Right, I hope you’re sitting comfortably with the doors and windows shut as you prepare yourself for the terrifying tale that awaits you. I’ve been a top journalist for about twenty years now and have written many articles about all sorts of curious incidences and strange happenings in life, but this story I am now about to tell you, may well be one of the most unfortunate tales that I have come across in my career.

It was a perfectly normal day for me: I went out to the market to pick up some mince meat and Turkish Delights, and then returned to my abode to begin my latest article, when on my doormat I found a brown envelope addressed to me in scrawled handwriting. I recognised the writing straight away: it belonged to David Wickham.

It had been a while since I had spoken to him and his sister Bronwyn and I opened the letter in eager anticipation. The news they had to tell me was most unpleasant.

Their parents had drowned in a recent and tragic canoeing accident and they were to move from their Welsh hometown of Camdwyn, to live with their only living blood relative, Edgar O’Riley, whom I better know from the children as Uncle Edgar. He resides in the misty town of Wroxall on the south coast of England; not a town I personally would recommend visiting. It’s a small yet grim place which often appears in the newspapers for all the wrong reasons. Many crimes have taken place there and even in the heights of summer, the sky shines over it in murky grey tones, casting haunting and negative energies all around.

It takes quite a lot for me to be shocked or surprised, but quite frankly, this news bothered me and I was fearful for the future of the Wickham twins.

Pleasant as their Uncle was, he was a bachelor, and was use to working on his own, within his own space. He enjoyed his own company, but had never really experienced the company of children up until now. The news came as an unexpected surprise to him and he quickly set to work at cleaning up the spare room for David and Bronwyn to sleep in. He scanned the house for dangerous substances that he would have to store more carefully from now on.









Edgar was a Scientist, who aspired to be a great one at that, many people who knew him would describe him as a genius. He spent a great deal of his time, every morning and well into the late evening working on experiments. He had invented all sorts of gadgets, trinkets and miraculous potions, but being an eccentric sort of fellow, personal hygiene and housekeeping were two of his less appealing qualities in life.

Edgar was overall excited about the arrival of the orphans staying with him.

Meanwhile David and Bronwyn bid a sad farewell to the town which they’d grown up in and reluctantly boarded the train. Their hands were tense as they carried their brown leather cases to the luggage rack. They were the youngest people travelling alone and got a fair few concerned looks from passersby.



They sat in awkward silence for the first part of the journey, both a bit on edge, everything had happened so quickly and the news was still sinking in. It was a bumpy journey and the heating on the train had broken so they kept their coats on.

Bronwyn looked out of the window and watched the houses she’d once traipsed around trick or treating and the buttercup fields she had once picnicked in, flash past her like distant memories.







David tried to read, but found it hard to focus with all that was on his mind. They weren’t the sort of children to pity themselves; they took everything in their stride, but such a big change in their lives left them feeling as if they were lost pieces of a jigsaw puzzle waiting to be found and placed somewhere that made sense again.



Uncle E

Add a Comment

THE PRINCESS AND THE PEDDLER




Once upon a time in a faraway land, there lived a beautiful queen with golden corkscrew curls and striking sapphire eyes whom everyone loved dearly. The only trouble with this queen was that she had a very vivid imagination and was forever in a daydream.

The palace staff were forever rushing around her, trying to prevent her from knocking things over and walking into pillars.

One beautiful summer’s day, the queen was leaning out of the window of the palace’s tallest tower, singing with the crow: when all of a sudden she heard a great clashing and bashing coming from downstairs.



Of course, this was only the sound of the cook smashing up some plates in a sulk but the queen imagined that it could only be the sound of a gang of evil robbers climbing the palace walls in order to kidnap her and thieve her crown jewels and stamp collection.

This thought made her incredibly cross indeed so she leany right out of the window to give them a good telling off. Tragically, she fell to her death, leaving behind her beloved husband King Wolfram the great and their beautiful daughter, Princess Haitlyn-Lilly.

Princess Haitlyn –Lilly resembled the late queen in many ways and King Wolfram spoilt her rotten. If they were out shopping and the princess saw something that took her fancy, she would throw an almighty tantrum, which involved her lying face down on the floor and kicking and screaming.

This obviously did the families reputation no good what so ever and when people read about these events in the newspapers; they became increasingly worried for the future of their kingdom. So the king made sure he bought the princess everything she could ever want and she grew up to be incredibly conceited and arrogant.



In a village not so very far away, there lived an old peddler who sold apples for a living and lived with his seven sons in a tiny home, which merely consisted of one room that they all had to share but none of them ever complained. Sadly though, the youngest of the sons, whose name was Seabert caught smallpox and was very ill. The family were all very concerned as they had no money to pay for medicine.

The middle son, who was called Dagwood was a very kind and considerate soul who milked Dame Butter-Piller over the road’s cow for her and helped the washerwoman with her scrubbing but to his misfortune, he happened to be incredibly ugly with a large hooked nose and ears like beer mug handles.

One day he was in the forest, gathering twigs for a bonfire, when he noticed the palace standing proudly upon a hill and decided that it wouldn’t hurt too much if he asked the king to lend him some money, after all they were in need and the king happened to be incredibly rich.



Meanwhile Princess Haitlyn-Lilly was sat at the breakfast table in a sulk.

“What is this loathsome broth?’ She cried, dunking her hands into her perfectly prepared porridge and flicking it at her maid.

Luckily, the staff at the palace were incredibly used to this sort of behaviour and did their best to keep the princess in good spirits. So the maid replied with a smile,

“It’s your porridge me darlin’ with honey, mmmm!” she grinned, rubbing her tummy and licking her lips.

The princess screwed her face up in disgust.

“I didn’t order this filth, you are fully aware that I detest porridge!” She cried, throwing the bowl onto the floor. “Now clean this up and fetch me a croissant!” She ordered.

The maid did as she was told and fetched her mop, whilst the princess crammed the entire croissant into her mouth and then spat it out.

Before anyone had time to ask her why, Pedro the dressmaker entered the room and presented the princess with a beautiful golden gown with an embroidered hem.

“Here you are ma’am, your father said you would like this one, it’s the lat

Add a Comment

MIRRORS AND MAGIC.

