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22.2.18

LAST MAN STANDING


LAST MAN STANDING

When the plague struck I somehow escaped contagion. On my first foray into town for food I didn’t see one adult alive, but I acquired a small tribe of feral children.

Suddenly my cottage wasn’t big enough so we moved to this farm. We have fruit and vegetables to pick, horses to pull the machinery, and space to recover. Each time we hit town for clothes, tools and seeds – always seeds – more children creep out of the undergrowth to join us.

What we need now is books and a teacher – preferably young and female – then it will be perfect.
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WRITTEN IN A RUSH BEFORE MY GRANDDAUGHTER ARRIVES FOR HER FIRST EVER SLEEP-OVER - WITH ME LUCK!  Apologies for the capitals :) Thanks to Rochelle https://rochellewisoff.com/   for hosting Friday Fictioneers and to Marie for the photo that almost - but not quite - had me stumped!



14.2.18

BARGAIN COTTAGE



BARGAIN  COTTAGE

We were on a winter break when we saw the cottage, picturesque beneath its blanket of snow, and at that price we snapped it up.

When we returned in the spring the cracks were showing, literally, and the architect recommended a complete rebuild.
Bravely we declared living in a caravan made us feel young again, though to be honest, cold showers on arthritis did the opposite. But we’d found a good builder and work progressed well – until they demolished that wall.

They’d uncovered the real skeleton in the cupboard – no wonder the cottage had been so cheap.

                                                *******
This week's photo, taken by Dale Rogerson, immediately brought to mind my daughter and her husband, who are renovating a cottage in Northern Ireland. They haven't found a skeleton - yet. This is their cottage, photographed last week, and they're very comfortable in their caravan - or so they claim!

Thanks to https://rochellewisoff.com/ for hosting Friday Fictioneers. You can read other stories by following the Blue Frog link on her blog.

I am trying to get to grips with Twitter, having only used it spasmodically so far, so if you see me popping up in odd places on that site, please wave . 
Oh yes, and if you have read my book, A Volcanic Race, and enjoyed it, please be kind enough to recommend it to your friends and post a review on Amazon.
For some reason known only to themselves, Amazon don't co-ordinate the reviews on their various national sites, so only half of my excellent reviews appear on the UK site - some are on other sites around the world. Go figure! 
If you haven't read it yet, there's a link up there at the top of my blog 😼



7.2.18

AW, SHUCKS! a story in one hundred words


AW, SHUCKS!

Henry’s hotel had seen better days, but then so had the town.
Within a decade of the County re-routing the highway the place had become a backwater, full of washed-up trash and drifters. The hotel’s wallpaper peeled off and flakes of rust fell if a pigeon landed on the roof.
When a stranger booked a room for a week, Henry was too astonished to enquire what the man did all day out in the woods, and when he offered to buy the place, Henry practically bit his hand off.
Henry left for Florida a week before the new owner struck gold.
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Yet again Rochelle has found a photo to stir the imagination, this one taken by JSBrand. Thanks to those of you who sympathized with my internet dilemma last week - I found a lovely woman locally who fixed it, so now I'm back in business, and can comment on more posts than I did last week.
One more thing - if any of you have been good enough to buy my book - link at the top of the page if you haven't! - could you please compound your kindness by writing a review? Thanks.

1.2.18

CHANGING ATTITUDES - a 100 word story


CHANGING ATTITUDES
 Last month I would have fought for that tree, tying myself to its trunk to defy the chainsaws, but that was before the disaster. Now I’ll fight for my share of the logs, for without fire how can I feed my child and keep the night terrors at bay?
We don’t know what happened – without media there is only rumour and fear. Already barter has replaced cash, every supermarket has been looted, food rots in powerless freezers, and farmers patrol their livestock and crops with shotguns.

I never imagined the time would come, but today I killed a chicken.
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If I manage to post this it will be a miracle! On Monday I had a message on my laptop that Adblock had crashed, taking with it Google Chrome, my browser of choice, and clicking on the 'balloon' as instructed did nothing to fix it. Firefox, my standby, has also crashed, and uninstalling Chrome then reinstalling it didn't work either. So here I am, struggling with Google Search - can't get a Toolbar, or a Bookmarks bar, and it's all guesswork to a technophobe, so bear with me!