On this very day, 20 years ago, I launched Keith’s Ramblings. 3674 short stories later, it’s still going strong! Thanks to those who’ve stuck with me over the years, I couldn’t and wouldn’t have done it without your support!
Now, where were we? Oh yes! Time for short story number 3675!
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Crouched in a hollow, they were fully prepared, an arsenal of ammunition at hand. Soon their foe would appear.
However, the attack was sudden and unexpected. They were bombarded with soggy sprouts and rotten tomatoes. They retaliated with stale cupcakes and mouldy bread rolls. It was bedlam.
However, minutes later they admitted defeat. Their punishment was to clear up the battlefield and return the spent weapons to the supermarket bins from whence they came.
The Baaamy Farmers were chatting away when they were interrupted by Bert’s phone ringing, instead of answering it he stabbed the red button, “I needed to call the bank this morning”, he said, “and they put me on hold, ‘thank you for holding, thank you for holding’, over and over again, I gave up after a while; I hate phones these days, unlike my wife who’s addicted to hers, the other day she answered a call and only talked and laughed for about thirty minutes, I said ‘that was short, you usually jabber away for hours’, and she said, ‘it was one of those nuisance calls”.
“I was in the field this morning, and I had hold of a cow by its horn, a young lady walked along the footpath, looked over the hedge and asked why some cows had horns and some didn’t, well, I explained why, then she pointed across the field and said, ‘why is that one hornless’, I said, ‘because it’s a horse’… youngsters today!”
Over at the knitting circle Natalie had them in stitches talking about her friend who’d set up a first date with some fella, “she put on her sexiest dress, made herself up like an princess then waited and waited for him to come to pick her up; an hour later she thought she’d been stood up and decided not to hold on any longer, well, she changed into her pyjamas and slippers and slumped herself down in front of the telly – just then the doorbell rang and there he was, he said, ‘sorry I’m late, but it doesn’t matter because you’re obviously not ready yet’!
“We went to a dance on Saturday”, said Bab’s, “the one they hold at the village hall, it’s the only time I get to hold my hubbies hand, there was an elderly couple there doing the waltz and every now and again they kissed each other on the cheek, hubbie said, ‘they look so in love, how sweet’, and I said ‘yes, they’ve been married fifty years … but not to each other’, they looked so different from the couple at that wedding we went to, the bride looked miserable as sin during their first dance” – Suzie at the next table leapt to her feet and began to sing, “you don’t always get what you want…”
“A pirate was waltzing”, said Colin, “and he said to his partner, ’we need to spin the other way’, she asked why and he said, ‘because you’re unscrewing my wooden leg’ – a skeleton danced on its own because it had no body to go with – dogs are bad at dancing because they have two left feet – I used to tap dance, but I kept falling in the sink – ballerinas dance on their toes so people at the back can see them – I dropped my phone from the 20th floor, good job it was in airplane mode – the detective dropped his phone and cracked the case – A Roman walks into a bar, holds up two fingers and says, ‘five beers please’ – you hold a platter of cheese very Caerphilly – don’t hold a person to anything he says if he’s in love, drunk or running for office – I was reading a non-friction book, it was hard to hold – I like to hold hands at the movies which surprises people either side of me – Tom can’t hold petrol but Jerry can….….”
After another busy evening, Landlord Len relaxed in his armchair with a comforting cup of cocoa; he picked up a book from the side table, it was his dearly departed Maggie’s book of poems, and it fell open at a page with the corner turned down – “when you hold my hand, like child, I feel safe,” he quietly read to himself – ‘when you hold my hand, I feel your warm embrace’, she whispered in his ear.
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Thanks to Denise at GirlieOnTheEdge for hosting Six Sentence Stories, where this week’s given word is Hold.
We loved sitting here watching the sunset. Remember that conversation we had one evening? ‘How’s work, how’s your mum, you need a haircut – will you marry me?’ Your face! You giggled and said ‘no’, then looked me in the eye and said, ‘of course!‘
Then your sun set. Why? I blamed your doctor, the hospital, God even. How dare he? I was so angry. Sadly, these things happen. To some. Why you?
Here I am, watching the sunset. Our bench looks weather-worn, a bit like me. That tree doesn’t look a day older, unlike me! One thing’s missing. You are missing.
Six miles down the road from me is Pevensey Castle. Built by the Normans after they landed there in 1066, it sits in the corner of a Roman fortress dating back to 216 AD. Despite its age, most of the Roman walls remain at their original height, although those on the southern side were washed away by the sea, which has since receded by about a mile. Let’s take a walk!
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Click to enlarge images
The Roman Fortress Walls
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The Norman Castle
On September 28 1066, a fleet of about 700 ships came ashore here, led by William the Conqueror.
A miniature model of one of the boats the Normans arrived in.
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They then built their castle. Many of the walls we see today were rebuilt in the 1300s
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In we go!
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This is one of the guns used to ward off the Spanish Armada in 1588. The cariage it’s mounted upon is a reproduction.
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Here are the remains of the chapel
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and this is the well.
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This is how the chapel and well would have looked back then. The castle remained inhabited until the 14th century.
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Looking at the Roman walls from a tower
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These projectiles date back to 1264. They were launched by a machine called a trebuchet when fending off invading forces
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I would have been up to my neck in water out here in 1066!
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Just a short walk away is a Norman church; most of the outer walls date back to 1080.
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Time to drive home – mind that wall, it’s been there almost 2000 years, and we don’t want you knocking it down!
I was late, and I dashed down the steps to the underground station, dodging this way and that to avoid people staring at their phones.