I looked into the mirror. My reflection shimmered back at me expressionless, a young girl of fifteen. Dark lashes cast shadow over her large hazel eyes that stared. She had luminous white skin and no matter how often she ventured outdoors her cheeks refused to blush pink. Thick, unmanageable curls twisted down to her shoulders, their ebony colouring caused her to look even more pale and washed out. Against this white backdrop were blood red lips that were full and pouty though prone to chapping in the corners. She wouldn’t call herself attractive in any way.
She wanted to loose a good six pounds, buy some ceramic hair straighteners and a good brand of fake tan. She had also been considering bleaching her hair but her friends had said that if she were to do that she would just look like a white blob.
What was so great about this mirror anyway? I wondered. It was placed in the middle of the corridor in a rather unflattering light that cast a dark shadow under eyes and lips. It was old-fashioned looking with a dusty brass frame sculpted into Chinese dragons with open mouths and forked tongues. I imagined it to be the sort of mirror the beast would have had in his enchanted castle.
Why had she put it up? The hall had looked much better when it had been decorated with mum’s paintings of beaches and mermaids. Mum’s imaginative work had given our home an artistic twist, which many people had admired. Valerie had removed all that and plastered our home with spooky looking antiques. She could stand in front of that mirror for hours practising scripts and trying out stage makeup and face paints, she would talk to her reflection as if it were her friend and was constantly showing off in front of it.
I sometimes wondered if dad had lost his mind, I was never sure. Since the accident he had been very down and I suppose when he met Valerie and became introduced to amateur dramatics, he found himself escaping the pain of everyday life.
Valerie was a tall slim lady of about forty-two, she had no children of her own and considered the six of us to be a waste of our fathers time and money. She had been divorced twice before and was extremely demanding and hard to please.
Dad had proposed to her seven months ago and for the last three of those months she had been living with us.
We tried to keep out of her way, as she seemed very irritated by us, especially me for some reason. I moved away from her mirror as soon as I heard the clicking of her heels coming out of the kitchen.
‘Paige, what are you lingering around here for, haven’t you homework to be getting on with?’ She snapped in her harsh husky voice, as she gazed at her reflection rather than me.
‘I’m just on my way upstairs to do it,’ I responded, heading towards the staircase. I felt a cold hand grip my arm.
‘For goodness sake, it’s teatime now. Go and fetch the rest of your flock,’ she ordered, snapping her fingers and pointing upstairs. By ‘flock’ I assumed she was referring to my family. I skipped up the stairs to find them.
Jane and Daisy were in Jane’s room. Daisy was painting her toenails with pink glittery varnish and Jane was reading a playdays magazine, whilst cuddling Dizzy our kitten.
‘Teatime,’ I called.
‘Oh no, not yet,’ Daisy moaned, ‘I want to watch CBBC and my nails are still wet,’ she panicked.
‘I’m not even hungry,’ groaned Jane.
But we all knew what Valerie was like when disobeyed and it wasn’t pleasant.
So Daisy carefully slipped her feet back into her flip-flops and Jane put Dizzy down, with a little sigh and they made their way down the stairs.
I then went to fetch my brothers. Daniel, Craig and Luke were sat around their Playstation; smears of chocolate and crisp crumbs stuck around the two younger ones mouths. I knew they wouldn’t want to eat their food. I also knew that I’d get the blame for it.
Since mum had died, I had to take over her role. Valerie’s attitude towards children was extremely negative and dad did his best to please her, which involved him spending the majority of his time informing her of how beautiful she was and ignoring the six of us.
After my GCSE’s were over they had made arrangements for me to stay on a great uncle’s farm. By which time Jane would have had her fifth birthday and all five of my siblings would be able to attend Mount St David’s boarding school. I would have a home tutor, who would give me maths and English tuition in the morning and in the afternoon my uncle would teach me about agriculture.
I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to go or not. I loved my siblings and school was so-so but there had been a cold vibe about the house since Valerie had moved in and it no longer felt like a home to me. I didn’t know how I’d get on with my uncle, apparently he had attended my christening but apart from that he hadn’t met me. The idea of living in the countryside seemed to appeal to me; it seemed adventurous and peaceful, both at the same time. I had always been used to life in the city and we didn’t venture far on holidays because dad had always complained about the expense of taking six children everywhere.
We placed ourselves around the kitchen table, which was splattered with the bold primary colours of powder paint that Jane had used earlier on; she had also left bright handprints across the wall and cupboards.
Valerie slammed our plates of microwaved spaghetti bolognese onto the table angrily, the spaghetti wobbled on our plates whilst she grumbled about the mess. We stared at each other silently as she bashed the cutlery down along with four glasses, two plastic mugs and six coloured straws.
Once she left the room we relaxed ourselves and began to eat. It was like feeding time at the zoo. Craig picked up fistfuls of the spaghetti and pretended they were worms, Luke managed to get sauce all around his mouth and down his school uniform and Daisy knocked the water filter over sending a pool of water over Daniel’s dinner. Daniel kindly told her not to worry and went to fetch a couple of cans of coke from the fridge for us to share but they also managed to fizz up and foam was spritzed everywhere. So I had to grab a mound of kitchen roll to soak it up.
I washed and dried our plates after we had finished and Daniel scrubbed the table ready for Valerie to sit at. I then ran a steaming bath for Craig and left him to splash around in the bubbles with his swimming action man whilst I attempted to revise for my English exam.
I lay across my bed, under my purple mosquito net and gazed through textbook’s half-heartedly whilst listening to one of mum’s African music CD’s which I tended to put on whenever I felt the need to relax. I lay there for about twenty minutes before deciding to settle the little ones.
Jane managed to jam her fingers in her drawer whilst getting her pyjama’s out so I had to plaster it in a Mickey Mouse plaster, which instantly cheered her up. Once Craig and Luke were squeaky clean and in their pyjamas, they started up a bathroom fight, which meant that they got everything that they could get there hands on out of the bathroom cabinet and covered each other in it. Luckily they had only just started this game when I came in and it was just a matter of sponging toothpaste out of Luke’s hair and wiping the shaving foam off Craig.
The three little ones bounced around in the boys room pretending to be sumo wrestlers and it took quite a long time to coax them into the bunk-bed but once they were under their duvets it only took three rounds of ‘We’re going on a bear hunt’ to settle them. Jane squirmed a little as I carried her to her bed and moaned as I put her down but she soon turned over and began to snore.
I sat in my room and put on the TV, Daniel and Daisy joined me and we feasted on jelly babies and marshmallows.
Daisy lifted the African CD cover.
‘I miss mum,’ she sighed, ‘Valerie’s awful.’
I put my arm around my sister, this was the first time she had mentioned mum, dad had told us all that we weren’t allowed to speak about her as it wasn’t fair on Valerie.
‘We all miss her,’ I sighed.
‘She’s probably in heaven now looking down on us and wondering, just like we are, what on earth dads doing with that awful woman,’ Daniel sighed.
Daisy smiled and shrugged, ‘Valerie says there is no heaven and once you’re gone you’re gone,’ she said, sadly.
‘What does she know anyway?’ I replied.
She annoyed me so much with her negativity; She had a very fiery streak in her and could snap coldly at any time.
Our mum and dad had met at university, dad had studied geography and mum had studied art and they used to spend their lunch hour together in the Green door cafe. Mum was only nineteen when she married and had become pregnant with me the following year. She had always wanted a large, happy family like on ‘The Sound of Music’ and although we weren’t always well behaved, we have always got on and helped each other out.
On the whole Daniel is the most chilled out. He’s twelve but is very grown up for his age, more mature than most of the guys that I’m stuck in year eleven with, he spends most of his time reading and goes swimming on the rare occasions when he can actually be bothered to move.
Daisy is ten and really girlie, she experiments with make-up, tries new hairstyles and goes to disco dancing lessons.
Craig and Luke are twins, they’re six and always manage to get themselves into a mess and Jane is four and into everything, she has a really cute face but needs full time attention.
Mum had always succeeded in keeping us clean, tidy and entertained. We used to go to our allotment (we don’t have a garden) and Dan, Luke and Craig would dig up potatoes whilst Daisy, Jane and I made daisy chains and pussy-paws. She also used to take us on the tube into central London where we would have a play in Hamley’s and then go to the rainforest café for lunch. The Café was a huge place with moving animal figures, impressive water features and a tank full of tropical fish, we got to know all the staff there and they always made a fuss over us and gave us extra chips.
When she died our lives changed dramatically, there was a huge space left behind. Dad couldn’t cope with work and handed in his notice and our teachers kept phoning our home concerned because we had all lost concentration and weren’t getting our homework in on time.
Dad seemed to feel that we were lacking a mother figure, which was true, but we were missing our own mum and we didn’t want anyone to take her place so he dated a few different women before settling down with Valerie. Some of them were kind to us and bought us sweets and took us on outings but most of them, like Valerie didn’t care much for children and once we had sussed this out, we learned to entertain ourselves elsewhere.

