faith

An acrostic written for Sunday Scribblings prompt, Faith

Picture from deviantArt by~h4f13qu1n

 

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The bake-a-cake competition!

This week the prompt on Writers Island is 'if only'

What if I made some muffins? I wonder if a sponge cake would be better. Would I stand a better chance if I made a fruit cake? But if I baked a........mm, not sure. Then if......if.....if......!      Only a few days to go.

I wonder if I put in enough eggs. What if there was too much flour?  If I stirred it more....if....if....if.....!      Only a few more minutes in the oven.

Let’s see if it’s cool enough. I wonder if it’s too soft. What if it’s soggy in the middle or if....if....if.....!      Only hope it’s good enough.

If I use whipped cream on top I wonder if I should sprinkle chocolate bits over it.  What if I iced it instead? I wonder if pink would look good or if white would better. But then again, if .....if.....if.....!      Only one chance, I must get it right.

I wonder if the judges like it. Would it have stood a better chance if I’d just dusted it with sugar? What if I’d used a paper doily under it? If....if.....if.....!        Only came third.

If only I’d made a swiss roll!

The new prompt is ready and waiting for you at Carry On Tuesday

It's dangerous in the jungle!

I wrote this story for my Kid's Stories site almost three years ago. It fits quite well with this week's Sunday Scribblings prompt, Dangerous.


Little Max climbed up onto a stool and reached for the biscuit tin. He felt inside then took out a chocolate covered wafer and another round one covered in hundreds and thousands. He carefully placed them inside a plastic bag and put them in his pocket ready for the journey.

Max was heading for the jungle.


There were dangerous animals there so he would need a big stick to fend them off. He opened the door of the garden shed and looked around for a something suitable . Some were too long, others to fat. But this one was just perfect. He’d need a hat too. Up in the corner he saw a green cap with a big peak. That would do. He stood on tiptoes, wobbled a bit, and then just managed to knock it off its hook with his stick. It was a bit big but it was better than nothing.


He remembered hearing something about rain in forests. He’d need his boots to keep his feet dry. And in case it was hot he’d better take that paper fan that Mummy bought back from Spain last year. And that little torch that lives in the cupboard under the stairs for when the sun goes down.


All he needed now were some fellow travellers. Sophie was a bit too grown up and she always laughed at him when he planned his adventures. But Jack was only five and he would really enjoy himself. So he dragged him away from his Lego train and told him not to tell a soul about the danger to come.


Darrus the Dalmatian would enjoy it too. Max went to get his lead and Darrus started bouncing round in circles because he was so excited.


He wanted one more traveller. Edward the teddy hadn’t been out the house for ages. He would love to come. They were ready for the trek into the jungle.


Max wasn’t sure which way it was, but it was probably somewhere near the bottom of the garden. There were some trees on the other side of the fence and it always looked dark and mysterious over there. Jack pulled one way, and Darrus another, but Max tugged them both down the garden path.


Suddenly Daddy called from the window - ‘Off on one of your jaunts again Max?’


‘We are going exploring in the jungle’ Max said.


'I thought we could all go to play on the swings and get an ice cream’ said Daddy.


Suddenly all thoughts of a trip to the jungle were forgotten!

This week's Carry On Tuesday prompt can be found HERE!

Fate

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Let me read it to you

Samantha was standing in the churchyard. In a grey coat and grey woolly hat she was hardly noticeable amongst the sombre gravestones which leaned drunkenly from long forgotten final resting places. There weren’t many mourners, maybe half a dozen, wrapped in black and standing in silence around a freshly dug cavity in the ground. There was to have been a wedding at the church today. It was cancelled.

She wished she could have turned back time.

*

It was one morning a couple of weeks ago and Samantha was on a bus on her way home from a shopping expedition. She’d been sitting next to a lady she knew by sight; she lived next door to her parents and they had often waved to each other when Samantha was visiting. They got talking and said how surprising it was that they’d never met properly in the past. Mary her name was. She’d been shopping for a new outfit to wear at her daughter’s wedding. She opened her bag a little, and pulled out a corner of the dress: it was the most beautiful pink.

