Continued from Cyril and More Cyril We first encountered Cyril when we kept our pub, The New Talbot. Mum and dad rather collected ‘waifs and strays’ and seemed to have a weakness for odd characters. It was not unusual to have a living room full of people, after closing time on a Saturday night, enjoying an after-hours drink on the house. On these occasions, mum often put on a bit of supper because she was concerned that a number of her ‘...

It was the daisy that held my attention and I’m not sure why…it was buttercup yellow and the sight of it…one lone daisy waving to me in a field of grass…made me sad, it was all alone… and I wanted to plant it a family. Strange musings over my first cup of coffee I thought…but that was the view out my back door and it had captured my imagination regarding flowers and feelings. So I wrote on my grocery list: “buy some plant seeds.” I was going to...

I spend more of my life reading than any other activity, but then, promptly, forget everything I’ve read. I’m useless. So, of course, I’m interested in new writers. Unfortunately, I also do a bit of writing. There’s a biblical quote for every circumstance. ‘For where your treasure is, your heart will be also’. Sally Rooney is one of the new big things, Normal People was long-listed for The Man Booker Prize. I never claimed to be normal, but it’s...

Continued from the original article ‘ Cyril ’ My abiding memory of Cyril is inevitably wreathed in smoke. Not by the mists of time but usually via a Players No. 6 Tipped which he held constantly in his mouth. He was one of those people for whom a cigarette was something of a permanent appendage rather than an occasional enjoyment, even to the extent of breathing through his fag as he gave one of his detailed accounts about something you were...

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I hope you've had a lovely break over the holiday season. I certainly have - and it's been much enhanced by the good writing on the site. Stroy of the week was tough but I've gone fo a value busting 4 for the price of 1 fom Airyfairy with her delightful modern fable https://www.abctales.com/story/airyfairy/tower-strength-ip-part-4-4 Poem of the week was rivetting and gave me the shivers, well done seafret for your spine tingling piece https://...

I’ve been thinking about Cyril quite a bit over the past few days. I should, at this point, make clear that I do not usually spend my days thinking about Cyril. In fact, it must be quite a while since he last crossed my mind. What brought him to the fore this time was that I have been mowing the lawn. This is the sum total of my efforts in the garden, apart from occasionally hacking some innocent tree to within an inch of its life. This is not...

I bought this book when it first came out. I’ve picked it up and put it down a few times. It’s got an impressive list of broadsheets such as The Guardian wo proclaim it ‘a big, page turning, globe-trotting thriller’ and a leading author of a dystopian future, A Handmaid’s Tale , Margaret Atwood, calling it ‘Electrifying’. I read most of the 339 pages, missing out chapters, here and there, and scooting to the end, which I knew was going to be...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0004gpl/miriams-dead-good-adventure-series-1-episode-1 There’s a simple rule in life, don’t get old and don’t get fat, which becomes a commandment on television. Presenter Miriam Margolyes is the exception to the rule. She looks a bit like Grotbags, the witch, but without the green hair. Margolyes has become something of the flavour of the month on BBC, a kind of low-rent-a-gob, fat and Jewish and a lesbian...

Reposted here in case you miss it in the main site... The second result from this online epic book is that the research on my family - on spinal bifida which I have, and which was resolved for me by surgery, is now done, and around the world unborn babies are being saved from lives trapped in wheelchairs - locked into a silence - in a world that leaves them there. The only thing I found wrong with all of this, is the refusal of the medics...