My mobile phone alarm sounded at half past five every morning and I had to undergo a battle with my eyelids to force them open but once I had achieved that, I would put on my ugly school uniform. I had attempted to make the green blazer look a little less formal by customising it with a badge collection, including a blue peter badge, which Craig had been posted after sending in a picture of Dizzy. I also had to wear a white shirt, a stripy tie and black trousers. I covered my polka dot socks with pink Doc Martens and tied my hair into a loose ponytail. I then set up the breakfast table and called the children down to eat.
We all had rice crispies as that way there were no arguments and the little ones had always seemed to get weetabix and ready brek all over themselves whenever I had served it to them in the past. They ate quickly, like gannets and argued over the free toy, which Daniel eventually confiscated. He got the twins ready whilst I dressed Jane into her corduroy pinafore ready for our neighbours to take to “Busy Bees nursery” along with their daughter Camilla.
Daisy and the twins left for school at half eight and Daniel and I walked to the bus stop.
A group of hooded chavs hung under the shelter kicking each others bags around and swearing so my brother and I sat on a wall a few metres away and played card games. The bus was crammed full of people heading into town to attend various schools and collages, they wriggled around like fish in a net and I ended up sat in the bag rack as there were no spare seats and half the people on it were standing anyway. Most of the people travelling slotted into various groups the Goths, the punks, hippies, chavs or boffins. Dan ended up next to a gothic guy named Oscar who wore mascara and ate pedigree chum dog biscuits. He was staring at me in a way that made me feel uncomfortable.
Harry O’Neil sat beside me, he lived down the road from us and I had known him since play school. He was very into his science subjects and kept various mini-beasts in his garden shed, which he always insisted on showing me whenever I went to his house. He had suddenly switched from liking Mozart to going mad over Nirvana and Cradle of filth. Also, he used to be massively into Sherlock Holmes and Swallows and Amazons books, Now he had taken up skateboarding and had started a rock band with two of his cousins called “The Monkey grease squad”.
As a result of these sudden new interests, Harry’s hair had grown a good four inches longer. As I had some snag bands in my purse that I had recently bought from Claire’s accessories to practice cornrow plaits on Daisy, I decided to tie Harry’s hair into spikes with them. Every time the bus turned a corner, we slid sideways so it wasn’t an easy task. I had just about managed to complete his new look by the time we reached school.
As we were disembarking the bus, Harry caught his reflection in the window.
‘I look like a bloody hedgehog,’ he grunted, pushing me into a blackberry bush. This wasn’t particularly considerate of him as I got thorns stuck in my blazer and purple juice stains on my shirt. He then began tugging at the snag bands but they seemed to be taped to his head and wouldn’t come out.
‘Oh well, looks like they’re stuck, you’ll just have to wear your hair like that to biology,’ I sighed, raising an eyebrow. I knew that Harry had the hots for his biology teacher Fi Ying and he always plastered himself in his mum’s very feminine scented moisturiser before lessons.
‘Take them out,’ he ordered angrily. So I did as I was instructed whilst he squealed like a girl.
Our school was an ugly building made up of grey blocks and mobile classrooms. It was spread out over a large concrete site and it took ten minutes to walk from one end of the building to the other.
My classroom was placed in the French block. It was a small claustrophobic room with seats facing a wall at the side of the classroom as opposed to our tutor Monsieur Pierre’s desk. The chavs, goths and hippies were squished up under the tables smoking and grey smog filled the room. Kayleigh lay across the table testing the ringtones on her phone; I went and sat by her. Monsieur Pierre walked around the room checking us off on his register before sending us away to assembly.
Monsieur Pierre had no control over a class but our head teacher Sister Patricia certainly did.
She was a stern lady. Her long face creased like a paper bag at the corners of her mouth and above her brow whilst her thick dark eyebrows cast shadows over her eyes causing her to appear permanently tired. Her bottom lip protruded slightly giving her a thoughtful expression and her hair was gelled back into a slick bun without a curl loose. She wore a black polo neck with stiff shoulder pads with a grey pleated skirt and a large crucifix hung loosely around her neck.
Five hundred pairs of shoes squeaked upon the surface of the freshly laminated floor as the muffled whispers and giggles filled the room. The lid of the dusty grand piano in the corner flung open and began to drum out the notes to the hymn ‘Morning has broken.’ Each key wobbled as a result of Mrs Cripp’s tense arthritic fingers and I heard our music teacher suggest that we should buy an old Gramophone from the antique shop and stick to playing the old Cat Stevens record.
Each individual sang through the song breathlessly, as it was played at such a speed that little opportunity was allowed for breath. This caused the school nurse great concern as some of our faces had been turning scarlet and she felt that if we continued to hold our breaths, our lungs would be sure to collapse.
The crossed legs and straight backs that took over the hall were fighting battles against the pins and needles that chose to attack on these weekly occasions. These bodies twitched and fidgeted uncomfortably through the announcements and constantly switched positions and angles, being sure to freeze whenever a tutor cast a patronising glare.
A yawn took over my disciplined expression as she began yet another lecture on the topic of litter. Just as my eyelids were fighting the force of gravity, the subject of our school play was mentioned, causing my ears to prick up.
When I was at primary school, I had been like Daisy and attended dance classes and youth theatre groups to help build my confidence and they seemed to work. For the first term, I had even insisted on wearing my silky pink ballet shoes to pre-school, which irritated our Nan who had spent fifteen pounds in Clarks on some red, patent bar shoes with a butterfly design for me and I had blatantly refused to even try them on. Mum had always encouraged us to dance and act but now that Valerie had come along, I had lost a lot of confidence and been put off amateur dramatics, I sighed silently to myself.
At break time Kayleigh went off to the sports block to have a fag in the changing rooms and I went off to the canteen to get some cherryade and a cookie. I sat on a table by the window and ate the cookie chip by chip as I attempted to finish my maths coursework. Just as I was drawing out a line graph, the table was jogged and I found myself surrounded by sixth form rugby players. I knew that Kayleigh would have loved this to happen to her but I really wasn’t into being flirted with. I wasn’t attractive; I was plain and far too involved in my own little life to have time for their binge parties. I couldn’t understand what these guys thought was so great about drinking until they were sick on a friend’s coat or paralytic in the park. It seemed scary as opposed to fun. I smiled at them politely and said, ‘Hi.’
‘Hey, you’re Paige McDonagh,’ grinned a tall, bronzed guy with sun-kissed surfer hair.
‘You’re Skye’s daughter, the woman who fell off her surfboard and drowned,’ shrieked a muscular, dark haired guy, who had a face like a Manga cartoon.
I nodded shyly.
‘There’s about six of you kids aren’t there?’ the first guy asked.
‘How did you know mum?’ I asked confused.
‘We surf too,’ he grinned.
‘Your mum was a hottie, just like you.’ The second guy smiled.
I liked being told I was like my mum, I’d sooner be like her than like dad, but I couldn’t see the resemblance, my mum was actually quite pretty where as I knew I wasn’t and objected to being flirted with.
‘So how come your sat alone?’ asked an impish looking boy with an eyebrow piercing and a ponytail, ‘Are you a loner or something?’
I frowned at him; I didn’t like being spoken to like that and the Pokemon guy nudged him and sniggered.
‘I have friends but they’re all in the changing rooms smoking so I thought I’d get on with my coursework,’ I said firmly.
‘Hey, that’s cool,’ said the surfer guy.
‘It’s not,’ I smiled. There was something warm about him and I wanted to know him better, we made eye contact for a few seconds before I decided to look away and get back to my studies.
The surfer guy got out his guitar and began to play it. I glanced up at him.
‘Let me guess, you’re in a band?’ I smiled.
‘Sorry, am I disturbing you?’ he asked.
‘No, it’s fine,’ I replied, twisting the chain of my pendant around my index finger. He was actually pretty good. It was just a shame that he hung around with idiots. I watched them as they flicked orange peel at each other and moved around their table like a pack of gorillas whilst he stayed and played his music at total ease with what was going on behind him.
As the bell went and I had begun to pack my folder away, he looked at me again.
‘Hey, we’re going down the park Saturday night, would you come?’ he asked.
I didn’t know how to answer this. A part of me really wanted to get to know him and have a good excuse to leave the house but I knew that I wasn’t going to enjoy being stuck in a park late at night with a load of baboons. Everyone was sure to get drunk, and I would be the one left sober and feeling stupid. I also didn’t like being asked out in this way, as it seemed to only be the arrogant guys who thought they could pull anyone who used it.
‘Who’s we?’ I asked after a long pause.
‘Wayne, Tyson and Bodger,’ he replied and the group stood behind him turned and waved. I learned that Tyson was the ‘Manga’ man, Bodger was the weirdo with the ponytail and Wayne was a tall, skinny guy with a Mohican haircut.
‘Ok, I’ll think about it,’ I told him, as I headed to the technology block. It later occurred to me that I didn’t know his name. I felt tired in Textiles; Mr Rashly had a drab voice and kept going off the subject causing my eyelids to feel heavy yet again.
Kayleigh sat beside me and helped herself to the contents of my pencil case, she drew flowers on the back of her hand with my scented gel pens and then wrote ‘yes’ on one side of my rubber and ‘no’ on the other. She chucked it around asking it questions about who in the room fancied whom, until it was confiscated.
Today we made tea-cosies out of floral cloth. As if we’d ever use them! My sewing went drastically wrong and I spent fifteen minutes unpicking stitches.
I sat on the cold tarmac at lunch along the freshly painted net ball pitch and consumed half a cream cheese baguette and a packet of hula-hoops, Kayleigh placed herself opposite me and breathed smoke into my face whilst informing me of her relationship flaws with her mother.
Kayleigh’s mother is just like an older version of Kayleigh. She has long white-bleached hair, fake nails and brown wrinkled skin as a result of spending too long on sun beds. She also wears leopard print outfits and owns a pet poodle, which Kayleigh is very jealous of. The other thing that annoys her is her mum’s occupation, which involves advertising a product called ‘Femi-mousse.’ Kayleigh's mum drives a pink ‘Femi mousse’ van and gives demonstrations in our shopping centre and to make matters worse she has began visiting schools and doing door to door sales to advertise this product.
‘What’s it for?’ I asked intrigued.
‘It’s to clean the intimate area,’ Kayleigh blushed, impersonating her mum. I told her not to worry and that her mum could have a far worse job but when she asked what could be worse, I found myself brushed over with a guilty silence.
As the week went by Kayleigh got more and more down, my home life was chaotic as usual and I didn’t see my surfer guy until Friday.
I was sitting by the fish tank in reception, watching a clown fish and waiting for Daniel to finish his drum practice so that we could walk to the supermarket together and do a weekly shop. When I felt a sudden tug at one of my curls. I whipped around and there he stood.
‘Are you coming out tomorrow then?’ he asked.
I nodded in agreement, I was still uncertain I didn’t want to get into trouble but I didn’t want to become a social hermit either and the last few days had been particularly hard.
Luke hadn’t been sleeping because his tooth was wobbly and hurting, which had kept Craig up at night too. Daisy had tried to help by attaching some string to the troublesome tooth and tying the other end to the door handle and slamming it, which only made his gums bleed. Jane had fallen off Camilla over the road’s trampoline and had had to have stitches in her forehead and yesterday Luke had smashed one of Valerie’s antique vases, which had made her really mad at us.
‘I’ll pick you up at seven then,’ he smiled. ‘Where do you live?’
‘Seaview, Knighten road,’ I replied quickly, ‘This is going to sound really dumb but what’s your name,’ I asked, my face felt hot but I knew I never blushed.
‘I’m sorry, my name’s Scott,’ he said, ‘I’ll see you at seven tomorrow.’
‘Have you flipped out?’ asked Daniel, when I told him, ‘What’s Valerie going to say?’
‘We’ve got to have fun Dan, everyone else goes out and socialises, mum would have encouraged us to,’ I reminded him. We came to an agreement that if we each took turns to look after our siblings; we could allow each other time to go out with friends.
When we reached the supermarket, I jumped into the trolley and Dan raced up and down the aisles with me allowing me to grab what we needed, the store manager scowled at us but didn’t comment.
Valerie heated up some left over curry from her takeaway for us to eat for tea. It was too spicy for Jane and she kept spitting it out. Daisy was telling us all about a Tudor dolls house that her teacher had brought in to show the class.
‘It was so detailed,’ she gushed, ‘there was a miniature banquet laid out with tiny bunches of grapes, chickens, vegetables and wine glasses and there was a hog roasting over there fireplace. It had a four poster bed with curtains all around it and a little mirror exactly like Valerie’s,’ she explained.