It was raining; not much, more of a fine drizzle. Normally Samantha jumped off at the bottom of the hill and walked through the park to her house, but she was tempted to stay on for one stop longer and take a quicker route home rather than get too wet. She couldn’t make up her mind and Mary laughed at her indecisiveness. The bus stopped and several people filed off. Samantha decided to give the park a miss! She was the only passenger to get off at the next stop, and the driver made it clear by his mumblings that he’d rather have kept going and made it through the traffic light up ahead which was green. It changed to red as he pulled away. As she walked along the path she caught sight of the driver sitting at the lights with his elbows on the steering wheel, his hands propping up his head!  She couldn’t stop a little smile!

Later that evening Samantha was chatting to her father on the phone. He told her how shocked he and her mother were to hear that their neighbour Mary had been knocked down by a car which mounted the pavement just after she left the bus that morning. There was nothing the paramedics could do for her.

*

Samantha watched as a young couple threw rose petals into the open grave. Today, they should have been showered with petals.

                            *

If that fateful morning Samantha had left the bus at her usual stop and walked through the park to her home, the driver would not have had to wait for several minutes at the red light. By the time the car mounted the pavement, the bus would have been long gone and Mary would have been turning the key in the lock of her door. And today Mary would be the proud mother in the beautiful pink dress that she’d shown to Samantha on the bus.

She wished she could have turned back time.

Written for Writers Island and loosely based on the prompt 'Time Travel'

New Carry On Tuesday prompt waiting for you HERE!

Love at first sight

let me read it to you!

It was love at first sight.

There, on a plate of gleaming white sat a work of art.

 Culinary art.

A feast for my eyes,

colours and  shapes, textures and tones.

A fragrant aroma heightened my senses.

Then love at first bite.  

For Carry On Tuesday # 66

Wordless Wednesday

The Virtual Choir

The idea was simple. Suggest to singers all over the world that they download a particular recording of a choral work from iTunes. Then, individually in their own homes, they were to sing along to their part – soprano, tenor, base or whatever, and record themselves doing so on their webcamr. The results were to be posted on YouTube and the composer of the work would select 100 suitable videos and edit them together to form the world’s first virtual choir, a choir made up of people who had never met.

And that’s how Eric Whitacre’s haunting choral work Sleep took the classical world by storm.

But that was just the start. The next project was based on another of his pieces, Lux Aurumque. This time he he published the sheet music on line and posted a ‘conducting track’ on his website. This was simply video of himself conducting the piece in silence except for a few notes being played softly on a piano. Again the participants recorded themselves in their own bedrooms or kitchens singing their parts. He ended up with 243 tracks from 185 singers from 12 countries. The result is astounding.

So, what next from the virtual choir? Their will be another recording in September and I for one can’t wait to find out

Above the clouds

Click on picture to enlarge and spot the plane! Taken from Boeing 737-800, 37000 feet above Germany

Let me read it to you

There’s another world

Above the clouds

Another world where nothing hides the sun

A world where time has not begun.

An unspoilt world

Untouched by man

A world which knows not needless strife

Untainted by the needs of life.

Above the clouds

There’s perfect peace

It’s miles above our troubled land

Unspoilt by greed and human hand.

There’s another world

Above the clouds

An unspoilt world untouched by man

A world where nothing hides the sun.

Halfway through and they are spellbound!

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Right, I have my props; a stool, a silly hat, two balloons filled with water, they love that part of my act, and a glass of wine which is really vinegar! I hope it’s a good audience, and I hope I can find a willing victim to hypnotise. Quick glass of water, my throats a bit dry........ that’s better. There goes the music. I love this bit when the voice booms out across the theatre announcing my name..... fantastic. Curtain’s opening, must get on stage.

Ouch those lights are bright tonight! Listen to that applause. I hope they are as enthusiastic when I finish in 30 minutes time!