A train came to a halt, and I was almost knocked off my feet by a horde of people alighting, most of whom were staring at their phones.
I climbed aboard and spotted Jim, sitting there, staring at his phone. “Hello, Jim”, I said. He said nothing, then my phone ting-a-linged. ‘Hi’. said a message from Jim. I asked how he was, and he didn’t utter a word. Another message appeared. ‘Fine’, it said. I didn’t bother to try and make any more one-way conversation!
I jumped off at the station and dashed to the shop just as it was about to close! I made it and collected my new phone!
As I strolled back to the station, people kept bumping into me. Couldn’t they see I was busy on my phone?
As I got on the train, someone I knew said hello to me. ‘Hello’, I typed back.
At last, a chance to use a story I’ve been sitting on for ages – albeit slightly altered to accommodate the given words!
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Soon ‘twill be time for young folk to don creepy costumes and act like fools, lunatics even while incessantly performing ghastly pranks in the hope of receiving a treat or two. However, it was not always that way. A similar tradition once existed when homeowners were urged to offer nourishment to those less fortunate than themselves.
‘Twas late October in the year of our Lord 1789. In the waning hours of Hallowmas Eve, urchins in rags, some no more than skin and bones, and sufferers from calamity marched from their hovels in the west until the cobbled streets of Bartonwick came into view.
Smoke curled into the sky from the crooked chimneys of thatched stone cottages. Banging on doors, the soulers begged for food and money, offering songs and prayers in payment.
A soul cake, a soul cake,
Please, good missus, a soul cake.
An apple, a pear, a plum or a cherry,
Any good thing to make us all merry.
One for Peter, two for Paul,
And three for Him that made us all
Old Harriet Wicklesmith opened her creaking oak door, and a smile spread across her wrinkled face. All day she had mixed, stirred and baked her Soul Cakes. She proffered a vast bowl filled with steaming cross-topped sweetmeats. One by one, the soulers helped themselves.
“May your souls be freed from Purgatory when these cakes are eaten”, she murmured.
“We shall eat the fruit of your labour. Blessings and prosperity will be yours,” one replied.
She returned to the calm of her room and settled before the crackling log fire, content that her good deed was done and her soul comforted for another year.
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Thanks to Brenda for hostingThe Sunday Whirl. This week’s words are – urged exist pranks view letters incessantly west fools lunatic bones ghastly vast. I used all but one!
As well as being a Baaamy boozer, Fred is also a football coach for the local under eighteen team, “I had to stop the game and call young Johnny over, I told him that win or lose we play as a team, to curse and swear at the other side was not acceptable and to call the referee an idiot and then threaten to punch him was disgraceful, then I said to him ‘go over there and repeat everything I’ve just said to your gobby grandfather’ ”.
“The other day I was chatting to Tracy”, said Arthur, “she teaches the tiny tots at the toddler school and during playtime five-year-old Milly was sitting in a pedal car and having difficulty making it move, then suddenly the frustrated child started swearing, Tracy told her she shouldn’t curse and anyway, she didn’t know what those words meant – Milly said ‘yes I do, I learned them from my Daddy, they mean my car won’t start’ “.
“That reminds me”, said Babs, “I’ve been having trouble with my parrot, she keeps cursing, where she’s learned it from I don’t bloody know, well I mentioned it to Dick the Vic because I knew he also had one; he told me that his just says prayers and suggested I take mine to the vicarage so they could meet, well, when I entered his room mine said, ‘well, hello’, and his raised its wings and said, ‘hallelujah, my prayers have been answered!’
Over at the knitting circle, Polly was telling her fellow knitwits that just lately everything was going wrong, she thought she was cursed, “I decided to visit a fortune teller hoping I might get prior warning of upcoming mishaps”, she said, “he was not much help but as I was leaving he gave me a gift, a calendar, I gave it a cursory glance and noticed the last two months were missing, worrying, anyway I then visited a palmist hoping for better luck and he said I could ask three questions – I asked him what kind of questions and he said ‘anything’, I said don’t you think £30 is a lot to pay for three answers?’ and he said, ‘no, not really, that’s two gone, what’s your third?’ “.
“Two fortune tellers met”, said Colin, “one said ‘your day’s going fine, how’s mine going?’ – I thought about becoming a fortune teller, but something told me there was no future in it – the fortune teller said he foresaw six years of bad luck, I asked if things would then get better and he said ‘no, you’ll have just got used to it’ – it’s bad luck to believe in superstition – fancy swearing is cursive – I used to be a chef that cursed a lot, then I discovered oven mits – I don’t curse, I don’t smoke, I don’t drink…dammit, I left my cigarettes in the pub – I banged my head and swore, I was con-cussing – someone who cares for swear words is a cuss-todean – a mouse that swears is a cursor – the animal that curses the most is the hippopottymouth – apathy is a curse, but don’t care enough to do anything about it – the painkiller that makes you curse is called I be profane – my alarm clocked cursed instead of beeping, I got a rude awakening…..”
Bad language in the Baaamy Inn is a no-no, Landlord Len objects to cursing of every nature, and this evening things had got a little uncomfortable on occasions; his dearly departed Maggie used to tease him about it and couldn’t resist whispering something in his ear, ’I love you Len, I swear’, she said – “I love you too, Maggie, I promise”, he muttered, “but I don’t swear!” – you should have heard them chuckle!
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Thanks to Denise at GirlieOnTheEdge for hosting Six Sentence Stories, where this week’s given word is Curse.