Add a Comment

I’m Destiny; unusual name I know, it gets shortened to ‘Desti’ a lot of the time which sounds a bit weird but most people reckon it suits me. I am not a run of the mill type person nor am I from a run of the mill type family. I mean for a start my brother, sister and I are home schooled which immediately sounds strange to those who haven’t experienced it. We are unusual but I don’t think it’s in a bad way.
Our parents are research zoologists and although we’ve had a base house near Fuji in Japan we’ve never actually stayed there for any longer than six months at a time.
The summer of 2005 was like a dream; the things I experienced that year changed my life and the way I felt as a person. It was the summer I met Kazuo.
You might read the next few chapters and decide that I’m crazy but I won’t care.
We were staying on a campsite near a cut off village in North America called Shiro, which seemed so far away from everything, I was a beautiful place which came with a mysterious feel to it, a place where tall trees towered high above us casting shadows over our canvas tents and stretched out for miles into the wilderness; a place where we would awake to the sound of the wings of Canada geese flapping against the soft morning breeze and would have our breakfast whilst watching the glow of the sunrise and lie on our backs in the evenings to look at the stars before falling asleep.
Most evenings Mum, Dad, Laurie, Fynn and I would build a campfire and circle around it to toast marshmallows and chestnuts whilst Laurie’s boyfriend Blaze played tunes on his guitar.
Blaze and Laurie make such a perfect couple.
There are lots of couples out there that you see walking along the streets that don’t appear to have very much in common, the sort that walk metres apart from each other, barely making eye contact or engaging in conversation. Blaze and Laurie are the opposite of this and I don’t mean that they constantly have their hands all over each other, no one’s ever shouted at them to get a room to my knowledge; I’m talking more about the way they smile at one another and pull silly faces, making each other laugh.
If you saw Laurie and Blaze walking down the high street they would be most likely to be the couple you see laughing hysterically and nudging each other; which makes people around them smile too.
It is obvious that they are made for each other and although the majority of their time is spent joking and messing around, they care about each other lots and are very much in love.
My sister Laurie, sometimes called ‘minx’ or ‘pickle’ is one of those petite and nymph like girls. She’s pretty without makeup and has her long dark hair braided into cornrow plaits, her skirts are handmade from sari material and her bracelets she makes by plaiting embroidery threads together.
Blaze almost looks like an aborigine in the summer with his easily tanning skin and naturally white blond hair. He has a huge selection of hats and bandanas and carries a rabbit paw everywhere he goes for good luck.
They both wan t a Jamaican wedding and being Bob Marley fans they can’t wait to see his house. They also talk a lot about having beach parties out there and spending the summer nights amongst the palm trees.
I come from a generally creative background where we all write songs and poetry and that’s how we express a lot of our feelings which I guess is healthy and we are lucky in that we very rarely argue. My own personal forte is painting and I do it whenever I can. I carry my sketchbook wherever we travel and create memories of the places we visit to look back on in the future and hopefully when I grow older and have children and then grandchildren, I will be able to share my memories with them.
The night that I met Kazuo, started off as an average kind of night. We were gathered around our campfire one evening and we were just approaching our last fortnight away, my eyes lay focussed on the golden flames as they tanned the pink and white marshmallows and warmed my hands at the same time and there was a cool breeze in the air but not one strong enough for anyone to feel the need for warmer clothing; the air was fresh with scents of pine lingering within it.
Everything seemed so perfect that night and the longer I could keep the thoughts of having to go to school in September out of my mind the better.
Fynn, Laurie and I are half English and half Asian, all three of us are petite with very dark brown, almost black hair, Fynn’s is dead straight and he can pull off some really funky haircuts, Laurie and I have slightly wavy hair that is a bit harder to style and we all dress quite alternatively. We had always been based in Japan up until now and had lived in thirteen different homes out there but had never spent long in any of them. When we were there Laurie and I would get the train at weekends to an area of Tokyo called Harajuku which I think is where Gwen Stefani based her clothing range on. In Harajuku young people gather and try to dress as individual as possible and we always found it interesting and had collected some highly individual items for our wardrobes from some of the shops.
Most of our time was spent out of the continent but this summer was going to put a stop to all of that and in September we would be moving to England and we would have to live there for a year so that Laurie and I could get some qualifications which would hopefully make us more employable in the future. Mum and Dad had provided us with an outstanding education, we had explored so many different cultures and learnt about all types of wildlife. I think that although we had never felt settled, it had always been positive, I’m sure that you can learn so much more from seeing and doing things than being stuck in a classroom but things were set to change now.
As the sun faded and the pink skies turned to navy I looked up at the stars that sprinkled around like glitter on Christmas cards, everything looked peaceful and still and there were no planes to be seen even though Fynn liked to convince everyone that soon a UFO full of silver aliens with emerald eyes was about to seep down and abduct us all there wasn’t a stir in the sky.
I tried to let the butterflies inside me sleep but they liked to hover around a bit first, reminding me that every moment I breathed, September was drawing nearer. The whole concept of school scares me.
I don’t like the way it attempts to erase people’s individuality and mould them into clones of one another. I mean let’s face it, being made to wear identical uniforms and having to learn the same things is hardly going to help anyone develop their own personality.
A mind can develop itself naturally and everyone is different and wants to learn different things and I’ve always believed that trying to make everyone the same just seems so wrong and pointless.
I bought an American teen magazine before our flight from Tokyo and all the girls my age that I read about seemed incredibly image conscious and swamped up to their necks with guy troubles. Also the guys they portray seemed really shallow and only seemed to go for the girls with huge busts, bleached hair and about ten layers of makeup on so everyone tried to look the same, it made me feel sick. Laurie said that it’s not their fault though and it’s all to do with peer pressure. I believe we can control the way we behave to an extent but most people hold back from showing their true colours to the world because they are too concerned about what others may think.
We were lucky not to have come across peer pressure yet. All the friends we had made on our travels had pretty carefree lifestyles where they didn’t worry too much about what others thought and I guess it’s because most of them were home schooled too and where they lived similar lifestyles to Laurie, Fynn and I we were able to relate to them better. We spent the time with our friends amusing ourselves by playing in lakes, building rafts and racing them, drawing each other, telling stories and playing music and just having mixed interests where as the girls featured in these magazines only seemed to care about shopping, drinking and sex, which would all be fine except for the fact that they didn’t seem to know how to enjoy themselves any other way which was really sad.
I gazed up at the star filled sky and let it send soothing vibes through my body that settled the butterflies allowing me to rest; I slept soundly for around thirty minutes.
All of a sudden, for no explained reason, something inside me jumped and my eyes shot open just in time to capture two shooting stars as they flew across the sky simultaneously.
It was such a clear image and although I had seen shooting stars before, seeing two at once really surprised me and I found myself feeling wide awake. I sat up and looked around at the forest that surrounded me, everything seemed quiet and peaceful as I crawled across the dew drenched grass into our tent.
Mum and dad were sound asleep and breathing deeply and I felt my hair swinging loosely over my jaw line and my shell jewellery rattling loudly as I reached out to grasp a torch, but fortunately they didn’t stir.
Fynn was awake though.
‘Destiny?’ He whispered.
I looked at his tired brown eyes and pillow styled hair.
‘Yeah?’ I replied.
‘What are you doing?’ he murmured, just about managing to raise an eyebrow as he spoke.
‘Just going for a walk in the forest,’ I told him, ‘I’m wide awake and I want to explore’.
‘You’re crazy,’ he sighed, ‘what if there are bears wandering around?’
‘They don’t scare me,’ I shrugged in response, ‘Listen Fynn, animals are only human; they only fear you if you fear them that’s when they get defensive if you smile and act friendly and non-threatening towards them then they will leave you alone,’ I whispered.
‘I guess,’ he smiled.
‘Go to sleep, you’re very tired,’ I smiled stroking his hair, ‘dream about those tiger cubs we saw in India, sleeping under that Banyan tree with their mother, and how peaceful they looked under the red sky, remember how we could see their stomachs moving up and down as they breathed? It was so hot that none of us wore shoes; remember how we just walked barefoot on the warm ground and the air smelt all spicy.’
I looked down at him and saw that he had already fallen back to sleep with a slight smile on his face.
I crawled out of the tent and stood up quietly and gazed at my surroundings.
This particular forest that I was now looking up at was massive. It wasn’t as dark as you might have imagined as the moon was almost full beam and the only sounds to be heard were those of nature, the wind whispering through the trees, the gushing of a waterfall and the crunching of dry leaves under my feet. I wanted to come back in the daylight to paint it as it was so beautiful.
All of a sudden a purple flash filled the sky, followed by a loud clap of thunder and rain began to fall drenching my hair.
I noticed a blackberry bush and headed behind it for shelter, it was a prickly hiding patch and I slipped on the wet leaves down a bank and ended up scratching both knees. Nothing too serious but it did sting a little.
As I got up, I heard a rustling sound and wondered what it could be.
I turned around and had to blink twice.