So far so good. They laughed at my jokes especially the one about that bloke in the front row with bald head. Let’s find a suitable person to join me on stage. She looks a bit prissy, hardly giggled. I suppose I could use her. No, it has to be him just over there. He’s been showing off to his mates and trying to make clever comments since I started. Here he comes. Perfect. I’ll teach him to try and take the Mickey out of me.


Mmm. Not sure if he’s going under or not. Let’s click my fingers again. No, he’s pretending, he wouldn’t have let out that stupid snort if he was and he’s still mucking about a bit. The audience is very quiet though. They must be enjoying it. They’re spellbound. Right, 15 minutes gone, we are half way through. I need to get things moving.


The audience really is quiet. My stooges mates aren’t even responding to his showing off. Hang on a minute. When I said the crowd were spellbound, I don’t think I was wrong. I seem to have hypnotised... them, not... err...him.  What on earth do I do now? I have half of my act to go. Oh dear, my unresponsive victim has stormed of stage and he’s shaking his friends. Only one thing for it. I’ll get them all barking like dogs. That was great. Now I’ll get them shaking hands with each other. Now I’ll try to get them back with a click of my fingers. Oh dear, it didn’t work. Try again. Click. Nothing.


What to do? What to do? Paul McKenna where are you when I need you? Got it. I’ll get them all to clap and cheer. Great. A couple of bows, a cheery wave, I’ll thank them all for coming then exit stage right!


Right, run for it before the management realise they are still under my influence! Down the steps, good, the door to the street is open....here goes...RUN!


Written for both Writers Island and Sunday Scribblings 


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Inheritance tracks

Every Saturday morning at about 9.50am, the BBC’s ‘sensible’ channel, Radio Four, broadcasts a short feature called ‘Inheritance Tracks. Each week a person of fame, intelligence, notoriety or illustriousness selects two pieces of music: the first is a recording which has been part of their lives for as long as they can remember, and the second, a track which they would like to pass on to future generations. Although I have myself broadcast on the radio in the past, I’m not of sufficient prominence to be invited to contribute to this delightful weekly diversion, so I thought I’d set up my stall here! May I present to you the Inheritance Tracks of.... ME!

Click on the arrow and I'll tell you about them - just like on the radio!







Track One


I can still picture the scene. My parents, my brothers and me sitting around a table eating Sunday lunch whilst listening to a radio programme called Two Way Family Favourites. The British Forces Posted Overseas would be sent messages by their loved ones at home, and played a record which brought them closer together. I can’t remember many of those old recordings, but a song by Red Foley somehow lodged itself in my mind.


It was about a dog called Old Shep, and was spun regularly on Family Favourites. As a teenager I played the guitar and sang a bit, in fact a friend and I used to perform in pubs and even on the stage whenever we were given the opportunity, and Old Shep was always the climax to our act. We even won a talent contest performing it once, even though a song about a dog being shot was hardly appropriate at a fund raising event in aid of a dogs home. I’m told that Elvis Presley also performed it in a talent contest in 1941 when he was 10 years old, but he only came 5th! Still, he had the last laugh because a few years later he recorded it and it was huge hit.


Not a year has passed since my teenage days when I haven’t sung it. I’ve trotted it out at parties, pubs and holiday hotels all over the world. In fact I sang it to my travelling companions in the Foreign Correspondents Club in Cambodia just a few months ago!


‘Old Shep he has gone where the good doggies go, no more with old shep will I roam’. I’m leaving strict instructions that it’s not to be played at my funeral. You know why? ‘Cos I’ve never really liked it!


Red Foley, Old Shep







Track two


I’m not sure that my kids and their kids will be particularly made up with the piece of music I’m going to hand down to them. I can hear them saying ‘oh no, not more church music’. But John Tavener’s beautiful setting of William Blake’s poem The Lamb somehow sums up my life. Not the words, lovely as they are, but the sound.


I remember so clearly the first time I heard it. I was spending a few days at a music festival in Winchester, and I managed to get into the cathedral one afternoon when the choir were practicing for the evening’s performance. I had the place pretty well to myself. I can see myself now, sitting on the stone steps just yards away from the choir. There was total silence. Then suddenly this most wonderful sound began to waft over me. It was unaccompanied, soft and gentle. It was if was being sung for me. I’d never experienced a feeling like it, and I’ve never again to this day.


