Sometimes I think I might have given away too much... My boyfriend drove me to the cat adoption centre on Wednesday. I don't see them advertised on the website yet. Funny feellng on my last day of work walking at 5.30 from his place to open the back door of the cinema to do my last shift with the hoover and the mop. No need to pop into my place first and feed the miouwing clamour. I can stay away as many days as I like - no need to run back or...

Hans Rosling is dead, but his work lives on here. Clichéd, I know. But Rosling does something we rarely do, he looks at the facts. And he concludes that the world is so much better than it’s ever been. He’s an optimist, a myth buster and all-round good guy. I’m none of these things. I’m a bit like Calimero, walking about under rainy skies with an egg-shell head and complaining ‘It’s an injustice. It’s an injustice’. This is a book I should...

Two very different pieces for this week! Story of the Week is a real treat - Noo's mini-collection of four short pieces entitled 'I will change. I promise.' Subtle and rich, each piece draws the reader in, and the whole stays with you long after you've read it: https://www.abctales.com/story/noo/i-will-change-i-promise Poem of the Week is winking_tiger's deceptively simple 'Anecdote'. It's part of a series of linked pieces dealing with a break-...

So today we learned of the passing of prize winning novelist V S Naipaul. When reading all the inevitable eulogies, spare a thought for his late wife Pat, whom he used and abused for many years. In a Telegraph article he even admits his cruel treatment of her may have hastened her early death. Pat Naipaul was a talented historian, and my History teacher in the 1960s at Haberdashers Askes Hatcham Girls School. At a school reunion a month ago, we...

ABC TALES READING NIGHT IN YORK SATURDAY 22 SEPTEMBER! We shall be having another of our fantastic ABC Reading Nights, this time at The Black Swan pub in York, on 22 September. It’s a wonderful chance to put faces to names, talk about writing and, best of all, hear our authors’ work read in their own voices. We start at 7pm, it’s free for the Readers and £5 entry for everyone else. You’re welcome to bring friends and family members, but remember...

My background and that of my ancestors is real. It is also a forest, a forest that obscures the tree that is Elsie. And in a few weeks I shall uproot myself from the small seaside town where I have lived for 18 years. I'm shifting to Bournemouth. Why have two miles of golden sands when I can have seven? I shall be training to teach English as a foreign language. I don't know if I shall use my new training abroad or if I shall teach adult...

It's been a sad week on our site, with the loss of one of our own. Well Wisher has inspired many of you to write some brilliant fairytales - and this week's story of the week is one brimming with hope, Airyfairiy's magical two-parter, 'Round the Corner' - make sure your read both parts: https://www.abctales.com/story/airyfairy/round-corner-part-one https://www.abctales.com/story/airyfairy/round-corner-part-two Poem of the week is from the...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bbbv4w/rip-it-up-series-1-1-blazing-a-trail https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bc3ljs/rip-it-up-series-1-2-success-and-excess https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bc3ljs/rip-it-up-series-1-2-success-and-excess Rip it Up and Start Again. Rip it Up and Start Again. That’s the lyrics to an Orange Juice song. I don’t know my contraltos from my tomatoes. Doesn’t matter. I loved Rip it Up , three hours...

I read both of these books very quickly in one day. Years ago I tried bending spoons when Uri Geller was on telly. It didn’t work then. Let’s just say it wouldn't work now. But good on him, I say, the multimillionaire got away with it. There’s that moment in Elmer Gantry when Burt Lancaster gets caught up in his own rhetoric he convinces himself he’s not a fraud. So far, so human. The most dangerous type of human is the one that is never wrong...

Every year, since we've been able to do so, my wife and I have bought Senior Citizen Railcards with the intention of "seeing a bit more of this country, this year", and, every year, just like clockwork, we realise that we're coming to the end of the Railcard's natural life and that we haven't done anything with it. Panic sets in and we hunt about for possible locations for a day out, which will go some way toward justifying the expense of the...