Add a Comment

I’m Destiny; unusual name I know, it gets shortened to ‘Desti’ a lot of the time which sounds a bit weird but most people reckon it suits me. I am not a run of the mill type person nor am I from a run of the mill type family. I mean for a start my brother, sister and I are home schooled which immediately sounds strange to those who haven’t experienced it. We are unusual but I don’t think it’s in a bad way.
Our parents are research zoologists and although we’ve had a base house near Fuji in Japan we’ve never actually stayed there for any longer than six months at a time.
The summer of 2005 was like a dream; the things I experienced that year changed my life and the way I felt as a person. It was the summer I met Kazuo.
You might read the next few chapters and decide that I’m crazy but I won’t care.
We were staying on a campsite near a cut off village in North America called Shiro, which seemed so far away from everything, I was a beautiful place which came with a mysterious feel to it, a place where tall trees towered high above us casting shadows over our canvas tents and stretched out for miles into the wilderness; a place where we would awake to the sound of the wings of Canada geese flapping against the soft morning breeze and would have our breakfast whilst watching the glow of the sunrise and lie on our backs in the evenings to look at the stars before falling asleep.
Most evenings Mum, Dad, Laurie, Fynn and I would build a campfire and circle around it to toast marshmallows and chestnuts whilst Laurie’s boyfriend Blaze played tunes on his guitar.
Blaze and Laurie make such a perfect couple.
There are lots of couples out there that you see walking along the streets that don’t appear to have very much in common, the sort that walk metres apart from each other, barely making eye contact or engaging in conversation. Blaze and Laurie are the opposite of this and I don’t mean that they constantly have their hands all over each other, no one’s ever shouted at them to get a room to my knowledge; I’m talking more about the way they smile at one another and pull silly faces, making each other laugh.
If you saw Laurie and Blaze walking down the high street they would be most likely to be the couple you see laughing hysterically and nudging each other; which makes people around them smile too.
It is obvious that they are made for each other and although the majority of their time is spent joking and messing around, they care about each other lots and are very much in love.
My sister Laurie, sometimes called ‘minx’ or ‘pickle’ is one of those petite and nymph like girls. She’s pretty without makeup and has her long dark hair braided into cornrow plaits, her skirts are handmade from sari material and her bracelets she makes by plaiting embroidery threads together.
Blaze almost looks like an aborigine in the summer with his easily tanning skin and naturally white blond hair. He has a huge selection of hats and bandanas and carries a rabbit paw everywhere he goes for good luck.
They both wan t a Jamaican wedding and being Bob Marley fans they can’t wait to see his house. They also talk a lot about having beach parties out there and spending the summer nights amongst the palm trees.
I come from a generally creative background where we all write songs and poetry and that’s how we express a lot of our feelings which I guess is healthy and we are lucky in that we very rarely argue. My own personal forte is painting and I do it whenever I can. I carry my sketchbook wherever we travel and create memories of the places we visit to look back on in the future and hopefully when I grow older and have children and then grandchildren, I will be able to share my memories with them.
The night that I met Kazuo, started off as an average kind of night. We were gathered around our campfire one evening and we were just approaching our last fortnight away, my eyes lay focussed on the golden flames as they tanned the pink and white marshmallows and warmed my hands at the same time and there was a cool breeze in the air but not one strong enough for anyone to feel the need for warmer clothing; the air was fresh with scents of pine lingering within it.
Everything seemed so perfect that night and the longer I could keep the thoughts of having to go to school in September out of my mind the better.
Fynn, Laurie and I are half English and half Asian, all three of us are petite with very dark brown, almost black hair, Fynn’s is dead straight and he can pull off some really funky haircuts, Laurie and I have slightly wavy hair that is a bit harder to style and we all dress quite alternatively. We had always been based in Japan up until now and had lived in thirteen different homes out there but had never spent long in any of them. When we were there Laurie and I would get the train at weekends to an area of Tokyo called Harajuku which I think is where Gwen Stefani based her clothing range on. In Harajuku young people gather and try to dress as individual as possible and we always found it interesting and had collected some highly individual items for our wardrobes from some of the shops.
Most of our time was spent out of the continent but this summer was going to put a stop to all of that and in September we would be moving to England and we would have to live there for a year so that Laurie and I could get some qualifications which would hopefully make us more employable in the future. Mum and Dad had provided us with an outstanding education, we had explored so many different cultures and learnt about all types of wildlife. I think that although we had never felt settled, it had always been positive, I’m sure that you can learn so much more from seeing and doing things than being stuck in a classroom but things were set to change now.
As the sun faded and the pink skies turned to navy I looked up at the stars that sprinkled around like glitter on Christmas cards, everything looked peaceful and still and there were no planes to be seen even though Fynn liked to convince everyone that soon a UFO full of silver aliens with emerald eyes was about to seep down and abduct us all there wasn’t a stir in the sky.
I tried to let the butterflies inside me sleep but they liked to hover around a bit first, reminding me that every moment I breathed, September was drawing nearer. The whole concept of school scares me.
I don’t like the way it attempts to erase people’s individuality and mould them into clones of one another. I mean let’s face it, being made to wear identical uniforms and having to learn the same things is hardly going to help anyone develop their own personality.
A mind can develop itself naturally and everyone is different and wants to learn different things and I’ve always believed that trying to make everyone the same just seems so wrong and pointless.
I bought an American teen magazine before our flight from Tokyo and all the girls my age that I read about seemed incredibly image conscious and swamped up to their necks with guy troubles. Also the guys they portray seemed really shallow and only seemed to go for the girls with huge busts, bleached hair and about ten layers of makeup on so everyone tried to look the same, it made me feel sick. Laurie said that it’s not their fault though and it’s all to do with peer pressure. I believe we can control the way we behave to an extent but most people hold back from showing their true colours to the world because they are too concerned about what others may think.
We were lucky not to have come across peer pressure yet. All the friends we had made on our travels had pretty carefree lifestyles where they didn’t worry too much about what others thought and I guess it’s because most of them were home schooled too and where they lived similar lifestyles to Laurie, Fynn and I we were able to relate to them better. We spent the time with our friends amusing ourselves by playing in lakes, building rafts and racing them, drawing each other, telling stories and playing music and just having mixed interests where as the girls featured in these magazines only seemed to care about shopping, drinking and sex, which would all be fine except for the fact that they didn’t seem to know how to enjoy themselves any other way which was really sad.
