Life's a Beach - flash fiction

 Life’s a Beach

Alex saw the crab first. It was on its back, deposited on the pebbles by a rolling wave, eight legs flailing in the air, claws grasping at nothing. Before Alex could get there to right the poor thing, there was a crackling of pinions over his head and a massive black-backed gull descended, its wingtips brushing his face. That was the end of the crab.

He sat down on one of the wooden posts on the breakwater and pulled out his phone. Still no message from Cally. Three days and nothing from her, had she lost her phone again, or was she ghosting him? Alex decided he didn’t care. He was only really going out with her because you had to have a girl, or the guys in the class would mock you. He knew this from experience.

Alex wasn’t especially interested in Cally, or any of the girls round here. Maybe if he could get into one of those London art colleges, the girls would be better, somehow.

He tried skimming a few stones, but that wasn’t something he was good at, any more than he was good at dating girls. His first stone bounced a couple of times before it sank. The next few were no better.

The monster gull had finished eating the crab, it flew off, ignoring Alex. The crab shell was lying empty on the stones, picked clean by the gull. Although its beak looked huge the bird knew how to use it with precision, to completely eviscerate a crab. Alex turned the shell over with the toe of his trainer. Now the crab looked whole again. He photographed it, then piled random stones over the body and arranged alternate black and chalk-white stones in a circle around the pile. A cairn for a crab, he photographed his work and posted it.

The wind was getting up, Alex had decided to abandon the beach when a guy in a dark wetsuit walked past, carrying a huge board. His dark hair was whipped by the wind and his face looked full of joy. Alex watched as he assembled a windsurf board and sail, the guy’s movements were skilled and lithe, he was fit.

Before he launched, the guy turned and waved to Alex, then he launched and almost before the board hit the waves, the wind caught the brightly coloured sail and he was off.

Alex sat on the pebbles and watched the wind-surfer hurtling across the waves, almost flying. He took out his phone to take a photo, then stopped. He stuffed the device back in his pocket and rummaged in his backpack. His sketchbook and pens were right at the bottom, he hadn’t used them for weeks. He began to draw the man in the dark wetsuit as he conquered the waves with his rainbow sail.

Starting a new story, but where's it going?

I've written the opening for a new story,  I've got plenty of details to fill it out  with but I don't know where it's going, not yet. No plot, you see! Ideas sometimes stall completely, I hope this isn't one of those.

Berlin Bear  (working title)

He had always been her favourite thing. He was black, neatly carved and had little white eyes and straight white teeth inside his open mouth. He walked along in a stately manner and was about as tall as Lydia’s mum’s blue tea caddy, and as long as her brother’s orange book with a penguin on it. He seemed quite small, for a bear.

Lydia was four, she wasn’t allowed to touch the bear, it had been her grandpa’s, he’d brought it back from Germany after the war. The bear lived on the shelf over the coal fire in their sitting room. When Lydia asked what his name was, her dad put his head on one side and said he wasn’t sure. Her mum came with a mug of tea for Dad and milk for Lydia, so she asked Mum. 

‘Sit down and don’t spill your milk,’ Mum said. Lydia sat on the little green stool that Dad sometimes put his feet up on, and she sipped her milk.

‘But what’s his name?’ She asked again.

Mum smiled. ‘Grandpa brought it back from Berlin,’ she said. ‘So I suppose that’s its name. Berlin.’

Much later, by the time Berlin Bear took in pride of place on Lydia’s retro modular shelving unit in her Fulham flat, she had learned that he wasn’t from Berlin, or even from Germany. He was carved in Brienz, the small Swiss village that had become famous for its wood carving. Berlin was a black forest carved bear, although he wasn’t from the Black Forest either, that was 270 kilometres to the north of Brienz.

It had started with the wooden bear, her collection of wooden animals, then stone animals, then things to display her animals on, hence her modular shelving. It was the first non-new item she’d bought for her flat. It wasn’t antique, although she had found it in an antiques centre and mid-century modern hadn’t yet become expensive on the vintage market.

