It's A Sheep's Life ... Baa

While clearing out a bedroom drawer, I came across my old camera. The last time I used it was on my honeymoon in New Zealand, but I’d never had the film developed because after taking the final shot, the film failed to fully rewind into its canister.  Yes, the camera is the old-fashioned kind, but was fancy at the time because it automatically rewound the film into the canister at the last shot. Despite changing the battery when it happened, the camera still didn’t rewind the film. If I force open its back as it is now, then a fair few of the photographs will be ruined. It's moved house once and has sat in my bedside drawer for 22 years. That’s procrastination on a mega scale and far surpasses my usual procrastination traits.  But I thought it couldn’t be fixed, and I didn’t want to throw the camera and its precious memories away either. It includes images of the elusive yellow-eyed penguins at dusk on the South Island, the city of Dunedin and its links to Edinburgh (and the...

Christmas seems to come earlier each year and then sweeps in at the last minute like a velveteen cloak smelling of cinnamon, roast potatoes and … pine toilet cleaner. I’m not prepared for the Christmas decoration aisle in August, and I don’t like pine toilet cleaner. To get me feeling more Christmas Elf than Grinch, I penned two flash fiction pieces for Friday Flash Fiction’s Christmas competition who this year, insisted we include the terms ‘peace’ and ‘goodwill’ in our stories. So, I hope you enjoy my small scribblings of Mirror Mirror and The Elf Effect , and although I wasn’t picked to win the prize of $50, I had fun writing them. By the way, no mirrors or partridges were hurt in the writing of these whimsical yarns. Merry Christmas, and hope you have one free of pine toilet cleaner.                                                 ...

Since moving to Scotland in 2013, I’ve seen more wildlife than the entire 45 years I lived in England.  Seriously. I’m not just making this up for the sake of fiction. While out walking or driving in the daytime, I’m regularly treated to the common garden birds and crows, but spread some love in the form of oats and uneaten rice cakes, and the local woodpecker comes knocking. Rabbits frolic on the lawn as mummy rabbit teaches them … rabbity hops and cute nose twitches. There are the toads that can leap across the entire road before we pass them at 45 miles an hour. And if you’re really lucky, a red squirrel will scamper up a nearby tree – with a nut clamped in their jaws, ear tufts swaying in the breeze. Driving home late at night, a different kind of clientele frequent the roads and pathways as if they’re challenging you to a round of the retro 80s computer game about a boy on a push bike who’s thwarted at every opportunity by cars, animals and bins as he tries to deliver his ...

I’ve been quiet on the blog front. Studying for my MA, breaking my elbow, and then within the classic writer’s rule of three, I had little spare time and energy to blog. However, I recently bought two beautiful notebooks in TK Maxx (one with Chinese artwork and the other a hare) to encourage me to journal again. I decided that one was to be notes on the novel I’m currently writing, and the other, a travel journal. I used to do the latter in my 20s and 30s, but somewhere in the business of life I fell out of love with a handwritten record of any holiday or event, leaving my photos in the Google ether to tell a story instead. I’d gone to TK Maxx with the intention to buy photo frames, and after circling the shelves numerous times, I saw a rack of notebooks inspired by British artists, instead. Distracted, I ended up picking two for me, and one for my daughter. And then I chose two photo frames. I queued up at the cash tills to be served by a worker who had seen me frittering around the p...

The run-up to Christmas is always a time of reflection for me. How the year has gone, what I’ve got to look forward to over the coming month, but also fondly remembering those we used to celebrate with. The long dark nights, log fires, and a steaming cup of tea often inspire me to write ghost stories about the return of the ones we love. I hope this short story gets you in the spirit. The Christmas Habitué It was Christmas Eve and Florence heard a gentle click of the front door and then the stamp of snowy boots. ‘Derek, that you?’ she said. ‘Hello Ma!’ he said, picture framed by the doorway in his army uniform which had been pressed to an inch of his life, ‘could murder a cuppa!’ As he rubbed his ashen hands above the red coals of the fire, she shuffled to the kitchen in a pair of oversized green woollen socks. Returning with a teapot for two, he was gone; just like every Christmas. She smiled and then cried, just like she always did. (This story was first published by Friday Flash Fic...

Stories are a beautiful blend of truth and fiction, and when something comes from your own life experience it can give a realistic heartfelt atmosphere that will, hopefully, resonate with a reader. My latest short story, Finding My Beat, is a contemporary realism tale of a young woman recently split from an abusive boyfriend who returns to live with her parents. Grieving for the life she had of euphoric nights dancing to rave music, she discovers that a new life is only just the flip side of a vinyl. But looking for a place for this story was initially difficult. Thanks to mentoring by Carol McKay 2023 Scriever for The Federation of Writers (Scotland), I was able to improve the story and gain the confidence that it was worthy of a home other than on my PC. Thinking outside the box of traditional webzines, I discovered Rave One , a British rave music website. They were actively looking for blog articles and after sending them Finding My Beats, they offered to publish it. But Stu ...