I gazed up at the star filled sky and let it send soothing vibes through my body that settled the butterflies allowing me to rest; I slept soundly for around thirty minutes.
All of a sudden, for no explained reason, something inside me jumped and my eyes shot open just in time to capture two shooting stars as they flew across the sky simultaneously.
It was such a clear image and although I had seen shooting stars before, seeing two at once really surprised me and I found myself feeling wide awake. I sat up and looked around at the forest that surrounded me, everything seemed quiet and peaceful as I crawled across the dew drenched grass into our tent.
Mum and dad were sound asleep and breathing deeply and I felt my hair swinging loosely over my jaw line and my shell jewellery rattling loudly as I reached out to grasp a torch, but fortunately they didn’t stir.
Fynn was awake though.
‘Destiny?’ He whispered.
I looked at his tired brown eyes and pillow styled hair.
‘Yeah?’ I replied.
‘What are you doing?’ he murmured, just about managing to raise an eyebrow as he spoke.
‘Just going for a walk in the forest,’ I told him, ‘I’m wide awake and I want to explore’.
‘You’re crazy,’ he sighed, ‘what if there are bears wandering around?’
‘They don’t scare me,’ I shrugged in response, ‘Listen Fynn, animals are only human; they only fear you if you fear them that’s when they get defensive if you smile and act friendly and non-threatening towards them then they will leave you alone,’ I whispered.
‘I guess,’ he smiled.
‘Go to sleep, you’re very tired,’ I smiled stroking his hair, ‘dream about those tiger cubs we saw in India, sleeping under that Banyan tree with their mother, and how peaceful they looked under the red sky, remember how we could see their stomachs moving up and down as they breathed? It was so hot that none of us wore shoes; remember how we just walked barefoot on the warm ground and the air smelt all spicy.’
I looked down at him and saw that he had already fallen back to sleep with a slight smile on his face.
I crawled out of the tent and stood up quietly and gazed at my surroundings.
This particular forest that I was now looking up at was massive. It wasn’t as dark as you might have imagined as the moon was almost full beam and the only sounds to be heard were those of nature, the wind whispering through the trees, the gushing of a waterfall and the crunching of dry leaves under my feet. I wanted to come back in the daylight to paint it as it was so beautiful.
All of a sudden a purple flash filled the sky, followed by a loud clap of thunder and rain began to fall drenching my hair.
I noticed a blackberry bush and headed behind it for shelter, it was a prickly hiding patch and I slipped on the wet leaves down a bank and ended up scratching both knees. Nothing too serious but it did sting a little.
As I got up, I heard a rustling sound and wondered what it could be.
I turned around and had to blink twice.

Add a Comment

How Romantic are you???

Q1. You come across an attractive specimen. How do you chat them up?
a) You kiss their hand and recite a poem.
b) Hold a gun to their head and demand they go out with you.
c) them around for a week, camp in their garden and discretely join their family for breakfast so you can make your move subtly.
d) I wouldn’t notice such a specimen I’d be far too busy observing the shapes that chewing gum makes on pavements.
Q2. It is Valentine’s Day. What do you buy for your sweetheart?
a) A million roses, a love song played by the London symphony orchestra, a summer loving cocktail, Love Actually DVD, A heart locket with a picture of his/her dog Muffy-Muff inside it and a star named after him/her.
b) I don’t waste my money on that rubbish! I have far more important things to buy such as a penknife to add to my collection.
c) A ladder, a pet Rhino and a ‘Danger keep off the grass’ sign.
d) A card depicting a farmyard scene and a toothpick.
Q3. What would your dream date be?
a) Whisked off to Venice and have a moonlit supper on the gondolas with your friend Valentine Honeysuckle playing the harp.
b) I wouldn’t waste my money taking someone on a date but if it were absolutely necessary I would lock him/her in the shed for the evening and yell abuse at him/her through the door.
c) I’d take them out on a banana boat followed by a romantic trip to the umbrella museum.
d) A trip to the launderette to get my washing done, we’d have fun afterwards ironing my undergarments.
Q4. What would your wear on a date to the ‘Save the Crabs’ ball?
a) For men: white suit and a black bow tie with gelled back hair
For women: belle dress with ringlets in my hair.
b) For men: my old tattered mustard working slacks and no shirt.
For women: the same as mans outfit but with a tattered t-shirt with ‘life’s a bitch’ slogan. Though I wouldn’t waste my money on such an event.
c) For men: A lobster fancy-dress costume
For women: A tortoise fancy-dress costume.
d) Unisex: Brown slacks, green cardigan, grey shirt and fine green plimsolls.
Q5. What do you consider to be the most romantic film?
a) Snow White and the seven dwarfs it makes me weep every time.
b) Terminator.
c) The mask or Spiderman.
d) Watership down.
Q6. When getting intimate which song do you like to play?
a) I will always love you by Whitney Houston
b) Stan by Eminem.
c) Combine Harvester by the Wurzels.
d) Lonely goatherd from the Sound of Music.
Q7. What romantic meal would you prepare for your date?
a) Lobster, shelled prawns, oysters, mussels followed by strawberries dipped in chocolate and whipped cream and a blancmange.
b) A seagull that I shot earlier. I haven’t got time to pluck it and cook it they’ll have to eat it like it is.
c) Broccoli and orange soup, roasted hedgehog with banana sauce and cockles for pudding.
d) Bread and butter.
Q8. Disaster strikes! You have planned to go on a date to the ‘Bananas in pyjamas’ performance staring Hugh Grant. But your parents/wife/husband won’t allow you to go saying the play is unsuitable. What do you do?
a) Burst into tears, lock yourself in your bedroom, attract a dove and give it a note to take to your beloved.
b) I’d shake my fists at them in a rage and storm out of the house I’d be far too queer to take my date to the performance so I’d go by myself and yell abuse at Hugh Grant.
c) Disguise yourself as a millipede and crawl out of the house so no one will suspect you.
d) Sigh and return to your armchair to complete your crossword puzzle and smoke your pipe.
Q9. What outfit turns you on most?
a) My honeybee looks gorgeous in absolutely anything and I let him/her know every ten minutes.
b) People look ugly whatever they wear so nothing.
c) A grasshopper costume.
d) Beige slacks with braces, stripped shirt and grey patterned v-neck jersey.
Q10. What nickname would you give your partner?
a) Gorgeous, snugly, sweetie bunny pie.
b) Bastard or Bitch.
c) I give people nicknames depending on their strongest feature. I.e. a person with a big nose would be birdie.
d) I always address people by their titles and profession. I.e. Mr Dustbin man, Mrs Chiropodist.
Q11. Disaster strikes and you need to break up with your partner. How do you break the news to them?
a) I’d cry buckets and give them a photograph of myself in a heart shaped frame and several bunches of lilies.
b) I’d get my friend Wayne Gruffton to do the duty and tell him to use as much abuse as possible.
c) Confront them whilst they are doing their weekly shopping and sing them a song over the loud speaker informing them they are no longer required.
d) Write a thirty four page letter telling them the news, but not getting to the point until page thirty three.
Q12. You have gone for an evening stroll with your beloved and they happen to trip over a dead pheasant and land in a dustbin. How do you react?
a) Cry, help them out, stroke their hair, cry about the pheasant being dead then drive both the pheasant and my partner to the hospital.
b) I’d laugh out loud and poke them with a stick whilst they are still trapped in the dustbin. Then throw the pheasant at a passing motorist.
c) Get the pheasant stuffed and hang it above my beloved’s bed to remind them of this spectacular event.
d) I wouldn’t notice such a boring occurrence I’d be far too interested in a walkers crisp packet on the floor.