She’d originally started furnishing her flat with five-hundred pounds, buying new things. By the time she’d got the essentials, a fridge, a bed, duvet, curtains and a cooker, there wasn’t much of her five-hundred pounds left. Forty-seven pounds and fifty-four pence to be precise. New furniture was out of the question. A junk shop on the corner opposite had sold her a red Formica topped table and two matching plastic seated chairs for twenty quid and a colleague at work gave her two sheepskin rugs which she claimed had made her children sneeze, and an old, not very clean couch, which Lydia had scrubbed with carpet shampoo, but still smelt vaguely of children and dogs. 

Her collection had stayed in boxes for years, until one Friday she saw, in the window of the Charlton antiques centre, another Black Forest bear. She went back the next day and bought it, never mind that it was seventy quid. The modular shelving unit it was sitting on was half the price, but she’d have to pay for delivery.

Jamie, the guy who’d delivered it, plus a green leather couch she’d seen later and added to her shopping list, was very happy to assemble the shelving for her. He told her the shelving was called Ladderax, from the sixties, very soon it would be considered retro, she was ahead of the trend. He said he’d only let her buy it because he needed the floorspace for a Regency bookcase which was worth thousands rather than hundreds. 

Jamie also said her flat looked a bit bare, he suggested she could buy more from the Charlton Antiques Centre. She put her new bear on the shelving and told him she had more, she pulled out the boxes containing her collection. He was keen to see what she had and she became excited too, finding things she’d forgotten about.  He helped her to unpack and arrange her animals. He was enthusiastic when she unwrapped from its newspaper nest a stone animal she had regretted buying when she was sixteen, because it was so heavy and she’d had to carry it home on the bus.

‘Do you know what this is?’ he asked her.

‘I think it’s a whale. I found it in a junk shop ten years ago,’ she said.

‘It is nice.’ He turned the piece around in his hands, examining it from all angles. ‘You’ve got a good eye. Not a whale though, it’s an Inuit carved walrus. See, the tusks?’ He pointed to parallel carved grooves down the chest of the beast and she could see it, of course it was a walrus, she just hadn’t looked hard enough.

  

Tell Him Billy Fry Sent You - A scene from 'Blue Lynx' my novel (work in progress)

I like to write in scenes. It's always the connecting narrative that is hard work.   

 Protagonist Manda Bailey is trying to organise her four friends, who are an aspiring rock band, into actually recording an album. 

                                                        ____________________

Chapter 7 - Tell him Billy Fry sent you 

The next day I got the 136 bus to Lewisham, to see Billy Fry at the Garage Studio. It had been good enough for our first single, so why not for an album? Yes it was a garage, but the studio equipment was reasonably good, or at least Matt and Dibs thought so, although the building was ramshackle, its acoustics were poor according to Andy. Rick hadn’t said much and I soon found out why. I thought all I had to do was talk nicely to Billy Fry to get round him.

         I was a bit shocked by how he looked, he had always been quite solid and cheerful, but I hadn’t seen him for a few months and he’d lost weight, he looked about twenty years older. I’d never realised he was ill, he probably had been for a while. He coughed as he smoked and I did remember that he’d always had a cough. When he offered me a cigarette, I said no thanks.

Billy Fry told me he was thinking of closing the studio down, he didn’t have the stamina to run the place anymore and probably needed to sell some kit to pay debts. That made me angry when I thought how the guys hadn’t paid him for using the place for band practice, maybe they hadn’t even coughed up for the single. I didn’t ask him in case he expected me to find the money, I just said something vague but sympathetic. We drank instant coffee while he told me about his illness, in a bit more detail than I wanted. He dug out some biscuits, custard creams, and he nattered on about music, telling me he was a jazz saxophonist although he didn’t play anymore because of his lungs. He’d accompanied a lot of bands in the sixties. I asked who and he dropped a few names, rock bands and soul singers as well as jazz. Then he came out with something that encouraged me.

