Silly Saturday – Inside a Writer’s Mind

Thanks to Sandra   https://acornerofcornwall.com/

Widdershins  https://widdershinsfirst.com/

and Caz  https://invisiblyme.com/contact/

for picking pictures from last week’s Silly Saturday. Thanks also to the anonymous writer who took up the challenge and let us inside his head…

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Mart the Electric Tram was bored, stuck on the rails, tied to the overhead wires. His passengers boasted of all their journeys and how much faster they were. Driving round the M25, crossing the Firth of Forth on a great red railway bridge… Mart could not imagine these journeys, but they sounded exciting…

Matt deleted all he had written, he wasn’t cut out for children’s stories… perhaps he could write about the M25 for his blog…

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The London Orbital, better known as the M25, officially opened in 1986, not bad considering the idea had first been suggested in 1913. The idea of any orbital road is to go round a city instead of going through it, but roads always end up with more traffic than predicted and drivers refused to play fair and sneaked onto the M25 for local journeys.

If you get where you want to go, motorways are good and round ones even better, whichever direction you go you will get to your destination eventually – or will you? One Boxing Day the traffic was so slow I suggested leaving at the next exit while we had the chance. We ended up lost in the wilds of Surrey – Oh is that where the Yehudi Menuhin School is… but where IS the Yehudi Menuhin School… luckily we found a garden centre with a cafe open. Inside were all the lost people of Christmas… We had lunch, but were still no nearer to home.

Now there is intelligent motorway, more intelligent than drivers; it tells you what speed to go, if there is Congestion in lanes 1&2 or an Obstruction in lane 3. One time we eventually came to the obstruction and it was a chaise lounge across two lanes. I wonder who lost their priceless antique.

But let us here remember those we have lost, those who continue to go round and round the London Orbital without ever finding the right exit…

‘Dinner’s ready’ – Though Matt was always grateful when it was Maxine’s turn to cook dinner, he was filled with incandescent rage if she called him just as inspiration struck or he was about to post his blog. What the hell, who wanted to read about the M25 anyway, his blog was even more boring than actually driving on it.

‘Coming Darling’

It was as he trundled downstairs that he had his great idea, a television drama, what producer could turn this down.

Coming soon on Sunday evenings Firth of Forth – a great people divided by a great bridge…

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Matt had only seen the Forth Bridge once, but he was amused with the bustling tourist seaside atmosphere in the town of South Queensferry in contrast to the quiet village of North Queensferry on the other side of the Firth of Forth. No, not a six episode drama series, a soap opera, it could go on forever and he would be secure for life…

 

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The Blog of Many Colours

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Times and Tides of a Beachwriter is brought to you today by the colour red, chosen by Rowena who was very happy to pick up a red Alpha Romeo at auction. You can visit her blog here.

https://beyondtheflow.wordpress.com/2019/05/22/ma-ma-friday-fictioneers

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Red is bold, certainly not modest, it adorns the flags of many countries. We obey it at traffic lights and the only time it hides is when it is safely inside our bodies; blood red is ready to gush out of us at any opportunity.

Red is iconic; double decker buses, the Red Arrows of the Royal Air Force and the Forth Bridge. It tells you where to post your letters, where to find a fire extinguisher and still occasionally where to make a phone call. Red tells us when it is Christmas.

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Photographers love a splash of red; a boat in the harbour, a red coat walking in the snow. A red front door looks distinguished.

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Red is one of the three primary colours and one of the four colours humans like to use for organising people. At school I was in the red team, Saint George. Saint Patrick was green, Saint Andrew blue and Saint David yellow.

We are not urged to eat our reds, as we are with greens, but tomatoes and red peppers are healthy and brighten the plate up.

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Long before Christmas existed mid winter was hailed by red berries. In spring it feels a little subdued, except for tulips, but summer brings Mediterranean scarlet with geraniums ( pelargoniums ) and romance with deep red roses. In autumn red reaches for the skies as the leaves turn.

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Much of the earth is red. When I was a child my mother told me Devon had red soil, I could not imagine such a thing, but white chalk cliffs turn to red as you go west along the Jurassic Coast. Northern parts of Australia are red, such as the Pilbara, known for its ancient red landscapes and vast mineral deposits; red also means rich in iron ore. Other continents all have their unique red landscapes.

https://www.australiasnorthwest.com/

Alas red, through no fault of its own, is a political colour. Who decided communism should be red? Nature used red first.

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