Results
Mostly A’s: Yuk! You’re super slushy and way over the top. It’s nice to be romantic but your taking the whole thing way too far it’s as if you are insecure about your personality - you can’t buy people. If someone likes you they’ll like you for who you are not what you buy them.

Mostly B’s: Well aren’t you a charming person! So romantic! Tops! Not really you are the meanest, grumpiest person ever. It’s a surprise anybody does date you. You’re as tight as a ducks bottom and don’t even seem to care about yourself, wearing tattered slacks to a ball isn’t going to get you anywhere in life. Sort it out!!

Mostly C’s: You may think you’re a charming lover but you’re just plain annoying. You should actually find out what your partner likes before jumping to ridiculous conclusions and purchasing ridiculous gifts-you may think a ladder is a romantic valentine’s gift but we can assure you it isn’t.

Mostly D’s: Could you get any more exciting! Quite easily you are without a doubt the most boring, unromantic soul on the planet. You don’t seem to have any interests or hobbies I’m surprised you even took this quiz, as you don’t even have a sense of humour. Get a personality and stop taking your date to the launderette!

Add a Comment

Fred and Mrs Broom visit the Isle of Wight

We arrived at the coach at precisely seven twenty-three,
We were bored of the summer in Birmingham and wanted to see the sea.
The farmers market was advertised in our local towns gazette.
Along with a café in Godshill, who boast the finest baguettes.
We eventually boarded the coach and I was not at all impressed,
With the horrific way in which the other folk were dressed.
Everybody knows that my age group should wear twin suits,
Along with laddered stockings and bleached hair with grey roots.
At last when the coach driver appeared I went to take my seat,
Fred offered me some sickly toffees but I was quite replete.
I had consumed a fulfilling breakfast of Branflakes and figs,
I didn’t want to start on sweets or I would end up like a pig.
The journey was long and dull we just passed fields and sheep.
And Fred snored like a blasted warthog when he fell asleep.
It bas better than when he was awake though, he made me ever so queer,
By Jabbing me with his walking stick yelling ‘There’s a squirrel dear.’
We had to stop for the lavatory on a few countable occasions,
Fred went in the ladies at one of the service stations.


We boarded the ferry at precisely three fifty-nine.
And I have to say that Wight link is no favourite of mine.
It also must be said that I was exceedingly queer,
To find out the ticket prices were so incredibly dear.
I went out on deck to get a little fresh air,
But it was windy and cold out there.
And to top it all off I was surrounded by blasted crows,
I covered my eyes with my head scarf, ‘I’m not looking at those!’
We then went inside and purchased some toffees,
They cost two sixty-five so there was no money for coffee.
The toffees were sickly and stuck my dentures together.
Fred skitted at me and continued to moan about the weather.
Typical English man I had married there,
If he had been Mexican then maybe he would care.
My beloved dentures were ruined, I wanted compensation.
But all the staff were very busy, having a conversation.
Fred let me borrow his teeth but they were goofy and too tight,
I caught my reflection in the window I looked a bleeding fright
I poked Fred in the stomach, ‘this is your fault my dear’
If we had purchased jelly babies,’ my teeth would still be here.
Fred and I finally agreed to send this letter of complaint
To the blasted ferry company and we hope they compensate.
The taxi service was and horrific but we got there in the end,
The driver pulled over with his telephoning device to talk to his blasted friend.
Who would be friends with that chap? Fred and I had a good laugh.
He reeked of blasted kippers and hadn’t taken a bath.
We arrived at the hotel at precisely six fifteen,
But to my absolute disgust, the entrance was not pristine.
The luggage handler stole my bags and took them in the lift,
I shook my fists and banged on the door, ‘Those are not a gift!’
The receptionist greeted us with a rather unpleasant smirk,
Said I, ‘Pack that in you rascal, that technique will not work.’
‘Now I would like a double room but with two separate beds,
One for me and one for my blasted husband Fred.
Fred scowled at me, ‘tis our anniversary dear,
‘I propose we share a bed for the first time in three years.’
I picked up my Zimmer frame and jabbed him in the groin,
‘I can’t be sharing with you Fred, you’re far too annoying.’
The receptionist gawped in horror and handed us the keys,
I examined them with my eyeglass and stated, ‘What are these?
‘They’re far to dusty, they certainly need a clean,
‘Get on and polish them or are you in a dream?
Said I to the butler, ‘Escort me to my room.’
‘Wait a moment madam, I’ll take you there soon.’
‘Take me now you foolish man,

Add a Comment

Firstly, to all you folk who have purchased this book as it features a rather charming thirteen year old lad on the cover wearing particularly large spectacles, if you are expecting to read about a certain Harry Potter chap that has become increasingly popular, I am not him and suggest that you therefore return this book to its shelf rather hurriedly.
If however you have picked this book out as you are intrigued to find out who ‘Norman Archibald Winkleton’ is then you may read on…




