GRASS - a story in a hundred words

GRASS

It was strange, the way Barry disappeared.

“Buggered off with his floozy”, Pauline said, but it was the middle of summer and he was a fanatic gardener. I’d seen him out hunting slugs by torchlight, his compost heap was a fragrant delight, and he even had a machine to grind meat bones for his lawn, so him leaving just then was a mystery.

Still, Pauline did her best to keep it nice. “For when he comes back,” she said.

“That lawn is even better than he left it,” I told her, “What’s your secret?”

She smiled. “Bonemeal – lots of bonemeal.”

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This week's photo prompt is thanks to Ronda del Boccio and to Rochelle for hosting Friday Fictioneers on her blog at  https://rochellewisoff.com/

Again I have only just made it, thanks to Margaret buying me a glass of wine that relaxed me enough after a week of moving-related stress to be able to write! My sinister story-line owes just a little to my frame of mind this week. Mwah-ha-ha!

If you're going on holiday, don't forget to pack a book. My latest novel, HELTER-SKELTER, would make a perfect beach read, and by clicking on the cover on this page you can get your copy from Amazon.

DEPARTMENT STORE - a story in 100 words for Friday Fictioneers

DEPARTMENT STORE

“What on earth are you playing at?” The department manager’s voice was icy.

Walter settled more comfortably into the cushions. “Ain’t no sign saying we can’t sit here," and Doreen kicked off her shoes, dug her toes into the artificial grass and rocked the swing seat. 

The manager, aware of the amused onlookers, kept his temper with an effort. “This is a display, not a hotel.”

Walter handed over a fifty. “Doreen was missing home, and this is the only grass for miles.”

At closing time the manager asked them to come every day - sales of garden furniture had doubled.

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I am not a lover of cities, so I have a fellow-feeling for Walter and Doreen.

Thanks to Rochelle for hosting Friday Fictioneers on  https://rochellewisoff.com/ from which blog you can follow the link to read other interpretations of Marie Gale Stratford's photograph.

I am getting close to publishing my first novel, A Volcanic Race, on Amazon, and I'm up to my ears in proof-reading, composing a blurb, and trying to get my head round publicity. So please forgive me if I don't read every blog this week :)

YARDS & YAYO - a story for the A-Z Challenge

YARDS  Americans call a garden a yard and it always used to throw me. To me the word conjured up an image of an unloved space with a dustbin or two and marauding cats – not a lawn and flowerbeds and trees. 

But here in Tenerife a lawn is a luxury – it takes too much maintenance and has to be watered constantly. Also the majority of us live in apartments without a patch of dirt to tend, so we build little walls or plant flowers in pots and call them gardens.

This is our ground floor terrace garden complete with baby lime tree – (did I mention our apartment is for sale? Click on the Apartment for Sale page so see more photos) - 

-  some back yards and alley gardens in our neighbourhood -

- this one could do with more water -

and if you only have a terrace you can still create YOUR YARD IN THE SKY. Our neighbour likes the sun but he is very tall!

Here's a piece of flash fiction I wrote last year - a finca is a small-holding rather like a large garden, and the story is set in Tenerife. Yayo is another name for grandfather - its English equivalent might be Gramps..

YAYO

My cousin was getting married but I didn’t want my grandfather to go – the truth is I was afraid of what he might do. “Yayo – it is twenty years since you left the south and it will be a long day," I said, but he rolled a cigarillo with fingers stained by seventy years on the land and said, “I will go.”

Outside the church Yayo stood obediently for one photograph and then sat under a tree so peacefully that I relaxed, but on the way to the restaurant he said, “Now, take me to the finca.”

“But Yayo, it was sold years ago.”

“I am old, not stupid, Tomas – I know it will be different.”

As I feared, where his fields had been were only houses.

“There’s nothing left,” I said, but before I could stop him he’d unzipped and pissed against a figtree. “Yayo! People will see," I cried, mortified, but he was unrepentent.

“Let them – I planted this tree.” He plucked a fig, split it open with a horny fingernail and sucked the flesh. “The taste has not changed! In a good year this tree could yield a thousand kilos – Consuela made wonderful liquor from these figs.” He spat out the seeds and settled his hat jauntily. “Let’s go, Tomas – the party can’t start without me.”

VIVA EL FICUS!

The heat might be making us wilt - what am I saying, "might"? - we are all trudging around with zero energy, but the plants don't seem to mind too much.

A little water and they're flourishing, like this huge lantana bush, which is about a metre and a half tall and two metres square.






And the yukkas are flowering too - a lovely creamy spire of flowers that looks deliciously cool.

The estrelizias are beginning to flower as well. You have to be patient with these plants, because they take at least five years to reach maturity, but the flowers are spectacular when they arrive.

But the biggest surprise is our ficus tree. We had two that had outgrown their pots so we donated them to the community garden.The bed where we planted them already had some tall palms, put there by the community, that had grown from ten feet to forty in no time at all.
A few weeks ago there was water leaking into the pool pump room below, endangering the pump and - which was much more serious - the electricity meters for the whole block. Someone had got it wrong and planted palm trees in soil only two feet deep.
The roots had nowhere to go. Result - catastrophe!

So the palm trees had to go, plus the garden with its watering system, and we were told that our two ficus would be moved to large tubs.
An elderly man and his teenage helper arrived to do the job - probably someone's relatives, knowing Tenerife. The ficus were literally torn from the ground and shoved into their new pots - I had to ask for their poor roots to be covered with soil before they dried out in the fierce sun.
They felled the palm trees and chopped out the thick roots just in front of our terrace, so we had a splendid view of their routine - two minutes of work by the man followed by fifteen from the boy. "I'm teaching him the job," the old man said.
Our ficus started to wilt so I watered them - no-one else seemed bothered whether they survived or not. One flourished and one died.
Or so we thought. This week, despite the searing heat, the "dead" one has burst into life again. Viva el ficus!