Thea

Car

Look at that bloke. Arm out of the window, cigarette in hand. Marks and Sparks polo shirt that his wife bought him. Revving the engine every five seconds; counting down the time until death. And he got the silver car, the GT model. He chose that. He calls it “my car”. But if anybody asks, “We chose it. Me and my lady.”

How old do you reckon?…[Read more]

‘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]

Pleasantly surprised by this, especially given the company ☺️

Wow! They were all classy little pieces of writing. Seagreen, I really enjoyed that. Well done.

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.

The Unmarked Letter

It’s a circular, sitting there on the mat. Or is it? It doesn’t look like the sort of envelope they use. And they usually say To the Householder or something like that. When Arthur was alive, he’d say, ‘That’s me. The householder,’ as though I didn’t count. This one has nothing on it.

Right, that’s Edith at the door. I’d b…[Read more]

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]

UNTITLED  (321 words)

On Thursday, I wrote a letter. Not to send, you understand, since it wasn’t really to someone, and not to keep either, because once I had written it, and re-read it in that way that people do when they are shocked by their candour, I felt embarrassed by it.  Embarrassed by the uncontrolled rage and disappointment that I had…[Read more]

Fantastic blog Richard, as ever. A difficult one for me to read, as I’ve always found reading about this incident, its sheer violence and the scale of the death toll, deeply troubling. That the sport I love, and a race I love, and a driver I have always been a fan of (Hawthorn) could have been (in whatever way) responsible for such slaughter is d…[Read more]

Quite awful accident, Richard. I sought out some of the video and still-images after reading your blog, and I have to say that Hawthorn does look, physically, like the villain of the piece. Whether he was the actual villain or not, his face relaxes into a rather smug expression that does him no favours. I was reminded of the comedian Rob Beckett,…[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]

Thanks Richard

Kindle out now, paperback in a couple of weeks

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]

Dream of an electrician

The day that Colin first fell asleep in his van was as cold and unfriendly as a garden privy in the small hours of a winter’s night. Two long shifts, back-to-back, rewiring the mayoral offices in the town centre, saw him close to exhaustion. He had taken his supermarket sandwich down to the seafront and, with the windows c…[Read more]