‘Your lot, Blue Lynx, stupid name that, sounds like aftershave! But you know something gal, they’re quite good. They got potential!’

I was amazed. We’d all known Billy was into jazz and I never thought he’d listened to our rock band while we were mucking about in his studio, he wasn’t even there very often, or not when we were. Rick had somehow got hold of a key.

‘We just finished a tour,’ I told Billy. ‘It went all right, Blue Lynx are great live.’

‘That don’t surprise me, gal, there’s talent there. Wish I were twenty years younger, I might come along one night.’

‘Thanks, Billy, that’s great. I’ll tell them you said that.’

‘Don’t do that, gal! You’ll give that Rick Brandon ideas. He already thinks he’s Jeff bloody Beck and he bloody well ain’t, pardon my French!’

               ‘Well, I think they’re great,’ I said and he snorted. ‘Billy, listen! I know you’ve got the experience, you worked with so many great artists. What you think of them is more important than what I think.’

‘Anyways, I didn’t say they’re great,’ he lit a cigarette from his previous stub, ‘what I said were, there’s talent. Dibs is quite something and that guy Andy. He don’t say so much as his bleeding brother, but when he does his ideas are spot on and he understands the music.’

‘What about Matt?’

‘He’s a drummer, what can I say,’ he shrugged. ‘They got their own thing. I know you been going out with him gal, but he’s a bit average. He could improve I expect, but he don’t work hard enough. Drummers need to work hard.’

‘I’m going to finish with Matt anyway,’ I said, not quite sure why I was telling him. Matt always claimed he did work hard.

‘That’d be a shame,’ Billy looked sideways at me, or rather at my chest.

‘Why do you say that?’ I hoped he’d get my defiant tone, I was feeling uncomfortable, on my own here with this old bloke almost leering at me.

‘That band needs you!’ He said, surprising me again. ‘They do!’ He nodded. ‘I’ve watched you gal, they needs you to sort them out.’

I swallowed the creepy feeling and I said, ‘That’s why I’m here Billy. They need you more than me. They’ve actually all agreed, the next thing to do is make an album.’

‘They have, have they.’ It wasn’t a question, I could see him thinking. He was sitting in a tatty armchair, I was perched on a drum stool, but he hauled himself up.

‘Just you stay there, gal, I won’t be a mo,’ he brushed past me, a bit too close, then he disappeared into the tiny back room that was his office. He came back a few minutes later with two bits of paper.

‘Give that to Ricky bloody Blackmore or whoever he thinks he is this week,’ he handed me the first paper, ‘Seeing as how he imagines he’s the band leader.’ I read, astonished. It was a bill for the use of the Garage Studio.

‘They owe you four grand?’ I said.

‘I may have rounded it up a bit,’ he wobbled his hand sideways, ‘That’s interest, you know. You can get them to pay me when the album charts. Or pay my missus if I’ve copped it.’

I bit my lip, feeling guilty.

‘And this one’s for you, gal.’ He gave me the second bit of paper. ‘There’s three studios there. They’d all do you better for recording a decent album than this old dump.’ He tapped the paper with a tobacco-stained finger. ‘I’d start with Mushroom Studios if was you.’

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I’ll give that to Rick too.’

‘No don’t do that,’ Billy shook his head impatiently, he was staring at me again. ‘I said it’s for you, get it? That Rick’s so full of himself, he’s a bleedin’ twat. He won’t get in the door at Mushroom and you can tell him he won’t get through my door neither, not with that key he half-inched, I changed the bloody lock.’

‘Rick actually stole a key?’ I could believe it but it still made me fume.

