Everything pales…

The important thing about comets is that they chase away the futility of anxiety. My own dark clouds had spent a week over me but had been blown away when I returned to teach the very Year 9 group that precipitated their arrival. I planned a fuck-it lesson which involved reading. There are certain stories...

Recycling Old Selves…

So, after becoming a benign cast member of The Walking Dead, I was a happy soul if one considers happiness to be born out of indifference. Actually, that’s not fully correct. One could never be carefree or indifferent if one lived opposite a neighbour whose right wing views, privileged past, and belief in men having...

Loose Ends and Everything…

Since thinking about the theory, there has been no smell of roast lamb in the morning. Whatever was the cause of the original smell had probably got a ‘wiff’ of what I was intending to do. Getting up from sleep was no longer an operation in subterfuge. Subterfuge:  Deceit used in order to get one’s goals;...

And still more of Everything…

I have to think carefully about these episodes. One thing I have realised since ‘taking up the pen’ is that it is a mighty weapon, if there is anyone left to fight.  The first few weeks of the pandemic were good. All the staff in school were smiling more than ever before and these smiles...

Almost Everything…

The school stood before me, the figure at the window had disappeared and the hawk flying overhead, in circles, seemed to have found somewhere else to draw patterns around. The dead oak, that had once knocked at my bedroom window, was now out of sight and mind. I had crossed the circular lawn that greeted...

Almost Everything…

I had never thought about flying. I had thought about the goshawk which could fly, and catch, and rip, and devour, but I had never thought about flying. Flying meant power and control. Flying was to be like the goshawk, looking down on a world that was defenceless to your scrutiny, and willing to give...

Summer’s Irony…

I haven't done a post like this for a while. They normally arrive when shit does. Shit is the stuff we have to wade through until we get to the end of it. The last ten years have been shit-filled, but I thought that I had gotten to the end of it - I had...

Writing Competitions…

I'm currently in the mood for a few writing competitions as I think this is a way of sharpening up my act and getting the pitch/summary stuff together. So far, two have gone off into the ether and a third is in the offing. I did, however, notice another competition that was interesting but probably...

Life is but a walking shadow…

I have been spending the last few months trying to settle on a story for my next enterprise. I have happened on a few ideas, but they tend to fade with the coming of the daylight. Think and think and think again, but to no avail. The last two books I have completed have not...

April 19th?

This has become a special date for me as last year I caused my self a whole cargo of injuries that almost led to my unscheduled demise. Demise ia a nice way of saying dead. The good thing was that I didn't die - I came close to it, but just managed to avoid it...