https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_(statue)
Tommy by Ray Lonsdale
Seaham, County Durham
Silly Saturday – Darkness Descends
Friday Flash Fiction – Who am I?
At my beginning unnoticed,
Disturbing a few blades of grass.
At my departure miles wide,
Or so it seems to those who pass.
Older than any empire,
I’ve watched over cities and towns.
Crossed by legions, traversed by millions,
So often I’ve changed my bounds.
I am the setting for history,
For politics and power.
Painted and prosed by the famous,
Unfortunates dreaded my tower.
I’ve sucked down many to their deaths,
That was never my intention.
Gentle meadows are what I love,
Not man’s intervention.
The city turned me dark,
Hemmed me in with squalor and hate.
I’ve been loched, bombed and tunnelled,
Till my very bed vibrates.
My fortunes like tides fall and rise,
Stories captured for many to tell.
Painted by Turner, Canaletto,
Written by Dickens, Jerome and Wells.
I dream of a spring in the meadow,
And wonder am I still me,
As my banks sink and salt currents swirl
And I’m swallowed by The North Sea.
Bed and Breakfast
Why stay in airbnb when you can pay more for the same chance of not knowing what to expect at traditional bed and breakfast establishments? We have stayed in strange hotels and at the ubiquitous Premiere Inns, where you know exactly what to expect and we have stayed in a variety of B&Bs all over the British Isles. They are all different, that’s the fun. Some are wonderful, better than your own home. There are strange hosts and strange guests. We arrived at one place in a seaside terrace to find no one at home, the landlady was out walking her dogs.
But my most embarrassing near disaster was the second night of a holiday to Scotland with my daughter, sister and sister’s friend. This part was my responsibility as I had booked us to stay at a B&B in Blackpool, owned by relatives of an in-law, we had even met them once at a family wedding. When the door opened we were met with blank expressions, they didn’t seem to recognise us, let alone be expecting us. They weren’t, the booking had been forgotten, but that wasn’t the worst, the ceiling in one of the guest rooms had just collapsed.
All was not lost ‘I’ll pop across the road and ask the boys’ said the lady of the house. And so we found ourselves at the superior Hotel Babylon with delightful landlords Craig and David who kindly charged us only what we would have paid. The bedrooms were very swanky with red nets draped from the ceiling in one room and similar pink decor in the other. I’ve just looked them up and they are still in business, so if you are going to Blackpool I can recommend Hotel Babylon.
Our stay at the weekend was in a guest house in Hythe, Kent, a lovely old house with beautiful gardens. Satnav got us there, but the usually available private parking, a small triangle of gravel at the back of the house, was blocked with a huge horse box and a couple of cars. Further up the steep hill we found a side road. We then slid back down the hill, with our luggage, on a pavement carpeted in wet autumn leaves. A car was backing out of the guest house; it drove back in and a woman half climbed out, we assumed she was our hostess but she said ‘Mother will look after you’ and drove off.
At the back door we were greeted by an elderly lady who showed us into the hall and up to the landing; all the walls were covered in shiny silver flowery wallpaper. Upstairs everything was a pink time warp and the three rooms and guest lounge were named after Winnie the Pooh characters. In our room there was a 14inch television perched on the dressing table with lots of interference, but there was WiFi. The For Sale signs we had seen outside did make us wonder if the place was being gently run down.
We left from the front door to find somewhere for dinner, but as it was dark by then the descent of the uneven, steep front path was an adventure.
At breakfast four guests were seated at the other table, we were all sitting in the hall and the daughter and granddaughter wandered back and forth in their dressing gowns with mugs of tea. The other guests asked the elderly lady if she ran the place by herself.
‘Oh yes, I’ve been doing it for forty years’ she answered cheerfully as she brought us tea and coffee; no pots, the cups rattled in their saucers as they shakily descended to the table.
As we left on the second morning we asked if the place was for sale because she was retiring.
‘I am 82, so I suppose I’ll have to retire sometime, but I don’t want to.’
https://www.ccsidewriter.co.uk/chapter-four-travel-diary/
Visit my website ‘Travel Notes From a Small Island’ if you enjoy looking at other people’s holiday snaps and want to read about some very different places.
The Game of Life
Warning: Do you dare to play the game of life? If you don’t want to read about illness and death or you dislike dark humour please avoid this blog, but I hope you will continue to visit my Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday blogs.
Round One: No word from Dagenham yet.
Game Rules:
Everyone’s life is a story and every story has an ending.
It is generally agreed that life is not fair, at least from our earth bound perspective.
Life is a game without rules, or if there are any we don’t understand them.
The further round the board you get, the less you should complain when you’re OUT.
Tragedy is when children or young parents die, by the hand of nature or by the hand of man.
When they say everybody is living longer, they don’t actually mean every person.
We have to leave Summertown, the days of being recycled teenagers are over.There is a very real possibility that Cyberspouse will be outlived by the Duke of Edinburgh and my mother.
His attitude? These things happen, don’t get upset.
None of us REALLY thinks they will happen to us.
How is the game of life playing out in our families?
