Yorkshire Writers' Lunch

As I sat in a much coveted chair, resting my aching back and swollen feet, I wondered at the man parading as my husband.    We didn’t know it then, but our first born would be safely arriving into the world in less than 24 hours.  I had been nesting, it was true, cleaning out all the kitchen cupboards and scrubbing the floors on my hands and knees until they gleamed, which was unusual, but not completely out of character.  The impending birth had had a much more dramatic effect on my husband.  He was shopping! Anyone who knows my husband well, is aware of his generosity.  He thinks nothing of paying for everyone’s meal when we are out for dinner, taking family members on holiday, buying lavish gifts, but when it comes to buying a more tangible, practical item, particularly anything for himself, it is generally an agonising experience.   In  the days when we first lived together, a day shopping for furniture or another item for the home...

Like a bolt from the blue You high-jumped into my heart I tried to outpace you But you had me, right from the start. I tried to focus on the target You had your eyes on the prize You wowed me with precision  And caught me on the rise. It was a whirlwind romance Synchronised to perfection A double-somersaulting, triple-twisting back flip A gold-medal-winning connection. We went the long distance Your hand in mine We didn’t want it to end Then sprinted for the finish line. 

My granddaughter proudly told me that she has already gone up into Year Two, even though it is the summer holidays. They manage transitions very well at her school, preparing the youngsters for the next stage in their learning. She was surprised when I told her that I wouldn't see her the next week because I was going to a writers' summer school, but quickly accepted that even granddads still have a need for schooling. Often I play stupid so that she can tell me things, but probably she thinks I am stupid. I certainly do have a lot to learn. The Swanwick Writers' Summer School has now completed its sixty-eighth year, a week of workshops, courses, speakers, and social events and I am back home catching up on sleep and Olympics. There is no better way of adding to whatever writing skills you may already have. It is by turns entertaining, exhausting, enlivening. This year I focused on poetry workshops, but there are always a variety of courses in writing novels, non-fiction,...

I’m not sure I can run any further.  Henryk doesn’t seem to be following. Maybe I threw him off at the station gate. Not everyone can climb over. My breathing is ragged, a mixture of breathlessness and fear. I slow to a walk, my feet soaked from the headlong dash through the lakes strung out across the deserted, potholed car park beyond the station.  The curfew will start soon but I’ve nowhere to go. Zone 7 is unknown to me. Maybe I can make it as far as the Periphery, where shelter awaits. He steps suddenly from the shadows, late-teens perhaps, automatic weapon at the ready as he demands my papers. It’s unusual for one of them to be out alone, no sign of a partner. He scrutinizes my pass. I’m not sure he can read. He tells me to take off my rucksack and tip the contents onto the pavement, under the dull orange glow of a streetlight, which zaps off and on at irregular intervals. The smell from the tannery seeps over me, making me nauseous.  The remains of...