When bin day is the fulcrum of your week, you know it’s well past time to get out more. Trouble is, I don’t want to. I want to stay home and procrastinate on the DIY (yes, still) and many tasks on the list, such as not selling stuff on ‘Vinted’, and decide what to read next instead. (Have to read ‘em before I can sell ‘em). Tragically, bin day has started to take on a stress all of its own. It’s 1.30pm and they’re still not here. Are they not...

First wave of covid, I caught it. Didn’t know I even had it – I thought it was stress and took two weeks leave. When I went back the following Monday, the Bulgarian team hadn’t prepared the monthly invoices and I found myself sitting at the desk, tears streaming down my cheeks. I wasn’t crying, the tears were just silently seeping out. Made an appointment with the GP, got a nurse, he was fab, Troy, who said I had most likely had covid but it was...

Gravitational Hands: (The unaffected minute) The clock face project, the dials: Suspended in a silent, frozen fluid state. Detached from the norms of its time. As the seconds turn to minutes, Unrecognizing the hours in a hurry. Away from those forgotten days, just Last week, saying slow down before Fortnight answers with a brief timeout. This month had no time to reset. There’s nothing we can do now. The new year is here. A crescent moon, being...

Filed by Fletcher Moody — Literary Correspondent You could hear the farm before you could see it. I had driven out from Milledgeville in the middle of a Georgia afternoon, in the kind of heat that gets into the upholstery, and a half mile short of the place a sound came across the fields that I took at first for a woman calling from a long way off. It came again. It was not a woman. By the time the house showed itself, white and low behind a...

Finished reading ‘Land’. Beautiful story-telling, but not one to read if in any way depressed, other than the fact that you could console yourself that at least you don’t have to live a life like that. Also finished ‘Travel Light’ by Naomi Mitchison, which will have to re-read as was either too distracted to get it or fell asleep and forgot key details of the story. Bought it as she lived on the Mull of Kintyre where my father was from. He used...

Saturday was a raggedy day. A rehearsal for things to come. The winds were up. The rain misting between Haar and spritz that faded before hitting the ground. Late summer trees, in their no-nonsense, deep, dark greens, caught on, winking their pale leaf undersides, “We’re in”. On the hills opposite, are several slopes which are farmed, their colours affirming the seasons. The deep port purple of winter furrows, the lime green stubble of spring,...

Drone Warfare Bring an end to winter. To these lethal strikes. Drones and bombing foggy days over Kyiv. The bombs are still being heard around the clock, Non-stop. Shadow on the radar. Haunting symbols, leaving lingering trauma and invisible wounds. So (Sow) maty (Mother) zhyto (Rey). Their weeping mothers. “I’m sorry for your loss”. For your loss, it has come at a devastating cost. There is still a blue road. Fire won't destroy everything. The...

“The Ten-Year Drift” Ten years buried, Like a cabin under frozen snow. Surface: A sudden knock at the door. A return of ten years. Suspension of consciousness I am relieved. Twist of fate; An icy chill on a white blanket slate, fresh skin; a new life. As the sound of snow sonic, pillows over the cabin. There sits our picture. Fades to old blue. Once a shared shadow. Becomes an instant replay. We sat looking out of the window Sharing an age-old...

What if I just let go? An Architect of Ruins: built upon an unpredictable, Sandstorm. With full knowledge of its consequences. The contractor's role in assisting with the outcome. Was the price to pay for the tools used to construct the anchor that is already sinking? This is the familiar toxicity of a well-known friend. While displaying their fully furnished turnkey. Craving stability, but chose the sandstorm. Like cutting off body parts, then...

Happiness vs Joy Ps 30:5 For His anger is but for a moment, but His favor is for A lifetime, or in His favor, is life. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. 2 Cor 4:17 For our light, momentary affliction (this slight distress of passing hour) is ever more and more abundantly preparing and producing and achieving for us everlasting weight of glory (beyond all measure, excessively surpassing all comparisons and all...