‘Not your problem, gal,’ he said, ‘But someone needs to sort that band out and you got the nous for that job. Now you gotta find your gumption, I reckon you got some. Just you put on a pretty frock and go talk to Bernie Coulter at Mushroom. He looks like the most tattiest roadie you ever met but he’s got his head screwed on, like you have. He’s a good producer an’ all, and that’s what your band needs. Talk to Bernie, tell him Billy Fry sent you.’ 

When I left Billy Fry to lock up his studio, I felt a bit sorry for him but I was amazed at what he’d said, that I had nous and gumption and the band needed me. But I didn’t have the gumption to just hand that bill to Rick. The first chance I got, I shoved it in his guitar case under some sheet music and hoped he wouldn’t realise how it got there. 

All About the Dogs - my latest short story

 (set on't Yorkshire Moors, with a hint of Royston Vasey)

Eight years being the time since my partner, Geoffrey, vanished, I’ve decided to have him declared dead. I’m told you can do it, as nobody’s heard from him for more than seven years.

Three weeks after his vanishing, I’d been to police and reported him missing, because I were worried. I weren’t actually much worried about Geoffrey. I were more concerned for the dogs, all three being a bit under the weather after something they’d eaten up on the moor and I weren’t sure how much the vet’s bill would be.

Me and Geoffrey had chosen the three dogs for their wild looks. Mackeson's a brownish border collier crossed with god knows what, he's powerful jaws for a collie. Spitz is a big boy, looking like a huge, grey, shaggy bear with great long legs and a curling tail. Geoffrey said he could be a shih tzu great Dane cross, but I think he were joking. I always reckoned that would be physically impossible, Spitz must be something like a wolfhound and mountain dog cross. The third dog, Delilah, has massive black curls and fetches half the moorland home tangled in them. She's possibly a giant cockapoo, if you look at her through squinting eyes.

They were all rescues, of course, Spitz being the oldest. The vet reckons he’s now about eleven, which he says is a good age for such a large dog. The others were half-grown pups when we got them a year or so before Geoffrey's disappearance. We’d agreed Spitz needed company especially as we were both out working, he’d been a bit destructive, demolishing shoes, doors, two sofas and a stray cat, we’d found that half eaten in the front garden. Of course Geoffrey were soft on dogs, he insisted on blaming foxes. Some people might have believed him, but I knew who’d come in with cat’s tail in his mouth.

Geoffrey loved to walk with all three dogs on his free days. Summer or winter, they’d all ramble for miles on the moors and if we were lucky, Geoffrey would come home with a few rabbits or game birds in his kitbag. Once he arrived with a lamb in the bag, he said Spitz had only spooked it and made it run, he wasn’t deliberately hunting it. Geoffrey was in denial.

Hastings Book Festival, my Prizewinning short story

 I entered two stories in the Hastings Book Festival short story competition. My story, 'Once Upon a Time in Bulverhythe' came third in the overall competition, and won the Sussex Prize for stories by local writers. I'm very chuffed, it's the first time I've won anything for my fiction. My story is set on Bulverhythe beach where I often walk.

The judging was very kind and very flattering, I was told my story was, 'beautifully crafted with brilliant characterisation and a real sense of place. We fell in love with both Ted the dog and Ted the man.'  Lovely to have such praise. Link to the event -  Facebook

I want to say thank you so much to the short story judge VG Lee, the Book Festival organisers and to New Writing South for collaborating to create the Sussex Prize. 

The story is in my post below.

Once Upon a Time in Bulverhythe - short story

Ted McBain kept a tide chart sellotaped to his fridge door, so he could set his day around the low tide times. The dog had a very long stride and loved to stretch its legs on the wide, flat sand, but at high tide there were only pebbles. Ted liked the beach at any time, it was why he’d moved to Bulverhythe when he retired, but low tide suited him so he went with the dog’s preference.

By coincidence the dog was also called Ted, its racing name had been Teddington Court. Ted the man had acquired Ted the dog because he had decided that he wanted to adopt a greyhound. He’d always bet on the dogs, ever since his dad had taken him to Catford Greyhound Stadium in his teens.

