It's time to say goodbye....

A cloudless night like this can set the spirit soaring. So wrote W.H. Auden; it was the first line of his book A Walk after Dark, and also the first prompt I used at Carry On Tuesday. That was on Saturday 16^th May 2009.

Carry On Tuesday was an instant success. There were plenty of other sites designed to stir the imagination of writers, but they usually provided a single word or a picture on which to base ones thoughts. I thought it would be far more interesting to use the work of established writers, poets and musicians to set us off on our weekly journey into the realms of verse and vignette.

Unfortunately I created a rod for my own back. At first, phrases seemed to appear from nowhere. But as time went on it came far more difficult to come up with suitable prompts. I'm probably now the world’s greatest expert on the opening lines of books and movies having spent week after week and hour after hour scrolling through lists, catalogues and directories.

As if I hadn't given myself enough work I also decided to run a companion site called Carry On Tuesday Plus which I would link to the main page. There I provided information on the work which I’d chosen for that weeks prompt, usually with photo’s of authors, extracts and videos.

I tried never to miss a week. As my blogging friends know I do spend quite a bit of time away in far flung corners of the world where the internet is often unavailable or at best unreliable. But somehow we got through with just three blank Saturdays over the four years.

Interestingly several of the current contributors were with me from the beginning. I'm not naming names; you know who you are and I thank you from the bottom of my whisky glass for your loyal support!

Today, four years on, I decided that the time had come to stop carrying on. Sad but necessary. I've always tried to visit your sites to see what you've made of the prompts and I fully intend ‘carrying on’ dropping in to see you.

Our final prompt which you can find by clicking RIGHT HERE is Time to Say Goodbye. Please join us one more time.