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

The inspiration behind stories, like a recipe, is often a combination of different sources: pictures, experiences and even conversations. My story, Good Food Budgie , was loosely based on two of my mother-in-law’s budgies. One that was too terrified to leave the cage, but would often aggressively peck at his reflection in his mirror as if he was picking a fight with an intruder, and another loved flying around, dropping poos and small plastic ornaments on you as he did so. The aboriginal origins of the word budgie came from a small information plaque on a budgie enclosure in a Girvan public park. Black Wings Are In was inspired by a photograph by Jerzy Górecki at Pixel Images posted by a writer friend, and having just finished reading the YA novel, Out Of The Blue by Sophie Cameron, where angels mysteriously start falling to earth. Even going for a short walk in the countryside helped me to decide what to write in this blog. So, look around you, listen, reach out, taste and sm...

Earlier this month, I spent some time in Kent visiting old friends. But as the weather was sunny and dry, my husband and I decided to go for a walk to see Chartwell House. This was once the home of Winston Churchill and now owned by the National Trust who charge a princely sum to view it. The walk started at the small town of Westerham and took us up a gentle incline, but on our way, we came across a small metal gate. A gate not connected to a fence. A freestanding gate, in fact. Why was it there, I wondered? Was it a gate that didn’t get on with the other gates, and had been told to stand in another field? Was it a gate that would only appear when strangers crossed the field; tricking them into taking the wrong path? If I had walked through the gate, could it have taken me to another dimension or back in time, or even sucked me into vortex from which I would never have returned? I’ll never know, because I walked straight past it (after stopping to take a photo). But I do k...

Since moving to Scotland, my biggest garden foe is slugs.  The rich, damp soil mixed with an abundance of greenery makes the best slug haven in the UK. The size of a stick of gum and black, they mooch unseen at night amongst the undergrowth searching for their next meal. That usually means my plants, my fruit and my vegetables. I view this onslaught as personal. Last year, to prevent invading weeds from the field behind my house, I planted fast-growing ground cover plants. To protect them against slugs, I put the plants in slug collars and surrounded them with pine needles and crushed eggshells. But Scottish slugs are as hard as. They felt no pain crawling over the pine needles. They pushed aside the crushed eggshells as if they were a trivial nuisance. They had no fear of heights as they ascended the slug collars like Spiderman. Then, they feasted on my plants. As we have a cat, I can’t use the traditional chemical methods of slug annihilation and having just Irn Bru i...

To celebrate the coming of spring, my writing group wrote a series of short stories and poems with the help of four single word prompts. I chose galoshes, but I still didn’t know what to write. At the same time, I was working on a science fiction short story and planning a screenplay for my Open University creative writing course. I was also dealing with family demands and adapting to working from home. My battery levels were running low. Seeking comfort, I delved into my ‘to read’ pile of books and came across a book my sister-in-law had slipped into my bag last year while whispering that she thought I would enjoy this one: Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam. The shape and simplicity of one particular poem inside this novel, inspired me to write a poem that didn’t drain the battery levels any further. My version of ‘We Are’ was inspired by the times I would spend a rainy Sunday afternoon with my toddler daughter splashing in the puddles outside our garage. The Sundays when...

Brave New Words, based at The Stove in Dumfries, put out a feeler in November last year for poetry and stories inspired by the theme of ‘What Now’ from writers in Dumfries and Galloway. The project was to create their first newspaper type anthology of new writing. It was a hard subject to write about without falling into cliches, and I’d been reluctant up until this point to express anything about my lockdown experience. But, I did, in the end. It’s not a feel-good poem. It’s not a sad poem. Just a questioning one. Further information on the anthology entitled 'What Now', in which my poem appears along with work from two other members of my writing group and other great writers, can be obtained from info@thestove.org The Now Winter now? Black branches silhouetted against grey skies, jackdaw’s sermons dominate the dawn chorus, snow covers the hills like a lost white sheet from the washing line, and short days and long nights eat away at nature’s workaday. And n...

After listening to a BBC Radio 4 series recently on the art of storytelling, I realised how fortunate I am to be able to have this blog to express my opinions, view of life and even my values; albeit creatively. For some, they would agree that the speech in our society has become too free and that people believe anything that is posted on social media without question. Those that post an alternative view, are trolled into submission. Yet for many, there is no free speech … still. And when they do speak, it has to be written in a way that the meaning is hidden; understanding only for the sympathetic. The questioner is facing imprisonment and death. They’ve had to become creative, where we choose to. So as we welcome in 2021, perhaps we should be grateful we can express ourselves without fear, and support those that … can’t. To listen to the BBC Radio 4 series, What is a Story? written by Marina Warner, please go to:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0628b74/episodes/guide...

With the Christmas season being celebrated under the ‘new normal’, I do wonder what Santa and his elves have made of all this. So, I have a few questions: Has every child been placed on the ‘nice list’ this year? Have the presents been quarantined for 72 hours before the drop? How will the reindeer take to their blue plastic overhooves and will they still be able to keep traction on the roof? How big a sign do we need to remind Santa to sanitise his hands before and after the present drop? (probably a large one). Will Santa’s face covering match his outfit? Will Santa’s belt notch drop a few from his socially distanced fireside buffet? Will we need to disinfect the chimney after use? (with only bathroom wipes). Answers on a hermetically sealed postcard to Deckywriting. Have a great and safe Christmas, whoever you celebrate it with. Photo by LuAnn Hunt on Unsplash