In the last of my archives shared by Sally at Smorgasbord a look back at last year’s hot summer.
Author: tidalscribe.com
Silly Saturday – Unblogged
When you are going away and you haven’t scheduled your blogs and can’t think what to write about…
Choose a picture and I’ll write about it next week…
Friday Flash Fiction – Waterloo
I got off the train wearily, borne along the platform with the other commuters. It was only Wednesday but I was fed up already, who wouldn’t be, having to go to work on a sunny July day.
How had this happened to me, fourth generation of my family on the train to Waterloo every morning to a job I loathed. Was that what it had been like for Dad, Granddad, uncles and aunties, or did they just accept it as their position in life? Twenty three and still living at home so I could save up, save up for what?
I was working for a company everybody except me thought was exciting; Bright Designs was going places, but I wasn’t.
I stopped on the busy concourse and stood still for the first time ever; I usually dashed straight for the escalator to the underground. Around me everyone was rushing, I thought of Tim my old school friend, in Thailand teaching English, travelling cheaply and posting beautiful pictures on Facebook. Voices intruded into my Land of Smiles fantasy and my eyes focussed on a couple at the barrier to platform 13.
You just don’t get it, do you Josh? A train to the seaside is not my idea of a surprise holiday, even if we were staying together.
I stared at Josh, smart looking bloke, but sounded like he was as successful as me with women.
I don’t understand Lizzie, I thought you wanted to get away for a few days and talk.
It’s too late for that.
Lizzie disappeared into throngs of commuters oblivious to her little drama, out of sight before Josh had even turned his head. He tore off his back pack and threw it on the ground and then, as if he could feel my curious stare, he looked up at me.
‘Hey mate, care to swap lives. Looks like you could do with a trip to the seaside, train leaves in ten minutes.’
He proffered his train ticket.
‘You wouldn’t want my dreary life Josh.’
‘So neither of us have anything to lose, go on, hand me your man bag and take my rucksack.’
What on earth possessed me? I slung the back pack on my shoulder and put the ticket in the slot at the barrier. Josh had already gone, taking my wallet, paperback and ID pass for Bright Designs with him. I patted my pocket, my phone was the only thing I still had of me.
Settling into a window seat I almost laughed out loud, runaway train. Nobody except Josh knew where I was going; I didn’t know where I was going and I didn’t care.
As the train moved off I looked at the ticket, Bournemouth. Then I casually dipped into the rucksack as if I knew what was in it; a wallet with notes as well as several debit cards and a thick envelope, signed for delivery. I had no compunction about opening it, Josh wanted me to have his life. Afterwards I realised what an idiot I had been, it could have contained drugs or might even have exploded.
But all it contained were two sets of keys, detailed computer print out maps, a set of directions and two pictures, a row of beach huts and a smart white apartment block. What was Lizzie missing? My initial thoughts had been – arrive at seaside, get ice cream, go for a paddle. But now I was going to have a holiday.
Just when we would have been having coffee at work I was standing on the cliff top. The sea and sky were unbelievably blue, the air balmy, this was a dream. I followed the instructions for the beach hut and descended a steep path with cliff on either side framing a view of sparkling sea with land on the horizon.
Ten minutes later I was in the little wooden hut divesting the rest of my work life and putting on swimming shorts out of the collection of beach gear handily provided. With the warm sand between my toes I was a child again. I plunged into the sea, not as cold as I was expecting. My freedom was complete as I struck out through the gentle waves then turned to look back at the cliffs, I was out of my depth and out of my life. I whooped like a teenager, how I wished everyone at work could see me; perhaps not. This was a holiday that would not be posted on Facebook.
For more tales of land and sea dip into…
What’s Wrong With Wrats?
Rats seem to be everywhere lately, but don’t worry about another great plague.
Last week Pete Springer was inspired by one of my archive blogs to write about his teaching days with class pets – rats. His post was headed by a picture of a most adorable rat which reminded me of TV star Roland Rat; the only rat to join a sinking ship, credited with saving TVam breakfast television in the 1980’s.
https://tidalscribe.wordpress.com/2019/07/12/class-pets/
One of my children did have a pet rat in his class, I did hold it once and it was very cute; after all, rats are just big mice and I had pet mice in my junior school years. My friend and I bought two mice from Aldershot market, plus a little book on mice and assured our parents they were both male. Of course they weren’t. Luckily my father loved woodwork; the designer shed/greenhouse he had built himself was soon filled with cages and bags of hay and oats. We ended up with forty mice, some of them pregnant, I will draw a veil over what happened to them next.
By strange coincidence, just before Pete posted his blog, I heard from my friend 300 miles away ( too far away to be of any assistance ) that her young dog had found a rats’ nest in the garden. As a busy carer for her elderly mother the last thing she wanted to find on the staircase was a blind, hairless, mewling baby rat being tenderly licked by the dog. ( Handy hint, this is one of the many reasons why it is not a good idea to let dogs lick your face. )
Thankful that this could not happen to us as we don’t have a dog I was soon to get my come uppance. Since we finally got around to having the outside light in the back garden fixed it comes on quite often, usually to reveal a fox; the fox suspected of chewing up my garden shoes. Late one night ( at a time when only bloggers and foxes are awake ) the light came on and there was Mr. Fox playing with something furry, and it didn’t look like a slipper.