We heard only third hand via Facebook that someone in Cyberspouse’s large family had lost their only daughter, who leaves behind two young children. We know little about her life or death.
My mother is the only one left of her generation in the immediate family.
I am the first grandchild on both sides, the next one down, my bachelor cousin in Australia, had already cheated death after a massive stroke and just as our bad news was sinking in we heard he had died in an horrific accident. He had become the first one OUT in my generation of the family, Cyberspouse moved on an extra space.
You get the prognosis and you have to start telling people. Cyberspouse, as is the modern way, e-mailed one of his best friends, who was recently widowed, with the up date. He replied with suitably sympathetic words ( modern men do talk ) but without pause added ‘no word from Dagenham yet’. When Cyberspouse read it out from his phone we both burst out laughing. This was a reference to the annual ‘boy’s outing’ to collect friend’s new car. He loves cars and when his wife was in hospital he had said ‘we might not get to Dagenham this week’.
Today we went to the group workshop on understanding treatment, patients could take one ‘friend’. It was like being back in the classroom, but quite jolly. Next week it all starts. In the meantime he says we should carry on as normal, although he has now got a good excuse for getting out of my writers’ group Christmas dinner and splashing out on Sky sport.
Silly Saturday – Baz the Bad Blogger
In the first and last of my series of author interviews my guest is Baz the Bad Blogger who was happy to answer my questions as nobody else wanted him on their blog.
Welcome Baz, thanks for coming along.
It was a hell of a journey, I hope I’m going to get lots of book sales out of this.
Er, well it’s more a case of meeting lots of other interesting readers and writers. How did you come to start blogging?
THEY said it was a good way to sell my book.
What do you like to write about in your blogs?
ME.
Tell us about your new novel.
It is a dystopian fantasy set in an unnamed capital city. The government has been taken over by zombies and androids, but no one can tell the difference as none of them have any personality.
That must have made character development rather difficult.
I decided not to bother with character development.
So do you consider the plot line to be important?
I guess so, I just go for dead straight…
Moving on, what advice would you give to other bloggers?
When I started I wrote very long blogs so everyone would think I was highly intelligent.
And did they?
I don’t know, I never had any comments, so I decided to make my posts brief. I recommend two sentences at most, as no one reads past the first two lines anyway…
My second piece of advice is to have lots of pictures of fluffy kittens or cute puppies. I haven’t got any pets, but I found a dead rat in the back yard one rainy morning and he looked quite photogenic once he had been blow dried.
Your blog certainly has a unique style. How many followers do you have now?
Umm… one, Tidetables something or other.
We had to cut the interview short as Baz had somewhere more interesting to be, but you can find out more about him and his novel ‘I Zomboid’ at his author page.
Baz has changed his cover photo…
Friday Flash Fiction – Fall Guy
This time I was determined to get to the end of the book. Last time I was out by chapter three, without my name even being mentioned. Then there was the time I was the lead character in the sub plot, all was going well until the editing stage…
The clothes were uncomfortable, it was my first historical drama, but I was determined not to let my author Hermione down, together we would prove there was more to the plot than Guy, or Guido as he liked to call himself.
Chapter One, December 1604: sluggish, all that tunnelling while Thomas Percy swanned around upstairs scheming.
Chapter Two, March 1605: I thought things would get more exciting with the lease of the cellar, but who ended up lugging all the barrels of gunpowder?
Chapters Three to Six: Hermione digressed, a whole summer and autumn of waiting, hanging out with the two Roberts and John Wright, but at least I was still on the scene, strolling around Seventeenth Century London, helping to give the novel a bit of context.
Chapter Seven, November 1st 1605: it turns out I’m going to be the one to give the plot away, straight to my priest for confession. Turmoil for my character, not going to let my friends down, but I do have a conscience. Then Hermione goes and makes the priest an agnostic spy who has no compunction in breaking his vows.
Chapter Eight, November 5th 1605: I was tempted to tell Guido to go home, why should he get all the blame?
Guido and I were the only two to make it to the last chapter, me the forgotten chap alongside Guy Fawkes. I gave in after only half an hour in the torture chamber, my fate was not made public. The longest chapter ever written, I thought I’d never get off that rack, now I’m wondering what is going to happen in the Epilogue.
Opens this weekend
The Dark Web
Today I have a guest who has just started blogging on the dark web. Because of his situation he prefers to remain annonymous, but is looking forward to posting about the problems faced by minority groups. As an appropriate introduction he describes a typical experience on his favourite night of the year.
Treat or Trick
Time for my annual visit home; weather’s taken a cold turn, that’s good, everyone’s wrapped up so I don’t look out of place. Busy down my road. Couple of new families moved in, children whizzing around on wheels of various sorts, new people at number 53 and here we are. Oh, new front door, hmm, doesn’t really suit the lovely old house. No car parked out the front, hope they are not all out. Big poster by the front door… NO TRICK OR TREATERS That’s a bit mean, too stingy to buy a few sweets. I’ll take it down.
