It was an early autumnal day, the sun was shining and we'd planned an afternoon's mooch around the shops. But first we dropped in for a quick bit of camera action at the local vineyard 'cos Himself had a hankering to try photographing vines. But then he spotted it. It ...? A ruined tank! Now... Continue Reading →

I'm a co-host over at FictionCanBeFun and, having missed our own #ff photo prompt last week, I thought I'd make use of our new #TortoiseFlashFiction page ...   Sam was peeved. It’d been his turn to plan the romantic weekend and, as they were both keen photographers, he'd decided on a moonlight photo session at... Continue Reading →

There's this photo challenge running around to post one black & white picture a day, depicting your life, with no people and no explanations. I got tagged by a friend but, I'd already read the superbly subversive attitude to the challenge taken by Ally Bean and thus inspired, I decided to accept the challenge but... Continue Reading →

... was my father's birthday. This year we are marking it without him. We'll be taking some of those Chinese lanterns up onto a nearby hill, lighting them, before sending them up into the night sky with our love and final goodbyes. My father was a great raconteur. Any time we had a gathering, he'd... Continue Reading →

As part of my current training programme, I've been working with the power of our 5 senses - those of sight, sound, feeling, smell and taste. If asked, I'd probably say that my least developed sense is that of smell. So I was surprised to experience a powerful smell trigger whilst in a shop selling... Continue Reading →

I stole this idea from Em @ Pretty Lil Book Blog - for which my thanks - but I've also talked about it at my book club, so I decided to try and get it down on paper, especially as personal taste is really hard to quantify. I'm a fairly hard nut to crack in... Continue Reading →

Even in a period when my reading time is having to be strictly rationed (I'm doing an accelerated training course), I simply have to read. I know you'll understand that my fellow readers ... Now I'm normally a lover of big chunky books (I may have written about that before) but, under the circumstances, I've... Continue Reading →

Remember Paris? Remember Nice? Remember writing how those violent events made you feel? Remember being rebuked for those feelings, more specifically for not sharing similar thoughts and emotions about events in other parts of the world? Yup, me too ... But what about Las Vegas? What about this horrendous event which happened in the USA?... Continue Reading →

... cancer. When you've had cancer and been one of the fortunate ones, there's a feeling that you must make a difference, with how you make that difference being the only question. Like many of us, I flounder about in a variety of ways, but one of those ways is writing about it. And I... Continue Reading →