In the morning there was a dead rat on the back lawn. Obviously the fox has better things to eat. Feeling like a frontierswoman I trekked the few yards to the bottom of the garden and got the spade out. Throw him over the fence? No, we have nice neighbours. Put him in my compost bin? No, never put meat in your garden compost. The council food waste bin that you can put meat in? No it’s got our house number on. I gave him a woodland burial, relieved that I managed to scoop him off the grass with the spade. Two mornings later a second dead rat appeared. Perhaps the foxes are doing us a favour with rat control.
The ‘woodland garden’ is the corner where the compost bins and insect hotels hide; a tangle of apple tree, holly and ivy and sapling nursery. Cyberspouse suggested the piles of branches preserved for hedgehogs and insects are also luxury living for rats. I have never seen a hedgehog in our garden despite the plentiful supply of slugs for them to eat.
While we sign petitions to save hedgehogs and are reminded to mind the gap, leave holes in our fences for hedgehogs to travel, no one suggests we worry about the survival of rats. When does wildlife become a pest? Why are we not urged to protect rats’ environment and put food out for them?
What wildlife do you have in your neighbourhood?
Smorgasbord Posts from Your Archives – #Potluck #FlashFiction Friday Flash Fiction 500 2018 – Biodegradable by Janet Gogerty
Today Sally Cronin makes her third choice from my archives with a topical flash fiction I had fun writing.
Escape to [another] Country
My local writer, blogger and REMAINER friend expresses what many of us feel and I know most of our US blogger friends will not be offended as they are enduring mirror feelings of disbelief and anger with their leaders.
On Monday we are to escape this troubled isle for a couple of weeks. For although the current political squabbles in the UK are akin to observing a satirical comedy there will be some relief to be away from it all for a while.
Underneath the farcical antics of our politicians, however there is a ghastly, seeping horror of gradual decline; while they continue to wrangle, argue, bluster, lie and boast, most of us are powerless to intervene, still less to mitigate.
We know what our closest neighbours think. The Dutch, especially are incredulous at the decision of [some of] us to leave the European family. The French have held up their hands: ‘Zut alors!’ and then washed them of us-and who can blame them?
And then there is the USA. Those who’ve squawked about ‘slavery’ in a ridiculous diatribe about the EU [the increasingly mad witch-like Anne Widecombe] seem…
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Silly Saturday – Anon-E-Mouse
Today a poem from a guest blogger.
Droning On
I’m a drone
All alone
In the zone
Not a clone.
Sky above
Land below
Check speed
Too slow.
Follow the shore
Nothing more
Nothing before
Coast I saw.
Sky is blue
Land is green
I have view
I have seen.
Sea to port
Land to starboard
Check speed
Move forward
I’m a drone
All alone
Go this way
To survey
Coastline clear
Oceans near
I am here
With no fear.
I can fly
Up in the sky
I don’t know why
I am a spy.
Coastline clear
I can steer
Test my gear
Land is near.
Red port left
Starboard right
Mountains now
In my sight.
I am here
I was there
Am I a drone
Am I alone?
Read more about the poet here
https://tidalscribe.wordpress.com/2019/07/12/friday-flash-fiction-digital-dialogue-droning-on/
Friday Flash Fiction – Digital Dialogue – Droning On
What do you mean it’s gone AWOL?
We lost contact half an hour ago Prof.
Are you telling me Dianne, that we have lost our most advanced drone?
Not lost, just lost contact.
That is impossible, D1NA has the latest failsafe devices… we’ll have to contact the Ministry of Defence, what was the last location?
North Wales coast, but he… I mean it, could be forty miles away by now.
Hmm… hang back from contacting the MOD; at the altitude we set he should be well below any commercial or military flight paths. Besides, the new intelligent intervention software enables this drone to change its set course to avoid going within 500 meters of any aviation from swans to airbuses.
It could be the new software that’s the problem Prof, he… er it, can think.
Of course it doesn’t think, even the most advanced androids do not think, they merely process the data we give them.
But how does that account for the fact that, along with the ordnance survey of the coastline from Portsmouth to Anglesey, we also received a poem.
Is this your idea of a joke Diane, or are you trying to tell me someone has sabotaged the project, some environmental protester joker?
That’s what I thought at first, I was working on it, didn’t want to blame any of the team till I had evidence. There is no evidence, so I was sure today’s project was safe.
So what the hell went wrong?
D1NA made a bid for freedom; we have to understand how his mind works so we can persuade him to continue his plotting of the coastline till he arrives safely back at Portsmouth.
Dianne, you are the brightest of my interns so you of all people should know it does not have a mind, the only thinking going on is in this room and I have to take full responsibility. I have no choice but to inform the MOD; if they do manage to spot our drone they will have to bring it down before it poses any threat to aviation.