When he first retired to the house on Bulverhythe Road, he’d owned a short haired, brindle dog called Dougie, whose breed was possibly cairn terrier but mostly uncertain. Dougie had been older than Ted, in dog years and after Dougie died, Ted had walked down the road to the Bull Inn for a consolatory pint. Dougie was missed there too, Claudia behind the bar always kept bowls for special canine customers like Dougie, who had enjoyed his terrier sized pint.

Conversation around the bar turned to dog breeds and which sort of dog Ted should get next. There was no thought that he might not want another dog, so Ted kept quiet and let them all get on with it. When the talk turned to greyhounds, he’d begun to listen and was horrified to hear that after their racing careers were over, many dogs were discarded, shot or put to sleep.

‘I’ve always felt sorry for them poor things,’ Claudia had said, ‘it’s just awful them being stuffed into those tiny boxes then forced to chase a hare that isn’t even real and have you seen the bloke who walks five lovely old greyhounds in Alexandra Park, I chatted with him a while back and one’s called Lulu and there’s Sandy and Dusty after all them singers and he obviously cares for his old racing dogs, now they got lovely lives…”

Ted had switched off Claudia’s chatter, but that had been the day he decided to adopt a greyhound. After some research, he took a train to London then the tube to some kennels at Wimbledon and was disappointed to be told he couldn’t take a dog home straight away. He was expecting to do paperwork and pay a fee, however the woman was very apologetic, but she couldn’t let him take the dog on the tube to Charing Cross then the train to St Leonards, it wasn’t suitable transport for highly strung dogs.

Ted had been allowed to meet several dogs in case he liked any of them, and he decided it had to be the dog called Teddington Court. Quite apart from his name, he had a dark grey, slightly brindled coat and a white chest and throat, very like Dougie’s, and at the sound of Ted’s voice his tail had wagged vociferously and his huge, dark eyes looked joyful.

Ted managed to persuade his niece, Mandy, to help him collect the greyhound in her car, in return later for a slap-up meal at La Bella Vista, which made him wince as he put it on his credit card. He had spent all his spare cash on fees and extras for the dog.

The kennel had sold him a dietary chart, several boxes of particular greyhound food and they even persuaded him he must buy one of their special harnesses for Teddington Court, who they said had a narrow head, even for a greyhound so would slip the smart, black collar Ted had bought specially. They even tried to sell him a tartan overcoat for the dog, but there Ted put his foot down. He said he would get a coat for the dog in the autumn, when it actually needed one, not in summer when it didn’t.

Now, in February, Ted the dog owned two coats, which had cost Ted the man less than half the cost of the one that the kennels had proffered. The early rain had stopped at just the right time for the tides, so Ted waved the brown woolly coat at his dog, who stood up from the blanket among the cushions on the sofa, tail wagging. The cold, damp wind called for the waterproof coat over the woollen one, which was a struggle on the excited dog. Finally successful, Ted pulled on his own parka and opened the door. He had long since realised that his greyhound was perfectly calm and needed neither harness nor lead to keep him under control, though Ted kept a lead in his pocket, just in case. Teddington was very content to walk close to his side unless Ted gave the word, then the dog could go from stationary to full speed in the blink of an eye.

They walked along the residential streets and past the small industrial units to Bridge Way. Next came the only part of the walk that the dog disliked, this was the crossing of the railway line running alongside the beach, which meant ascending the metal stairway up the footbridge. The noise of its toenails, as Teddington clattered across the metal, combined with the ringing of the whole structure as Ted’s heavier tread set it in motion, scared the dog every time. The first few times Ted had almost had to carry the dog up the steps. However once Teddington had discovered that, on the other side of this terrible bridge lay the delights of the beach, the dog became less contrary.

