Stevie

Thank you for this treat of a blog, Richard, which addressed my total ignorance of chanson. I’ve long preferred lyrics which say something (hence my liking for Arab Strap and The Floating Men, discovered via my youngest son.) I’m thinking I can repay him with Pete Atkin.

Perhaps I should make it clear this is just one line intended as a prompt to build a story on, from a collection of poetical, random lines, in a pocketbook entitled ‘Distance and Proximity’.

Wow, Libby, and thank you, a big surprise, especially as I’d already identified winners 1,2 and 3 and, my laptop having died and been taken away, and only having my ancient, over-full and steaming one, I wasn’t checking as often as I have been. I’ll try and come up with something as interestingly challenging as the last few have been.

Right man for the job!

Half eight, overnight ice on the inside of the windows, me already double Aran-wrapped, my phone rang:
‘Missus Blake? Morpeth Builders. We’ve a cancellation. Can come and have a look at your chimney today.’
‘That’d be great. There’s some sort of, of … blockage. The boiler’s broke, so lighting a fire the only way to kee…[Read more]

Congratulations, Libby, and thank you Seagreen for such an enticing theme – I had a dozen possibilities in my head, and it was obvious others did too, strong voices all and I was glad not to have to do the judging.

‘O dolce mano’ another opera

Coming out of the theatre, in the carpark, beeping the car unlocked, you say ‘If we’re dropping Judy off, she’d be best in the front –‘
Because it’s SO difficult to get out of the back seat? Nevertheless, I say nothing. It was Judy – a work colleague –that offered him the tickets. I bought the third on seeing the…[Read more]

Well done Sea, for an intriguing tale, and thank you Kate for a topic that had me seeking a tale I KNEW I’d written on this theme, then, not finding it, having to concoct something else. Thanks also for all the other entries; I still haven’t solved the anagram.

There’ll be kites [497 words]

It isn’t often that seeing an envelope on one’s doormat transports one back some forty years through time.
Took me long enough – the wrestling of the key in the lock ever more painful thanks to the curse of arthritis; the nudging open of the door with my shoulder just enough to know I’d be able to push it wide en…[Read more]

Well deserved win Kate, not only for the entrancing fairy story but for the impetus reading it gave me. And thank you Alex for the competition theme – the sort of challenge which stretches and inspires.

@ Athelstone – would it be possible to put that red reminder banner up more regularly? I confess I’d forgotten about the monthly comp and was…[Read more]

Tickled pink

Let me say straight away, it wasn’t what you – or any of my workmates – would think. Soon as I got over my … anger, I suppose, and looked at her, saw her, I heard my wife say, clear as if she was beside me, and we’d passed her in the street, “Asking for it!” She didn’t always bother to lower her voice, and inevitably I’d look to see…[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).

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]

Congratulations, Clebs, a well-twisted tale. And thanks Alex for a prompt which produced such variety.

A ‘critical reading course’ sounds exactly what I need, (and I’ve a couple of books on the course list) but despite several books on ‘How to’, and the Future Learn course using the James Tait Black shortlists, I’ve realised my brain doesn’t work that way. Hope you get what you want from it. I’ve several books from the Festival added to my…[Read more]

And now that Edinburgh’s book festival is over, I need to thank you again for the heads up – so many hours of pleasure, not to say inspiration.

Thank you both, @richardb and @katemachon; Kate, the info on your process, experience and end results was especially illuminating. Thanks so much! ✨