Chapter One

The Horrific Millennium Bug

I am sat out on the balcony looking down at the swans as they glide gracefully across the pond. I’ve always admired swans because they fight for what they believe in, for instance they don’t let silly little children tease them by not giving them enough bread and are quite quick to get out of the water and snatch the whole loaf away. I smile with joy as they swim by. I can very much relate to swans.
Living here in a residential home I do not tolerate being served pea and ham soup day in and day out. I always lose my temper if I am served this sort of grime and am quick to demand a nice appetizing portion of Irish stew.
I have little energy to do much more than sit and admire my surroundings these days and after losing my rag I generally become tired, Devon rains a lot and I feel the cold in my nose, toes and fingertips. I glance down at my leathery hands and sigh to myself.
My wife is in bed knitting a scarf for our granddaughter Beyonce who is just approaching her second birthday. Beyonce likes pulling cassette tapes to pieces and turning out kitchen pans. I am very proud to be her granddad.
Ludvic comes and joins me on the balcony. He is a Bulgarian gentleman who collects bells and attempts to sell them at unreasonable prices. He sits beside me and smokes his pipe, saying very little. I snigger at the ‘Chicago Bulls’ beanie perched on his head; my gingham cap is far more flattering. We sit together and look out at the pond.
After a good hour of admiring this fine pond, Valerie comes and taps me gently on the shoulder. I like Valerie very much. She has chestnut coloured hair in a perm and wears large spectacles like my own and also has a highly impressive roof. She is by far the best care worker in the home.
‘Norman, you have visitors,’ she croaks in her husky smoker’s voice.
Oh dang and blast I think to myself, I don’t care very much for visitors, they are usually incredibly nosy and don’t tidy up after themselves.
‘It’s okay Norman, it’s your family,’ Valerie smiles understandingly.
I perk up a little bit; I do enjoy seeing my family.
My daughter Karen approaches with her brood; Grit, Gravel, Rowan, Sage and Basil. My son Percy and his wife Wendy follow, along with their flock Elvis, Britney and baby Beyonce.
‘We tried to get Barry to come but Eastenders is on so he won’t leave the couch,’ Percy explains.
‘Lazy sod,’ I grunt disapprovingly, ‘I bet he’s gorging himself on Wotsits.’
My son Barry eats far too many Wotsits, which wasn’t very pleasant when he wore a brace as they used to get stuck in it.
‘We have come to help you plan your birthday dad,’ Karen explains.
‘Oh yes, my coming of age gathering,’ I recall. It’ll be my last birthday before the turn of the new Millennium and I fear that it shall be my last as this blasted Millennium bug featured in all the newspapers lately will be sure to wipe everyone out, which means that my Birthday will have to be a huge event.
Percy plonks Beyonce onto my lap and she attempts to take my watch apart.
She is a pretty child with a mop of tight curls and brown puppy eyes and has her favourite pink ‘baby spice’ t-shirt on.
Britney is also wearing a spice girls t-shirt, it has a worn out logo on it as she has worn it so many times. She has a bit of a lisp as she is just getting used to her new retainer and wears a sickly body spray.
‘Hello Granddad,’ she says, ‘giving me a slobbery kiss on the cheek. She then adjusts her pigtails and sits down to read Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth Night.’ I snigger at Shakespeare’s portrait on the cover,
‘That man had horrific fashion sense,’ I snort.
‘If you read his manuscripts granddad you will find that I am not reading this for fashion purposes. She sighs, ‘They are written in a rather beautiful language, he was incredibly talented and I do very much admire his work.’
‘Britney’s predicted a GCSE grade A* for English,’ Percy boasts, ‘And Elvis is doing very well at his tap dancing lessons.’
‘Tap dancing!’ I snort.
‘Yes Norman, Elvis has started tap dancing lessons,’ Wendy replies, ‘I think it’s nice to see boys dancing and I’d much rather he did ballet than got involved with these townies.
I look down at Elvis’s feet and find to my horror that he is indeed wearing a pair of tap shoes.
‘Watch this granddad,’ he chirps in his high pitch voice, jumping up to show me a dance he had learnt. Elvis has on a pale pink polo shirt with a crocodile design and leggings.
At the end of his performance, I clap to be polite but am not at all impressed by his unmanly ways.
‘Where’s mum?’ asks Karen, tilting her head ‘we must involve her in the party planning.’
‘I go inside now and get Fanny-Mo?’ Ludvic offers, tucking his pipe into his pocket.
My wife and I have been together since school and love each other dearly.
Karen’s children Grit, Gravel, Rowan, Sage and Basil don’t show off like Percy’s. They wear clothes that Karen has either made herself or purchased from ‘Age concern’ and the ‘Red cross shop,’ as she is not into commercialism. She doesn’t spend unnecessary money taking them to the hairdressers either and as a result they all have identical haircuts that she has done herself. Karen actually happens to be an incredibly talented hairdresser. She sticks cellotape across their fringes to get them in a straight line and she also uses the classic pudding bowl technique.
Basil is four and is playing with a toy made from recycled rags; I scowl as I watch him chew on it, wondering whether or not it’s hygienic.
Fanny-Mo then appears behind me; she has on her favourite rouge lipstick and leaves prints of it all over our grandchildren’s cheeks as she greets them. I love it when she does this as I can see how everyone is dying to wipe it off but resists as they don’t want to offend her.
My wife has aged very well, her hair is in snow coloured ringlets now, thinning slightly from the number of perms she’s had over the years, her only wrinkles are laughter lines around her eyes and mouth plus a few around her nose as she’s always scrunched it when she grins.
She fetches white plastic seats for our family and complements Karen’s children’s hair and even states that Karen should own a hair salon.
‘Well these haircuts seem very fashionable at the moment, a lot of child stars in Hollywood opt for this kind of look,’ she smiles proudly.
My wife then gets out jumpers she has knitted for Sage and Gravel both with tractor designs, red for Sage and green for Gravel.
I let out two discreet coughs to divert the attention back to my coming of age gathering.
‘Oh yes granddad, what would you like to do for your birthday?’ asks Sage.
‘Well obviously I would like a magnificent party,’ I state. Everyone nods and agrees this is a good idea accept for Britney who was hoping we could all go to a Westlife concert. Blooming boybands!
‘Who shall we invite?’ asks Wendy.
‘The whole village obviously,’ I skit. What a foolish question, I think to myself. Every year of my life, the whole village has attended my coming of age party and this year would be the last opportunity for everyone to assemble together before the end of the world. I tell this to everyone.
‘At least you’re going to be seventy-five when the world ends,’ pipes up Rowan, ‘I’ll only be eleven and look at poor baby Beyonce, she’ll hardly have experienced life when this awful millennium bug strikes.’
Elvis and Britney are playing with annoying round bleepy things.
‘What in the devil are those?’ I ask intrigued.
‘Oh,’ says Britney getting up and sitting beside me, ‘these are virtual pets called tamagotchi’s, they’re the latest fashion,’ she boasts.
‘My one’s done a poo,’ Elvis chuckles. What repulsive creatures I think to myself.
‘Did you ever have any pets Granddad?’ Gravel asks.
‘No I don’t think we did,’ Fanny-Mo answers for me. I hate it when she does that.
‘Actually, Karen had a rabbit if I remember correctly,’ I state. The blasted thing kept escaping into next door’s garden and didn’t show any appreciation for the run I built it.
‘Oh yes, Dagwood,’ Karen smiles fondly. I was the one who chose the name Dagwood for it, it sounds a lot classier than Fluffy or Pansy or any of the other stupid names people call their pets.
‘My sister and I also looked after a neighbour’s pet newt once.’ I recall.
‘A newt! That’s strange,’ exclaims Elvis.
‘He let it die,’ smiles Fanny-Mo, raising an eyebrow.
‘I did not let it die!’ I yell, outraged, ‘My evil aunt Eunice horrifically murdered it and I shall get my diary to prove it to you!’
I get up hurriedly and head to my room.
‘Are you alright Norman?’ asks Valerie as I brush past her.
‘I need my diary,’ I reply, focusing on her roof.
‘Norman, look at my face when you talk to me please,’ she says sternly, ‘and I’ll help you find it.’

Valerie accompanies me to my room which is painted green as I made sure to complain about the horrific blue wallpaper. I detest the colour blue.
We rummage around the bottom drawer of my bedside table in search of my prized diary. I have sixty-six diaries, one for each year of my life, starting from when I was thirteen, they all live together in the drawer along with my two favourite childhood toys. Humpy-Dump a knitted Humpty-Dumpty toy that I received from my dear old science teacher Mr Koote; who unfortunately died ten years ago after a dead pheasant that had just been shot landed on his head. Next to Humpy-Dump lies my prized golliwog Barney who I would like to have on my bed but for some reason Valerie seems to think that golliwogs are racist and makes me shut him away in the drawer. This isn’t particularly fair as Barney is a rather splendid golliwog and would never be racist to anyone.
We rummage through all my diaries until we come across the first one I ever kept. I blow the dust from it’s brown leather cover and search for the section about the newt.
I go back out onto the balcony where the subject of conversation is now about how to ice cakes correctly.
Karen notices the diary immediately and smiles. She is the only one who has ever read it. She happened to find it particularly amusing and I was sure to punish her for prying.
‘What’s that?’ asks Elvis, inquisitively.
‘Ah now this is the diary I kept when I was thirteen,’ I inform them all as they watch me, ‘the time when your mother and I first began our courtship.’
They study the yellow stained pages that fray and view my crabby hand writing with great interest.
‘Now,’ I say, clearing my throat, ‘I am going to read you the section about your evil Great great aunt and moaning Muriel’s newt.
‘Who was moaning Muriel?’ asks Rowan, scrunching her nose like her mother and grandmother.
‘Moaning Muriel just so happened to be my next door neighbour when I was a nipper,’ I inform them, flicking through the pages of my diary to find the section.
The family gather around me wide eyed, as they wait in eager anticipation to hear stories of my childhood. These diaries have always been kept private up until now but I feel that I should share them with everyone now so that they know about my life before we are all wiped out.
I read out load to them as they listen. Fanny-Mo goes inside to boil the kettle and make some earl grey for everyone as she knows my stories can be rather long.
I clear my throat and begin to read out loud.

Add a Comment