But today suddenly became one of his contrary days. Just as they were about to set foot on the bridge an early train from Eastbourne rattled and clattered underneath, it was a small train, only two carriages but enough to panic the dog. He cowered behind Ted and no amount of urging would make him move. In the end Ted lifted him up awkwardly, feeling the trembling body through his own coat. The dog’s long front legs trailed over Ted’s shoulder and it's head pressed against Ted’s neck. With his arms around the animal’s hindquarters Ted struggled up the harsh metal steps before disembarking him with huge relief onto the top step.

Urging the dog on, Ted crossed the bridge and descended to the wooden platform on the other side, the dog never gave any trouble going down. The tide was far out, sand gleaming silver under a bright grey sky and the dog’s ears pricked up, the perils of the bridge forgotten. The beach looked empty, it was still early and anyway the biting wind would keep most people away.

Once on the sand Ted gave the signal that the now prancing dog was waiting for, just a simple flick of his right hand and Teddington Court was off like a cheetah chasing a gazelle, although he needed nothing to chase, he ran for the sheer joy of it. Ted watched and admired as he paced himself along the shining sand, there was no way he could compete and anyway, his back was protesting after his efforts on the bridge. Greyhounds are large dogs, despite their slender appearance.

Teddington Court was now a dot in the distance, Ted had come to rely on the animal to return to him. But for the first time, it didn’t. Cursing aloud, Ted trudged off in slow pursuit. Inwardly he felt he was sinking, perhaps the dog wanted to leave him, or worse still was taken by somebody. Thoughts of ‘what if…” clouded his mind as he trudged, eyes scanning the beach and the path that ran beside the rail track.

In the distance he could see a long, dark rock on the beach, near the water’s edge. He didn’t remember seeing it before, the tide must be even lower than usual. Then he heard barking, Ted the dog never barked, so now he was fearful that his shy greyhound was being attacked by another dog. As he neared the rock, he realised what he was hearing was his dog, who was running in circles around the rock and barking with excitement.

He called out, “Ted, come here! Come, boy!”

The dog stopped running, but continued to bark, more quietly now while staring at the rock, his head lowered. As Ted walked around the rock to reach his dog, he realised there was a rotting smell, must be some dead fish somewhere, quite a lot of them. Then he saw the eye, grey, sunken and oddly small, in the side of the dark rock. It was a whale.

Ted waved his hand in front of the sad, grey eye, but there was no response. He stood and watched the leviathan, in case there were any other signs of life. He was standing on the windward side now, but then he remembered the rotting smell. It was definitely dead.

The greyhound had stopped barking and was looking at him, tail wagging expectantly. But what should he do? Nothing in his former life, as a London fireman and later a leisure centre caretaker in Catford, had presented him with a dilemma like this. The closest had been rescuing a retired brewery horse from a ditch behind some stables. That had been hard enough, involving block and tackle and a tractor but the whale would weigh many times more than even the largest dray horse.

With a struggle, Ted fished his small mobile phone from his inside jacket pocket and stared at the thing. He hardly used it, had only bought it for emergencies, did a dead whale count as an emergency? It seemed unlikely, but who should he report it to? Then it came to him and he switched on the phone.

‘Good morning, emergency services. Which service do you require?’

‘Coastguards,’ Ted replied firmly. They should know about whales if anybody did, and if they didn’t deal with dead whales, they’d know who did.

By the middle of the afternoon the beach was awash with reporters and spectators and the two Teds were celebrities. The Bulverhythe Whale was on TV and Ted the dog famed as its discoverer. The fact that dog and dog owner had the same name added to the reporters’ delight. Ted the man was interviewed by the BBC News and was able to put in a small plug for adopting greyhounds.

‘Couldn’t be a more peaceful dog to have in the house,’ he told them.