But we can’t let our amazing creation be destroyed, please let’s have one more attempt at establishing contact… oh that’s strange, are you seeing what I’m seeing on the screen Prof?
Sabotage?
No, D1NA has started his own blog, ten minutes ago, hang on, he’s not quite that clever, he’s a guest on someone else’s blog Silly Saturday – Anon-E-Mouse…
Dianne, I’m calling the rest of the team in, I think you need a break, call it a day and go home.
There was chaos at Scottish airports today as all flights were grounded after at least half a dozen sightings of a drone deemed to be compromising aircraft safety.
Find out if a drone can blog
at Silly Saturday here
https://tidalscribe.wordpress.com/2019/07/13/silly-saturday-anon-e-mouse/
Class Pets
Did you have a class pet? Pete Springer was inspired by my archive blog, shared by Sally Cronin on Monday, to write about his teaching years. There is a picture of the most adorable rat who English readers will recognise as Roland Rat!
I recently enjoyed reading writer Janet Gogerty’s entertaining post entitled Llamas and Labradoodles on Sally Cronin’s Smorgasbord Blog Magazine. https://smorgasbordinvitation.wordpress.com/2019/07/08/smorgasbord-posts-from-your-archives-potluck-writerspets-llamas-and-labradoodles-2017-by-janet-gogerty/
Janet’s
thoughts got me thinking about my own experiences with animals when I was an
elementary teacher in California. Many
years my students had the joy of caring for animals in our classroom. (I taught thirty-one years in grades 2-6.)
I was rummaging around in the garage the other day (anything to distract me from my current project of painting the interior of the house) and came across the twin-level cage that was the home for many of the rats we raised. It is now rusty and showing wear, but at the time I felt like our rats had it pretty good—as good as rats can have it.
Not only was
it fun to have a class pet, but the…
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Going To The Dentist.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that most people don’t want to go to the dentist. It is also true there is nothing worse than toothache, so there are occasions when you may be glad to visit. Another mystery is why anyone would want to BE a dentist, but that’s for another blog (perhaps a blogging dentist.)
Dental tales abound among three groups of people; those who never go to the dentist, those who will travel miles to visit the one and only dentist they trust in the whole world and those who change dentists as often as their clothes. The last group doesn’t always reflect on the dentist; how many of us put off going for a check up, then are too embarrassed to face our dentist; you can’t fake it for he will look up his records…
‘Sorry I missed my last check up.’
‘It’s actually eight years since you were last here…’
So we seek out a new dentist who must go through the whole procedure – dictating to his assistant in a strange language.
4 upper missing, 6 right lower decay, front left 7 amalgam, back lower 15 gold crown…
Just put this sharp piece of plastic in your mouth so we can take an XRay… and the other side, open even wider for this extra large piece of plastic. Okay, that’s all for today
Sigh of relief.
Make an appointment for next week for three fillings and a three hour appointment in a fortnight to remove those four teeth…
I knew someone who would ring round dentists asking ‘Do you knock people out?’
The answer is usually No as dentists do not want to be responsible for a patient dying under general anaesthetic.
My frequent attendance at dentists as a child was through no fault of my parents, except genetically. I was not allowed to have ice lollies, only ice cream, sweets carefully rationed. It was the orthodontist I had to visit at nine years old. At the time it was thought it was necessary to act quickly before it was too late, but nowadays plenty of adults have their teeth straightened and braces are an accessory.
I had teeth too large and too many to fit in my mouth; nearly a dozen first and second teeth had to be removed to give the remaining teeth room to grow straight. In those days cocaine was something injected into your gum at the dentist, the local anaesthetic. There was also gas, general anaesthetic. I sampled both, how it was decided I don’t know; I recall gas required the dentist to have a doctor present. The first time I was to have gas I walked into the room and was horrified to see a huge tank with a large skull and cross bones on. My first sensation on waking up was feeling the dentist was trying to yank my mouth open.
In between all this I wore a single wire on my teeth, a removable plate. Visits to the orthodontist were to tighten the wire, a cause for aching mouth during the night, but probably not as sore as after tooth extraction.
Why do we have such fear of dentists? People unlucky with ill health or accident have surely endured much worse suffering. Perhaps it is because it is our head, an intrusion into the part of our body we need for speaking and more vitally, breathing. We can’t talk or protest. I’ve had three caesareans and two carpal tunnel operations awake; lying helpless in the dentist’s chair is definitely more daunting.
But don’t be scared, it’s not really that bad. A handy hint; the older the building, the narrower the wooden staircase, the higher up the winding stairs you go, the better the dentist. My current dentist is in an edgy part of town, a nice young man at the very top of the building, unlike my previous dentist he discusses everything with you first. I had a tooth out on Monday, it’s not fun having the first needle go in, but better than the alternative! Luckily he asked if I could still feel anything – YES – so he gave me a third shot.
Tell us your best – or worst dental story.
