for this explanation.

  • Brilliantly well done Seagreen, and thank you Libby for the challenge, your insightful comments and for picking my favourite as winner, though all were enjoyable variations on the theme.

  • Sandra replied to the topic Beta Reading Discussion in the forum Blogs 4 years, 10 months ago

    @ Libby – I confess I never print off an MS even for my own novels, but I do, when I’m feeling confident that the end is nigh, order it as a paperback book from Blurb.

    @ Richard – thank you for that description ‘instinctive writer’ which very accurately describes my creative approach (and as an artist too) It may sound like a talent but the…[Read more]

  • Sandra posted a new activity comment 4 years, 10 months ago

    @Thea – I entirely agree with your suggestion of sampling before committing; it rarely takes long to decide ‘not for me’ with a book bought (or not bought) for pleasure; even more important if one is to give valuable feedback.

    • Absolutely, and if it’s an audio book I always check out the narrator’s voice too.
      Very impressed by your annual haul of 200 books, wow!

  • Sandra replied to the topic Beta Reading Discussion in the forum Blogs 4 years, 10 months ago

    WHOOPS and apologies – I missed this, through being away and then returning with much to catch up with.
    I’ve many, many reasons to be immeasurably grateful for the careful reading, insight and sensible, sensitive suggestions put forward by several beta readers of my novels while being aware that I am likely a poor beta reader, partly because I…[Read more]

    • Gosh, 200 books a year. That’s really impressive. I think I’m doing well – for me – at 60 p.a.

  • Sandra replied to the topic The Future of the Den in the forum Blogs 4 years, 11 months ago

    Sorry Ath, but I didn’t reply to your “images have always been here, just not uploading images” because I wasn’t sure what you were getting at.

  • Sandra replied to the topic The Future of the Den in the forum Blogs 4 years, 11 months ago

    I do think Bella’s beta readers might be an idea, but perhaps, at least to start with, omit the financial bit and just set up a register of those willing and those wanting, with some detail of genre, etc and the willingness to send a sample chapter to see if they’re compatible.

    And the possibility of uploading pictures, I’d say Handle With Care,…[Read more]

  • “Above the tideline”
    first line provided by Thomas A Clarke

    Above the tideline, an old blue rope is entangled in a bramble bush. I gaze at it while retying my hair, turning to face into the wind, risking the scratch of sand beneath my already sore eyelids; its crunching against my teeth.
    Sand, salt and shell fragments speckle the twists of it,…[Read more]

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