A Plea

Please, please, please label depressing Christmas/death/other world stories either as such or as part of some competition or the other!

I desperately try to avoid such for obvious reasons.  I have just read Bo’s by mistake,  no doubt a laudable attempt but too bloody close to home to actually appreciate the composition!!!

I do my damnedest to keep my days far too full to maunder, an activity of which I strictly disapprove, but festive seasons are pretty bloody grim however hard one tries.

The Gray Ghost – December CW Comp.

It was just after midnight on the night of December 24th 1936.

The steel-hulled square-rigged ship “Caspar” 140 days out of Callao, beyond Cape Horn, with 3,500 tons of nitrate fertilizer in her holds, was just into the English Channel. Her destination and homeport was the town of Ipswich, now less than 200 miles away. The weather in the channel was bad and getting worse. In heavy snow, driven by gale force winds out of the East, the big sailing ship was fighting for every inch of windward progress she could make and had tacked to the northward far over by Guernsey Island in an attempt to get beyond Start Point and buy a little extra room to make better eastward progress.
Continue reading “The Gray Ghost – December CW Comp.”

The Promise – December CW

She woke. The weak sun-light filtered through the curtains. She felt a bit like that sun: light, but remote and far distant from the earth. She stretched. The aches and pains that usually assailed her body when she woke were not there. What a pleasant change to have no physical discomfort. Don’t question it – accept it and be grateful! Normally it was such an effort to find the energy to get up. This morning she didn’t feel weak and wan. In fact, she was almost, but not quite, full of energy – ready to face the day: Christmas Day. Continue reading “The Promise – December CW”

What a shocker!

Surprise news just in, the London Sports Day, looks like it might come in a tad over budget!

Linky Linky!

Bloody ‘eck! I reckon no-one thought that might happen.

I suppose we are all supposed to be grateful that the Capital City Improvement Scheme will only overrun by an estimated 270 million for an unexpected security guard cost. Erm did no-one think to budget for security? Sounds to me like there has been a little “Lobbying with extreme Prejudice” here. But the gubmint have come clean and told us all up front that it is ‘only a possibility’ and there is still another 500 million in the kitty before they need to call on the national purse. Continue reading “What a shocker!”

My Daily Walk [December CWC]

I picked myself up and turned back to see what had tripped me.

Someone was lying face-down in the middle of the footpath, arms loosely at his side, one leg sprawled sideways.   There was blood seeping from his head; he was very still.   How could I have missed seeing him, I wondered?   Sure, I had been thinking about what to cook for dinner while I listened to triple-M, but to be unaware of something as large as a body suggested gross inattention.   I knelt to see if I could render assistance, but the poor chap looked as though he was past all help.   Continue reading “My Daily Walk [December CWC]”