When Ted and the greyhound entered the Bull Inn the following lunch time, they received a small round of applause. He was offered a free pint and Claudia had a special present for Teddington Court. Ted had always been careful over the dog’s diet and he was slightly dismayed to see the present was a large pork pie. He couldn’t refuse the wretched thing, but said he would take it home for later, if the dog ate it all at once he might be sick. Claudia understood, she had a shih tzu that was always throwing up, she wrapped the pie in a plastic bag. Ted stuffed it into the largest pocket of his parka and accepted another free pint.

Back home, his elderly neighbour collared him and said there were two ruddy great parcels and where had he been she’d had to take them in and the delivery man disturbed her TV show and frightened the cats and it was a ruddy nuisance blocking her hall and blah blah blah. Ted retrieved the parcels, apologised to her and asked her in for a cup of tea. She eyed the dog, who stood placidly at Ted’s side, and departed, slamming her own front door.

The first of the parcels contained several packets of dried dog food, courtesy of a local pet shop, with a note praising, ‘Teddington our Hero’. Ted had a feeling the dog would probably prefer the pork pie, he took it out of his coat and put on a plate. He made a mug of tea before opening the second, larger parcel, which seemed to be anonymous. It contained a brown, padded dog bed, with raised edges and smart corduroy lining. The dog ignored the bed until Ted scattered a few pieces of the dried food into it.

Teddington actually seemed to like these treats, he sniffed them all out and they crunched satisfactorily. He then went purposefully around the house collecting up all his possessions, three half-eaten chews, a tennis ball, punctured beachball, large blue teddy – a present from Mandy - fluffy cushion, squeaky crocodile – a present from Claudia - a knucklebone, two chunks of well-chewed driftwood and Ted the man’s old trainers. The dog carefully deposited all these beloved things into their safe, new, corduroy home, he then climbed up onto his blanket on the sofa and fell asleep.

Ted sat with his mug of tea and ate a slice of the pork pie. He’d watched his dog doing its housework and almost laughed as it climbed onto the sofa, leaving the collection in the new dog bed. Ted switched on the TV to catch the local news. He and the dog were no longer headliners, but the whale was still a star. It had been identified as a fin whale, the same species as had washed up at Normans’ Bay a hundred years ago and was now in the Cambridge University Museum. The University had also claimed this whale, they would run tests and experiments. It offered a great opportunity to progress modern ecological sciences, apparently.

As Ted was washing up, the phone in the hall rang.

‘Good evening, Mr McBain! What a lovely day it’s been!’ It was the woman from the greyhound kennels. Ted greeted her before she continued to the point. ‘I do hope that Teddington Court is enjoying his new bed. It’s just a little thank you present to him for being such a wonderful ambassador for our greyhounds. Please don’t worry about the cost to our charity, it’s surplus in the shop. We had six and I have to confess they weren’t selling too well, not a fashionable colour, brown. Anyhow I’m sure that you will be pleased to know that we have had had six new enquiries from potential adopters since Teddington Courts’ lovely appearance on the BBC.’

Ted thanked them for the beautiful brown bed and wished them luck with the new adoptions. He didn’t tell them that Teddington was fast asleep on the sofa, not in his new bed or that he would be getting pork pie for his tea.

 

                                                            *

Lulabelle and the Scathing Fowel

Lulabelle and the Scathing Fowel –from the Scarfolk folks’ daily archive.

Lulabelle Scathing, age seven-ish (exact DOB unknown), is a child prodigy. In her early youth she bioengineered her pet woodlouse, Crunchy, into a fully grown armadillo. However her mother, Arachnia Featherstone Ambling Chough-Smythe, has wisely guided her into more lucrative pursuits, since there is no market for armadillos in Scarfolk County.  

Lulabelle is now a very young, though fully qualified geneticist and bioengineer, working on the genetic modification of her pet chickens to create larger, semi-predatory birds. In the absence of wolves and sabretooth cats which have not been seen for many years, Lulabelle’s chooks will be safely released into Scarfolk Forest to help to reduce the numbers of deer, woodpeckers, beavers, charcoal-burners, lumber-jacks and other vermin that damages the trees. 

