Will you look out or in?
Up or down? 
Open or closed? 
Peer closer.
What lies beyond?
How’s the weather?
Silly Saturday – Windows Eleven
Uncategorized
Friday Flash Fiction – Father’s Speech
When Ken came to ask… no, tell me he and Julie were going to get married, I was surprised. They have been friends for a long time, but I didn’t know love was in the air. My wife did of course, being a woman; claimed to have seen it coming for a while. Either way, we knew our Julie would be marrying a wonderful man and there is no better base for a marriage than to be best friends as well. And they have been friends for a long time; I can remember Ken as a little nipper standing at the back door, asking if he could come round to play.
Julie was a bit of a tom boy when she was young; if they weren’t building something amazing with Lego, they were out there on their bikes or catching tadpoles. We never knew what she was going to come home with when she went out with Ken.
But Julie grew into a beautiful young woman who wanted Ken to take her to the pictures or the theatre. Now we all know that Ken was sadly widowed last year and Julie helped nurse Babs in the last months. She would not have wanted Ken to stay on his own and Julie was always there for him; the same as Ken was always there for Julie when she had all her troubles.
So we wish two wonderful people all happiness for the future; Julie my only daughter and Ken, my best friend since our days at Green Lane Infants School. He’s been a wonderful god father to Julie and I know he will be a marvellous husband.
Bank Holiday Book Bonanza
Charles Dickens and I have one thing in common, not literary success, but we have both been to Broadstairs on holiday. He enjoyed summer holidays in a house now called Bleak House, where you can still stay. My earliest holiday memory is of Broadstairs, two summers blended into one set of memories. There was only me at the time and Mum and Dad did not attempt to stay in a hotel again.
On one occasion I opened the wrong door, to be confronted with a lady wearing black underwear, I had never seen such an outfit. With brilliant insight she said ‘Are you looking for your Mummy and Daddy?’
The hotel boasted child minding, so one evening Mum and Dad left me; probably only for a little cliff top stroll, I’m sure they did not spend all night in the pub, but whatever the supervisory arrangements were, I had enough time to take our clothes out of the suitcase and wash them in the large washbasin in our room – this was in the days before everyone expected en suite facilities.
Apparently I never wanted to leave the beach, drawn to the sea already, and had to be dragged off screaming or bribed with a ride on the ‘Peter Pan Railway’.
Broadstairs, Ramsgate and Margate are all part of The Isle of Thanet, the easternmost part of Kent; an island formed about five thousand years ago and always a busy place, Stone Age, Bronze Age communities and then The Romans. The last ship sailed through the Wantsum Channel in 1672 and over the decades it narrowed, it is many years since Thanet was an island.
The next time I visited the Isle of Thanet was when we took our toddler, in the days when we wondered how anyone coped with more than one child on outings, on a British Rail Awayaday to Margate. It was a sunny day, but fog descended halfway down the line and never lifted. We sat on the beach, but never actually saw Margate.
When a branch of the family moved to Margate in 2015 we returned in sunshine; a great chance for Tidalscribe the beachwriter to explore more of the British coast. We were soon sitting in the cafe of Turner Contemporary Gallery, which had opened only four years previously, looking out over the sunny harbour. As well as being famous for Tracy Emin, Margate also claims the painter JMW Turner.
May Bank Holiday Monday brought hot weather and hordes of visitors streaming out of the railway station. The Turner Gallery was gleaming white in the sun and as part of the Margate Bookie there was a book launch. Once again Dickens and I have something in common, we both have short stories in a new anthology. Shoal is a venture by Thanet Writers.
Writing is a solitary occupation; most of us are energised by meeting up with other writers in local groups or on line. To speak in public and read out your work is another skill very different from writing. Gathering people together, setting up a website, publishing and creating a book requires plenty of enthusiasm and yet another set of skills.
The launch of the anthology was very well attended and presented and the book is a delight. A varied selection, from the brief and poignant ‘The Pigeons’ to ‘Life and Times of a Zombie.’ There are flamingos in Pegwell Bay, an unhappy wife a hundred years ago and a fairy tale so much darker than Disney.
https://thanetwriters.com/
Spend a day in Margate at my website.
https://www.ccsidewriter.co.uk/chapter-five-beach-writer-s-blog/
Recycling Lives rebuilding lives while doing their bit to save the planet
Recycling share of the week , but this is more about recycling people.
Silly Saturday – of Man and Angel
A man walks into the sea and an angel alights on a hill.
https://www.turnercontemporary.org/exhibitions/another-time-for-margate-folkestone
http://www.gateshead.gov.uk/Leisure%20and%20Culture/attractions/Angel/Home.aspx
Friday Flash Fiction – Dark Dialogue
The Lodger
Jamie Ferrous: Hi Mum, this is Vlad from work, I told him he could stay for a few weeks; you said you wanted a lodger.
