Adventurer

Gone now to the unknown adventure

You have taken something of me with you

Which rather surprises me.

After all

I didn’t know you

And only the other day I listened to your music

And called it…

With that ear like flamingo wings and the eye that clints like a ruby I reckon he's dreaming of the wide open spaces where he is king, and birds, beasts, people flee before him. But his frustration - and you can see it in the blood-engorged nostrils - is to be stuck here, posing for the artist. If you had half the majesty of this creature would you agree to stand here for hours while you're painted for the gratification of scribblers?? What is there in it for him? - looks like it's just the…

Digging my friend Sue's garden, cutting brambles, disentangling bindweed (carefully does it, because any little bit will regenerate...), I drip sweat and have mucky hands, feet and face.

We stop and eat lunch which includes potatoes and salads I have grown, and a neighbour's summer pudding, bursting with blackcurrant flavour.

It is so good to feel the breeze on my hot and sticky face, as we sit at the garden table under a rambling rose. Sue says it is the first…

You would have thought from his immaculate appearance that he was a banker, or possibly a politician. In fact he was a magician who toured the halls in summer, eating solitary fish suppers and feeding the remains to the gulls. They were his friends and provided aerial displays to entertain him. Like flying in formation towards approaching jumbo jets and veering off at the last minute. Or was this, do you suppose, the magician's doing?

This story of mine is featured today on…

It was time for me to come out of my shell, to show myself to my best advantage and to take my place in the world. Or at least that was what everyone had been telling me, and I was, truly, eager to please.

So why did I show up to the workshop feeling as if I could barely make it through the…

Oliver's painting our front door red. There's a statement if ever there was one - look at us, guys! To think I was a shy child who went red (sic) if I had to talk to a teacher. Look at me now, posting my thoughts on the world-wide web...

If in doubt, say yes. "Our doubts are traitors, and make us miss the good we oft might gain by fearing to attempt" ( Measure for Measure, Shakespeare).

I have had a very brief flirtation, but I think I'm over it....

I thought I'd have a go at writing for a women's magazine, lured by the prospect of filthy lucre. So I sent off for some guidelines from a particular publication, duly received an e-mail with guidelines attached, penned a little story with required romantic content, all feel-good and boring, and sent it off. Only to receive a second e-mail saying that they had so many stories "flooding into the office" that they…

Find out whether you write like Ernest Hemmingway. Or Ian Fleming. Or some other famous writer.

Go to www.iwl.me

Just for a bit of fun. And a laugh.

I got called in to do an extra session at the charity shop where I volunteer and thought I'd be able to go in the back room and write a story which is just trickling into the corner of my mind. No such luck - two people must be in the shop at all times! New regime because last week we had a robbery - I ask you, what loser steals from a charity shop?

But it wasn't so boring because Jeff and I got to pricing a stash of old vinyl - Elvis, Beatles, Mungo Jerry (1970 - "In the…

Every time I turned over in bed last night I was woken by the discomfort in my shoulders. Today it felt like the world was, literally, on my shoulders. Then a friend told me of the pain she feels in every muscle, pain in everything she does, and I felt guilty worrying about my little burden. Putting my attention elsewhere helps. But now as I type I feel something not quite right in my left arm. So I'm offloading here, and will now, surely, feel better.

She stretches - downhead cat, uphead dog - you yoga freaks know the score. Outside the young man paces up and down, waiting his turn and worrying that a whole gang of them will erupt from the building and that he'll have to turn and walk away.

She takes the pose of the child and breathes. Outside the young man is also trying to control his breathing.

She sits and meditates, preparing to receive the young man. He opens the door, she opens her eyes and they smile…

Dog-tired, I lie in the long grass and fall asleep over my book. I dream of a world rearranged in alphabetical order, where night follows morning and the afternoons have been pushed to the forefront of our days. Meaning has been pushed to the edge of my mind and I scramble after it and tumble back into our so-called ordered, so-called real world. Ideas swish now in my brain soup and I feed them sweet tea and small pieces of chocolate.They become, unsurprisingly, over-excited, a mass of…