Lulabelle’s chickens have been named Scathing Fowel, as a tribute to her father, wee Dougie Scathing, who vanished immediately after his daughter’s conception. Her mother, Arachnia, had declined to take Wee Dougie’s surname, as she felt her own name already included four of her other seven former-husbands/partners and to add another would be cumbersome. Each of her eight children carried their father’s name and that was memorial enough.

The photograph is Lulabelle's favourite, named Cockatrice, he is exploring the bottom of the garden. He will be father of the next generation of Scathing Fowel.

Once a sustainable population of Scathing Fowel has been established in Scarfolk Forest, Arachnia’s idea is to issue hunting licences to carefully selected gentlefolk, enabling them to shoot a prescribed number of Scathing fowel. As the fowel will be the top predator in the forest, their numbers will need to kept in balance or, having eaten everything else they would start on each other. 

Only trained markspersons will be allowed to hunt for Scathing Fowel as the birds become excessively dangerous when wounded and can take an adult human’s arm or head off with one bite. However less qualified persons may be employed as beaters or bait.

Arachnia has not yet broached the hunting idea with her daughter, as Lulabelle is inclined to being sentimental about her ferocious feathered fowel. And nobody would ever dare to suggest to Lulabelle that she has not spelled fowel correctly. For a start she is only seven and spelling is not her best subject, also she would set Cockatrice on any dissenters.

36,295 Words written and extract, Blue Lynx

 That number Kind of indicates that I may be half way through my current novel, which I started writing about 8 months ago, then had a three month hiatus but now getting back on track. Edited extract from the end of chapter 2 here - 

                                                            *

I didn’t throw anything, I slapped Rick’s self-satisfied, mocking face so hard it knocked him off balance. He grabbed my arm and began twisting it. In a second Andy was between us.

‘Get the fuck off her, dickhead,’ he gave his brother a shove and Rick retreated across the room. ‘Are you okay Mand?’ Andy pulled me close. Over his shoulder I could see Rik grimacing at me. A red mark was already appearing on his temple, with luck I had given him a black eye. It was small recompense, I knew the bastard was right. They never had paid me. Everything I’d done for the band over the last 20 years wasn’t really appreciated. Most of it probably hadn’t even been noticed, they just assumed that they deserved it and in the main the rock career of Blue Lynx had run fairly smoothly, like those beautiful swans on the river, only I was the one paddling furiously underneath.

*

After I saw that Rick’s announcement wasn’t challenged by the guys, although Andy did at least have the nous to look uncomfortable, I cleared the twins’ plates into the sink and they rushed upstairs to play Mario Cart. I went out to the barn. If only Andy had stuck up for me properly, instead of just pushing Rick away, I’d have almost welcomed one of his fights with his brother.  Maybe he thought a fistfight in our kitchen would upset me more, although it didn’t usually. I was used to the Brandon brothers brawling, I just didn’t want it in front of the kids.

Baker the cat miaowed a greeting from the top of a stack of four hay bales as I opened the barndoor and most of the chickens came up to greet me. I know it was only what my nan used to call cupboard love, but at least they needed me and appreciated what I did for them. I threw down a handful of grain from the bin and sat on a bale with chickens pecking around my feet.

One of the silkies didn’t come, she was sitting against the barn wall and looked as if she might be brooding some eggs. I felt a bit sorry for her, sitting on eggs that would never hatch. I’d sort of promised the kids that we might at least get a cockerel for the little silkies so they could hatch a few chicks without the possible problems a big Orpington rooster might cause. Then the silkie got up and came over to join the others, pecking up the remains of the grain. There weren’t any eggs where she’d been sitting, she was just having a lie-in. I decided there would definitely be no roosters, cockerels, whatever the correct word was. There were too many cocks around the place already.