Keith's Ramblings

for Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge

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Everyone assumes he’s a jolly chap with an outgoing personality. Well, he is for a couple of weeks a year, but he’s actually a private person who leads a quiet life in a remote little cottage with just a few pets for company. When going out, he tries his best to disguise himself, but I know who he is!

Sadly, his precious wife Nora passed away a while back. Every year, early in December he makes his way to the churchyard clutching a bouquet and his guitar. He kneels beside her grave, neatly arranges the flowers. then strums a few chords and quietly sings ‘It’ll be a blue Christmas without you’.

He stands, kisses his hand and gently strokes the words on the gravestone, ‘Nora, beloved wife of Nick’. 

Then he walks home with a spring in his step, soon to emerge looking resplendent in his red cloak and hat.  He gives his sleigh a polish and grooms his reindeer ready to set off around the world to deliver joy and happiness to children big and small! 

Thank you Santa!

Picture by artbyrandy at Morguefile.

for Ragtag Daily Prompt which today is hosted by Christine and the given word is Trail.

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You didn’t ask. You just walked into my life, an uninvited guest. 

Until then, all was pefectly ordered, gratifyingly so.  I was content.

For reasons I will never understand but forever regret, I stood aside and let you change everything;  things which until then I’d felt at one with. 

You rearranged my thoughts, my memories, my hopes, my ambitions.  I was no longer my own person.  You took over.  I looked on as you invaded my very being.

Then, as suddenly as you arrived, you walked back out leaving a trail of destruction in your wake.

                                            Why oh why did I allow you to occupy my mind?

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for Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt where the given word is Crucible and the limit, 100 words.

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Willamena was thinking. All her friends had partners, many had little witchlings.  It was time she found a companion.

The Crucible, where she occasionally enjoyed brews and cast spells with her mates was probably the place to start.

She straightened the point on her hat, shook the dust from her gown and set off on her broomstick.

She ordered a flagon of red wine, a melting-pot of magic potion and made a wish.

Minutes later she met Walter, a wizard who was on a similar mission.

Now, they spend their evenings reading their Witchionary of Spelling and planning their future.

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for Friday Fictioneers.

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I’ve done it!  I’ve actually done it! I put it off for yonks, and now it’s diddley-doddley-done!

I’ve tidied my desk!

I found all sorts of stuff.  A scrap of pizza, a pair of underpants, a dead mouse, a ten-pound note …  

Now, everything has a designated place.  Pens here, pins there, paper clips – somewhere.  Sticky tape, dikshunary (however you spell it!)  What’s this?  No idea, never mind, put it there!

Wow, what an improvement!

Now, where’s my notepad?  Where’s my coffee?  I need my glasses.  Oh heck, where are they?  

At least when it was a mess I knew where everything was!

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Thanks to Rochelle for hosting and Jan for the photo.   

 

Click Froggie to join in the fun!

 

   

                                  

for Ragtag Daily Prompt which today is hosted by Christine and the word of the day, Leftover.

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Quite often I look at a prompt and a story immediately pops into my head, so I write it. Just as I’m about click ‘publish’ I get a better idea and start all over again and commit yarn one to the leftover story pile, which I refer to as my Writeovers!

I just searched for an unused piece containing the word leftover but all I found was a recipe for bubble and squeak – my favourite post-Christmas dish by the way!

There was one about a guy who was looking to recover some stolen goods and his instructions said ‘go down Main Street, left over the bridge, down to the river bank and it’s right under the overhanging bush! 

I didn’t think it was good enough to post here though!

There are several about my friend Rosey which could come in useful one day and a few attempts at poetry, like one that starts –

 

I’d love to write a poem

A poem of my own

One which people want to read

So I’ll become well known.

 

I sit and stare into my screen

The words just fail to flow

I scratch my head and bite my nails

My poem just won’t grow.

 

The other day a line appeared

inside my fuzzy head.

But could I find some words to rhyme?

I wrote some prose instead.

 

Blah-blah-blah – it just goes on and on for another six and a bit nonsensical verses!

