Tag Holiday

Meat market – Writing Prompt #165 “Collage 26”

freyathewriter 6 Comments

collage-26

Zayde* and Bubbe* loved the seaside. In the olden times, when money was plentiful and the sun always seemed to shine, they had rented out a holiday home, placed two old benches in the garden that meandered down towards the cliffs and felt that life was just perfect.

So it had been, for a little while. Zayde had always rejected the idea of owning a car, telling anyone that cared to listen, and many that had no choice, that the country’s public transport system was so efficient that he had no need. Why waste energy, time and most of all money on a heavy, fuel-hungry machine, when he could sit back and relax in comfort in a luxurious private compartment in a train, and dine in the dining car whenever he felt like it? Bubbe’s misgivings never got a look-in.

Then, the transport system let Zayde down. Oh yes, it was still efficient, still kept to the timetable, but what a timetable. No more being lulled and rocked to sleep as he and his wife sped to their holiday home on gleaming rails. No more steaming coffee and pastries to sate their morning appetites. No more smiling porters wheeling luggage to a waiting taxi.

 

The benches are still there in the garden, but empty of their companions.

There are no seats on cattle trucks.

There is plenty to be afraid of, these days.

* Zayde and Bubbe are Yiddish for grandfather and grandmother.

 

Here is my entry into the Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie collage writing prompt for this week. I’m afraid it took a dark turn, but hey, you know me, right? I couldn’t help but make the connections I did, it just seemed to fit. I know there are brighter stories out there inspired by this prompt because I’ve read at least one in my WordPress Reader feed, and I’ll be reading some more soon!

Why not join me in reading, or even, maybe, take part yourself?

Holiday High Jinks

freyathewriter 20 Comments

Hello, dear and faithful readers.

I had planned to write an amusing and witty poem to round off my pre-Christmas contributions to this blog, but like pie crusts, good intentions are made to be broken and blasted by other commitments such as work, which pays the bills.

I started this blog back in the spring this year with no idea in my mind that I would manage to attract such a wide readership, have so many visitors or expand my writing skills into poetry. I have met so many lovely and creative people, read wonderful work and felt my own craft develop over the weeks and months. Writing has probably saved my sanity this year. I have grown older, wiser and learned some very hard lessons along the way. I lost my dad in the summer, a pain more excruciating than anything I have felt before, and really don’t wish to repeat again for a long time. I hope this blog would make him proud. At the very least I’ve been brave enough to put myself out there and feel I can hold my head high.

Anyway, thank you to everyone who has stopped by, read, liked, commented or just trawled around to see what’s going on. You are all welcome.  I am taking a break in the countryside for the holidays, so the pages will lie fallow for a couple of weeks. I will recharge my batteries, recoup, soak up some calm and return, full of energy and food 🙂

See you all on the other side – 2014 is going to be a good one. I have already decided!

Holiday Flash Fiction

freyathewriter 2 Comments

I’m on holiday, so have penned three short pieces inspired by my countryside idyll. I hope you enjoy them all!

 

This perfect patch of blue, framed by curtains flung wide. The big city, frenetic with self-importance, lingers only as a distant fragment on the edge of my thoughts.

This perfect patch of blue, punctured by a bird of prey, intent, suspended, focused on the earth below. I too am suspended, in splendid isolation.

———–

We are mesmerised by her sudden twist of friendliness. Her tail twitches imperiously.

Follow me.

We take the cat’s eye tour – the cow barn, the hens, the sheep scattered over the mountain fields. Finally, we reach her boundary, a nodding dandelion not quite at the end of the meandering lane. A final writhe of fur around legs, and she is gone, trotting back to her fireside sanctuary.

Goodbye for now, puss.

————

A tractor, bouncing on man-tall tyres – the driver waves us past.

A ewe and her twin lambs, scampering to the steep verge, eyes wide, stopping to chew on grass, just in case.

A mud-splattered van, straining to chug to the top of the hill, clouds of fumes belching from a rusting exhaust.

This is rush hour in the countryside.