Xander Michael

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]

“Season to taste”

I could say it started as a joke, except I knew, at that age, Suze and I were, a bit self-consciously, aiming to bridge the gap between our schoolgirl selves and the mysterious, scary-but-enticing grown-up world we were bracing ourselves to enter.

Both of us were in top English. Read our homework to each other, critiqued (a mor…[Read more]

Wow. Thank you Libby for this at-first-sight innocuous challenge. (I tried to resist the autobiographical, but in the end it was the only way for me to go) so thank you Terrie and Ath for such impactful alternatives; I’m glad I didn’t have the task of choosing between them.

Electricity and us

Electricity has played a considerable part in directing  the path our lives have travelled, from the instant (if only sensory) flash of knowledge, at the end of our first date, that “This man is who I can safely be ME with!” to our fifty years of living in the North East.

At that time (5th April 1963) he worked for a comp…[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 ????

Thank you Ath, both for the competition and for your encouraging summing up. I certainly would’ve been hard-pressed to choose a winner, so congratulations and thanks to Libby, and also to Terrie and Seagreen.

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]

(This may well be missing the point)

The language of flowers not always sweet

Only after finding, (months later)  photographs other than the ones taken by fourteen-year-old schoolgirl Kally Logan that caused all the trouble did Luke Darbyshere register flowers had twice been fleetingly present on his wedding day. Much of the time he’d been su…[Read more]

Sea, thank you for the useful challenge, especially because it helped me formulate my character as well as sparking such a brilliant range of responses; I wouldn’t’ve liked to choose a winner.

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.

Mishaping to fit

Only as he pushed open the door into Haugesund’s Folkepuben, his mind occupied not only with what he needed to establish with Lars Sigmundssen but also a slightly fearful curiosity as to how Lars would react to his having slept with Maja, Lars’ current woman, was Rick Thorssen reminded, by the roar of convivial con…[Read more]

Thank you for the prompt, Terrie, which served to oil those mental cogs I was beginning to think had seized.

@Ath and Sandra – both great stories 🙂 and I hope you’ll be equally inspired by April’s comp.

Thank you for this challenge Terrie, and your kind comments; I was glad of the opportunity to make best use of it. Well done Sea – and never doubt those who have read you KNOW full well you are indeed a talented and sparkling writer, and thank you Ath for evoking. albeit dimly, the challenges of childhood.

As I drove home on Wednesday morning after a nightshift, I had the most amazing idea for the monthly comp. A sort of fantasy, supernatural, sci-fi thing that I was excited to start working on. I got home, made myself a cup of tea and promptly fell asleep on the sofa. By the time I woke, the idea was long gone, picked up and carried away – like s…[Read more]