Yorkshire Writers' Lunch

She looked up into the morning sky and allowed the softness of the occasional unblemished cloud to soothe her.  It instilled a calmness which seeped from her upturned face down throughout her whole body.  She stared past the cobalt heavens and imagined that she was seeing beyond the canopy, into an infinity which beckoned.  Never before had she felt so ready, so prepared. She allowed her eyes to close.  Images of chamomile to smooth her brow, marjoram to settle her stomach, rosemary to ease her thoughts.  She conjured the taste of sage on her tongue, sage to enhance the wisdom which had cost her so dear during her young life.  And she savoured the memory of cooling mint, for she was about to need it. She listened to the whispering of burning straw and the spitting of wooden splinters.  She called upon all her powers to dispatch peaceful blessings to her captors. They would, she knew, look upon her murmurings as curses. And the memory of her ...

Hurry - closing sale! Everything must go! Huge reductions on summer colours - Unfashionable fuchsia pink, sunshine yellow and lawn green Make way for subtle bronze, damson and burnt sienna. Blousy and froufrou extravagance lie abandoned, Replaced by this season’s stark lines and slender shapes. The elegant silhouettes of leaf-lost trees,  The ghostly frame of skeletal seedheads. The satin soft fabric of blossom and petal is so old hat. Now, delicate finger-brittle materials are en vogue. Shivering, gossamer cobwebs and carpets of crumbling leaves, Rough-hewn, fragile, not meant to last. Everything must go.

  On a cold January morning earlier this year, I did a mad dash into the centre of town to buy some birthday presents for my Dad.   My parents were arriving later that day, to stay for the weekend.   I bought my Dad a few nice gifts but felt that I wanted to get him something else to go with them.   As I’d been driving through town during the previous few weeks, I’d noticed a sign outside the local Print Workshop and Gallery, advertising a ‘Print Sale’.   I wondered if I had time to pop in and see if they had anything already framed that I could give him for his birthday.    Thinking that it wouldn’t take long, I headed the short distance to the Print Workshop and rang the bell. I was welcomed in by a friendly guy and taken in to the small gallery space, with a tiny shop in one corner.   The man introduced himself as ‘Martyn’, showed me around and explained which prints were for sale.    I asked him if ...

It was the craving that gave it away. I had already felt myself swelling like a fat bud. He thought I was ill. “Why are you so pale and tired?” he asked. I lay on the sofa, too queasy to face mash, and gravy, and gristly meat.  I stroked my belly and watched his eyes grow wide and his mouth grow smug. The woman next door loved her garden. She grew carrots and courgettes, peas and parsnips. I watched her labour, digging and turning.   Every day she trod the paths around the plot. She sprinkled with water. She tucked mulch around their tender stalks. As they grew unruly she trimmed and trained, tied and tethered.   When the sun set, she seemed to whisper secret words of nourishment into the soil. It was the lush leaves that caught my eye, the spinach and rocket, the kale and cabbage.   I longed for their peppery newness. Nothing else would do.  “Jump over the wall,” I said to him. “Jump over the wall and bring me some greens. She’ll never ...

My insides ache and I’ve nothing left to bring up. Brest seems a lifetime away. Sea birds wheel and call, spray continues to batter the deck and we are soaking wet, but at long last, dry Welsh land is in sight. Now we can escape the ship and leave the foul- smelling heads behind. As far as I can recall, it is still the 22 nd of February. The regulars in their black uniforms despise us, but then we irregulars are a motley bunch – deserters, convicts, political dissidents and royalists. A rabble in other words. I leap from the small boat onto a tiny sandy shore and follow the men ahead of me up a steep, rocky, winding path to the clifftop. I turn to find the Vengeance has disappeared into the night. There will be no going back. The regulars are well armed, but the rest of us have to make do with whatever pitiful pieces we can find or steal. I hear a group of four or five hardened men talking in low voices and before I know it, they’ve melted away into the darkness, looting in mi...