There’s nobody at home anyway; everything locked up as if they had gone on holiday. Still, after the reception I got last year perhaps they have decided to avoid me.
Getting dark, shouldn’t be long till the Trick and Treaters come round, five groups last year. The final group were hardly children, all ghastly teenagers, reckon they were dared to come by their younger siblings. Hang on, I can hear the front door being unlocked, it’s Rory, must have decided not to go away with his parents and sisters.
‘Hi Rory, you’ve grown since last year.’
That’s strange, he’s rushed back out again. All on my own, well I’m used to that. At least I can watch what I like on television. All these channels they have now, you’d think there would be something on worth watching.
There goes the doorbell, visitors at last, I’ll have a peek out the window. Little kids, rubbish costumes, anxious parent hovering on the pavement. Right, time to open the front door, slowly, keep them in suspense. They are very sweet, I’ll lower my hood gently.
‘Hello children, treat or TRICK… no don’t run away.’
That was fun, pity they didn’t stay, but hopefully the new families will be out and about. I can see a few strangely attired short people across the road. Here we go, they’re coming up the driveway. No need for them to ring the doorbell…
‘Good Evening, you gave me quite a fright, are you ghosts or ghouls… hey, come back, you’ve dropped your bucket with all the money.’
This is boring, no callers for half an hour … oh at last. Peep out of the window, let them see the curtain moving, their costumes are brilliant… they’re ringing the door bell again.
‘Hello Vampires, I’ve got some nice fresh blood for you… don’t go next door yet, you haven’t shown me your trick…’
Blue lights flashing and sirens, must be something going on outside, might as well have a look. Police officer coming up the path, close the door pronto. Ringing and knocking.
Can you open the door please Sir?
Me a Sir, that’s a laugh.
‘I don’t open the door to strangers, especially at night.’
I’m a police officer, can I just have a word?
‘About what, haven’t you any criminals to arrest?’
We had a suspected on going burglary call from neighbours, concerned because the owners of the house are away. If you could open the door so we can confirm your identity.
Better open the door, perhaps he is a Trick or Treater.
Can I have your name and date of birth Sir… umm perhaps it would be easier to talk if you uncovered your face.
‘I have a medical condition, I need to keep covered up.’
We’ll need a doctor to confirm that at the station, we’ll need proper ID.
He’s whispering into his radio now, calling for back up, possible terrorist situation!
Now, if I could have your name, address and date of birth.
‘Certainly, Anthony John Worsley, 29th February, 1873. Now constable, it really is time I was leaving, I need to go and get a good year’s sleep.’
Tuesday Tiny Tale 500 – The Unkindest Cut
‘Have you self harmed before Mr. Andrews?’
‘What? … ow!’
‘Local anaesthetic, please keep still while I do the sutures. Would you like to talk to someone?’
‘Talk to who? I just need to be sewn up and get home’ I pleaded.
Shock was beginning to set in and I couldn’t take in what the young woman doctor was saying. I looked at the clock on the wall.
‘I think I left the gas on.’
She frowned. ‘Gas as well and yet at the last moment you didn’t go through with it, that’s good, but you need to speak with one of our counsellors.’
‘Look, embarrassing as it is, I’m a doctor too…’
‘No need to be ashamed, statistically doctors are more likely to attempt suicide and more likely to succeed.’
I sat up straight, knocking the tray of equipment.
‘No, no, this was an accident. I’ve done that course, Thinking About Mental Health… I work in this department, you must be new?’
‘Four weeks.’
‘In four months time the only mental health you’ll be thinking about is your own, thanks you for your concern but…’
‘I am concerned there could be nerve damage Doctor Andrews, we need to refer you for further treatment.’
‘The only damage to my nerves will be my wife’s reaction when I get home, how can I explain this was all the pumpkin’s fault?’
It all started last week when the children were pestering us. They ‘needed’ Halloween costumes and rubber spiders etc. The advantage of being older parents? We have enough sense not to be sucked into blatant commercialism. No trick or treat, no ghost masks. My wife suggested the All Hallows’ Eve Festival of Light at the local church, being held to counter commercial exploitation of children, or was it to pray for deliverance from evil? Either way I did not want to spend my precious day off going to church, so I promised a surprise and tasty supper on their return.
Late this afternoon pumpkins were being sold off cheap at the greengrocers and I had it all planned. A circle of happy pumpkin faces dangling from the trees in the front garden, pumpkin soup recipe off the internet.
The first two orange heads were impressive, the third a bit tough, but the soup smelt nice. The fourth pumpkin was impenetrable, sharper knife and more force needed.
Purlicue… thena web… that piece of loose skin betwixt thumb and forefinger. I didn’t feel any pain as the knife sliced straight through… my energetic attack on the pumpkin meant the force carried the blade straight on down my palm and left wrist before my right hand thought to drop the knife. Blood spurted everywhere as I tried to tie a makeshift bandage with one hand and my teeth.
Now I looked again at the clock in the cubicle. My family were about to arrive home to a burnt out saucepan, a vivid trail of blood and no sign of me.
Times and Tides of a Beachwriter 