I have a self-imposed rule which forbids me from writing stories of more than 200 words as experience has taught me that the longer the tale, the fewer the readers.  As I seem to have just broken that rule (281 so far) I’d better stop before I lose you too! 

Shall I stick this one on the pile of Writeovers, or not ……..?

 

for Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt where the given word is Marginal and the limit, 31 words.

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Always on the outside looking in, success evaded him.

He was determined to make the big time, by fair means or foul.

He chose the latter.

Now he’s inside looking out. .

 

Numerical anagrams! This is my 2200th post and the last of 2020.  My next one will be my 2201st and the first of 2021! 

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Just after Christmas a few of us met for a drink at the pub. 

We talked about this and that, then suddenly, with a flourish deserving of a thespian, my friend Rosey  produced a crumpled piece of paper from her overstuffed handbag.

‘These’ she proclaimed ‘are my New Year revolutions’

‘I think you mean resolutions’ Jonny suggested.

‘Whatever’ she said, ‘although according to the dictionary, a revolution is a sudden, fundamental and complete change in one’s way of thinking’. She pressed her thumb to her nose and wiggled her fingers!

When the laughter calmed down we realised she was serious. She’d heard that a good way to help stick to your resolutions is to write them down and get your friends to witness them with their signatures. So off she went. 

‘One – be more organised’.

Unfortunately, she’d forgotten to bring a pen, so she borrowed one from the bartender!

‘Two –  be less clumsy.

Three –  drink less.

Four – always be on time.

Five –  stop swearing’.

We each added our squiggle and Amanda drew a smiley face.

A couple of evenings later we went to the Bulls Head to see in the New Year. Four of us were sitting around a little table beside the log fire. Rosey was late. Fashionably late she called it when she arrived!

She drank a little more than usual, knocked over my pint and cursed quietly hoping not to be heard.

‘Resolutions Rosey?’ I reminded her.

‘It’s not midnight yet!’ she giggled.

‘It is now’ Andy said as a bell chimed in the New Year.

Everybody in the pub wanted to give Rosey a kiss, so she tried working her way around employing an organised route. It went wrong. Some got three kisses, some none! Resolution one off to a rocky start.

She barged her way back completely unaware that beer and wine was sploshing in her wake. So much for resolution two.

An hour later number three had gone straight out the window, but everyone was having a little too much to drink that night.

As for resolution four, we all agreed she was a little late in offering to buy her round of drinks, particularly  as the pub was about to close!

‘So that’s four of your resolutions broken Rosey’ I laughed. ‘Just number five to go’.

‘Oh, **** the revolutions’ she giggled as she zig-zagged her way to the door!

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for Friday Fictioneers

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Simon’s a bit of a poet. Syme the Rhyme we call him. When I mentioned our beer was cloudy, off he went!

“There’s another world above the clouds

An unspoilt world untouched by man”.

“Simon, should I get Sinead the Barmaid to change them?” 

“A world where nothing hides the sun.

A world where time has not begun”.

“Syme, shall I…”

“A world which knows not needless strife

Untainted by the yearns of life”.

“ Simon, beer, cloudy!”

“It’s miles above our troubled land

Unspoilt by greed and human hand”.

He stopped and lifted his glass. 

“Do you think this beer’s a bit cloudy?” he asked.

 

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Thanks to Rochelle for hosting and to Na’ama Yehuda for the photo.

Toast the frogs to join in the fun!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Read all about her New Year ‘Revolutions’   

for Wordless Wednesday

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New Year’s Eve will be a quieter affair this year, so I thought I’d dig out a few pictures of the London celebrations from years past.

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for Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt where the given word is Troglodyte and the limit, 95 words.

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Her home, a shabby shack nestled in a wood, isolated from the frenzied existence of the townsfolk beyond. At one with the trees and creatures of the undergrowth.

All she needs, everything she desires surrounds her. No need to talk. No one to hear.

In the silvery light of a misty dawn, she stands in her doorway entranced by sparkling droplets of dew upon slender blades of grass quivering in the breeze. 

A brumous haze ripples midst the hoary oaks. Mesmerised, barefoot, she ambles into the miasma.

The end? A new beginning. She alone knows.

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