It’s a simple piece, probably the simplest he’s written to date. As I said just now, the sound of the piece relates to me. I’m not sure how to explain what I mean, but I’ll have a go. My life has been one of ups and downs, highs and lows. Discord and harmony, and that’s where Tavener’s music comes in. Parts of it are sung using chords which shouldn’t work, yet their discord has a harmony all of its own. You see, I believe that when things went wrong for me it was meant to be, even the bad times weren’t truly bad, just a little out of tune. And as a result I experienced highs which I otherwise would have missed out on. I wouldn’t be enjoying the wonderful Iife I am now.


In The Lamb, crooked and wonky verses are separated by some of the most beautiful soothing harmonies I’ve ever heard, and that really is the story of my life.


John Tavener, The Lamb

I'm now throwing down the gauntlet! I'd love to hear what your inheritance tracks are. Missy, KB, Steve (but can I trust him to take it seriously?) Lucy, Marja, Giggles, Mona, Gautami and  all of my blogging friends out there, why not tell us which track you inherited and which one you'd pass down, and tell us why.

I would like to thank you, but......

Written for the Sunday Scribblings prompt 'I would like to thank ...'

Squire Gordon lived in Longmarson Manor high up on the hill amid acres of rolling countryside punctuated by lush green copses. Every year on the same day in July he invited the villagers to a tea party and dance in one of his grand wooden barns.

Pop pop pop. Squire Gordon tapped a podgy finger on the microphone. He looked up. Everybody carried on chatting. He tottered slightly on the upturned crate he was using to raise him above his audience. He tapped little harder. Pop pop pop. They all kept talking unaware that the rotund Roger Gordon was trying to get a bit of hush! His white beard and moustache bristled as his rosy cheeks turned scarlet as his monocle fell from his eye.

‘One two one two...’ he yelled into the instrument thinking perhaps it wasn’t functioning.

The assembled crowd fell silent except for Farmer Foxton who called out ‘three four three four!’ This was followed by hysterical laughter and once again the babble started up. Squire Gordon looked ready to explode.

Suddenly there was an enormous bang. It came from the back of the barn. Everyone turned as one to see Brian the Gamekeeper standing feet astride, a smoking rifle in this hand. He stood there illuminated by a beam of sunlight shining through the hole he'd blown in the roof.

‘I’d thank you all to shut up and show a little respect’ he shouted ‘Let’s listen to what our worthy Squire has to say’

They turned back but saw nothing but the microphone. Roger Gordon was sitting on a straw bale mopping his sweating brow with a white hanky whilst a couple of little ladies fussed around him with smelling salts and brandy. He staggered back onto his feet, wedged his monocle in his eye, climbed unsteadily onto the wooden crate then puffed out his chest in readiness for his speech. Brian the Gamekeeper strode slowly to the front and stood beside the Squire tossing his rifle from one hand to the other whilst glaring at the audience. Needless to say there was total silence!

The squire took a piece of paper from his pocket. He unfolded it then holding it both hands moved it backwards and forwards until it came into focus. He turned it the other way up, and suppressed giggling broke out from behind the hands of the crowd who were extremely close to laughing out loud. Brian was not amused and grasped his rifle firmly and somewhat menacingly in both hands.

Squire Gordon started to speak. Brian turned on the microphone and Squire Gordon started again. The speakers screeched, Brian turned down the volume and the Squire made another attempt. Some the crowd were in serious danger of having an accident in their underwear!

He was on his way ay last.

‘I’d like to thank you all for coming here this afternoon, but I’m afraid I can’t’ he spluttered. ‘Instead the only person I would like to thank is my trusty Gamekeeper Brian’

With that Squire Gordon climbed down, and followed by Brian the Gamekeeper started to march toward the door as the crowd parted like the Red Sea. Everyone watched open mouthed. The great doors on the barn slammed shut and there was a resounding ‘clonk’ as a key turned in the lock. They never laughed at Squire Gordon again!