Woolleybeans

Great blog, Richard. Sadly I have very little internet right now. Will get back asap. Also, yikes! One of the updates has broken my menus (at least in mobile mode).

Not sure it meets the brief and it’s a bit on the short side, but it’s where the fancy took me, so…

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Nay. Thrice nay, unless that day be cold and dreich.

Then shall I liken thee to the first rose of summer? Nay, again, save that bloom be not perfect and proud but…[Read more]

Don’t ever cross a crocodile.

Back when Chubby was chubby and not six inches taller than me and good looking, his nan died, and he went to the funeral. Afterwards, we met up near his gaff and he was in a bit of a moody with me.

‘All your fault, Teabreak, you twat!’ he goes.

‘Woss that then,’ I say, and I offer him a Number 6 to make up f…[Read more]

Thank you for the challenge, Libby. And very well done to Terrie for another powerful piece of story telling.

Energy and shame

Understanding is a difficult word sometimes. We say, ‘I understand her,’ meaning that we know her reasons for doing something or other. It was as expected. Electricity feels rather different. Do I understand it? I mean, what is it? I was taught a load of rubbish at school about the movement of charged electrons. That isn’t elect…[Read more]

Thanks for the comp, Ath! Another opportunity to stretch myself ☺️

And congratulations to Libby for winning, and the rest of us for giving it a go ????

Why do you always insist on making this difficult?

Terrie’s Plant Song is almost a poem to the language of flowers. Rich and ancient with a deadly heart. The melody, she writes, is intoxicating, and I can’t think of a better word for the whole piece. I said “anything floral” and it’s hard to imagine something more floral than this. A wonderfully…[Read more]

THE GATEKEEPER  

They closed the Winter Gardens. Lack of funding or resources or some other bullshit excuse. Redundancy notices for the gardeners who’d been there for years, and redeployment to grass-cutting duties for the young apprentices who still didn’t know their aquilegia from their allium. They stored the tools in the old stable buil…[Read more]

Seagreen, thanks so much. A brilliant prompt for April. Thanks also to my co-authors. There were some great pieces of writing.

I love to plan. That’s why nothing ever gets written.

Honestly, I’m sorry this has taken me so long…

All the entries left me wishing I’d given you more words to play with since each of them teased with hidden depths.

Ath – so easy to read (as ever!) Engaging, apparently effortless writing, but so many questions! Who was this man? Where did he come from and where would he end up?  More importan…[Read more]

Sorry! I haven’t forgotten, just waiting for a break in the clouds.
If I don’t have time tonight, then results will definitely be posted tomorrow when I’m off.
Thank you for your patience.

To be fare, sometimes I don’t know the ending – or the story.

Stephen King, Ath? He’s said that he never knows what’s going to happen when he starts a novel, and he’s published nearly seventy of them.

Your method (if we can grace it with that name), Ath, sounds very much like mine: a rough idea of the story arc and the ending, and not much more. The nearest I ever got to planning was to write out the rather…[Read more]