Mother: Oh, er um, I didn’t mean straight away, I thought we would discuss it with your sisters first… we haven’t got that basement room ready yet, it’s a bit dark.
Jamie: Yeah but that’s the point innit, Vlad works nights, he needs somewhere quiet and dark to sleep during the day.
Vlad: It’s very kind of you Mrs. Ferrous, I won’t be any trouble, I don’t play loud music and I eat on my shift at the hospital.
Mother: Is that a Polish name, you sound English.
Vlad: Mum was East European.
Mother: Put the kettle on Jamie, let’s make Vlad feel at home.
Jamie: So he can stay then?
Mother: Let’s call it a trial for two weeks, after all, it may not suit him; have you told Vlad what the girls are like?
Jamie: That’s why it will be good to have another bloke around, I’m fed up with being outnumbered.
Mother: Are you on the same ward as Jamie?
Vlad: No I’m a porter, taking bodies to the mortuary and all that.
Mother: Goodness.
Vlad: Someone has to do it and it’s only till I’ve saved enough for uni.
Mother: What are you hoping to study?
Vlad: Medicine, so I’ll be working with live bodies eventually.
Jamie: Tea or coffee Vlad?
Vlad: I’m fine thanks, I’ve got a bottle of water with me.
Mother: Are you on a health kick?
Vlad: You could say that, if you saw some of the bodies we have to heave onto the trolleys you would understand why I like to keep myself trim.
Mother (admiringly): You certainly look very athletic, a bit pale though, but we all are still at this time of year.
Jamie: Except for Aunty Vivian and Uncle Ben.
Mother (enviously): They spent most of the winter cruising.
Vlad: I prefer misty mountains, I’m a winter person.
Mother: I bet you’re from Yorkshire, with that accent.
Vlad: Yes, East coast.
Mother: Oh we had a lovely holiday in Whitby years ago, do you remember Jamie?
Jamie: Yes, it rained.
Mother: We went to that nice fish and chip shop.
Vlad: What a coincidence, that’s my home town.
Jamie: Can we show Vlad the room now, we’ve got to get off to work soon.
Mother: Yes, of course… oh that’s lucky, sounds like the girls are home, they’ve been to the cinema.
Three teenage girls in unison: Ohh… er… hello… uhm…
Jamie: Vlad, these are my idiot baby sisters. Girls, this is our new lodger.
Girls: oooh…
Vlad: You didn’t tell me how beautiful they were, very very pleased to meet you all.
Brief Appearance
Do you ever spare a thought for the fruit seller and the uniformed policeman? You know the ones, they always appear in action movies and fast moving crime series on television. There is always a fruit stall in the path of a car chase; whether the hero is chasing or escaping, he screeches round the corner straight into the hapless fruit seller. If he’s lucky he escapes death, but his stall is smashed, his fruit rolling down the street. A day’s earnings lost, perhaps his livelihood… and that is all we ever know of his life. The hero cares nothing about the man and all his dependents, he’s too busy grinning at the sight of the criminal crashing into a plate glass window. Another business ruined, the shop owner showered with splinters of glass and someone else’s blood, suffering from shock at the sight of the criminal’s head thrust through the windscreen, almost separated from his body. But the viewer has already left the scene, unaware of the shop keeper’s future struggles with post traumatic stress.
But there is more than one criminal the hero has to chase, uniformed police have now arrived, but their role will be brief. The slightest brush with the villain’s vehicle and the police patrol car rolls over, crushed, occupants killed instantly. Our hero spins round deftly to continue his pursuit.
Often our hero is a maverick secret agent, answerable to no one except perhaps M, if he is James Bond. If our hero is a plain clothes detective he may condescend to return briefly to the police station, before meeting his glamorous girlfriend. In real life he would have a mountain of paperwork and a great deal of explaining to do. But our hero does not hear other officers talking in shocked tones about the death of their colleagues. He slips in to see his boss and avoids the collection going round for the families of the dead officers. It’s just another day for him.
Silly Saturday – Popping out to the Post
How far will you go to post a letter or find a phone box?
To the corner?
Back in time?
To the post office? 
To the castle?
Or perhaps further?
Or even further?
Kew Gardens reopens world’s largest glasshouse to visitors after 5-year restoration
My garden share of the week and this place is a lot more exciting than our tiny ‘sun lounge’. Kew Gardens are part of my early memories, as my parents were renting the top half of a house they were always taking me out for my fresh air and exercise.
The last time we went there we were in the Princess Diana glass house I believe, our youngest ( three years old ) sat on a large cactus – there was a collective gasp from a party of Japanese tourists!
The Gallery
Just opened – no words, just pictures of all sorts to browse.
Times and Tides of a Beachwriter 