The azure blue of the Atlantic Ocean provides a distant landscape to today’s poolside prose penning. Fuerteventura pleasingly warm, although an accompanying zephyr from the sea tempers the warmth a degree or two. Apart from the pool bar beatbox the audio backdrop is predominantly the hushed tones of. chattering holidaymakers. Conversations conducted in a multitude…
Tag: author
Winter Break
I arrived in the Canary Island of Fuerteventura yesterday afternoon for a weeks hiatus. The town, which’ll be my home for seven nights, the southern borough of Jandia. Fuerte’s premier resort rhyming with Randia. Footnote – Talking of Randia, as I’m here without my Ossett beau Sarah, that’s a feeling I’ll be avoiding for a…
Have a Safe Journey
The neon signages of M&S, Primark and Supercuts and a throng of busy midday customers provide today’s writing landscape. The seat and table acting as my penmanship perch provided by a well known coffee house franchise. For no other reason than ‘because I can’, the dissenter in me spurning use of the cafe’s wifi network…
A Brotherly Hug
In his iconic love lament ‘If’, US songwriter David Gates started the lyric by poetically inquiring of his beau:- “If a picture paints a thousand words, then why can’t I paint you?” It’s not clear from the refrain’s subsequent lines how his love responded to the question. However, with a little mischief on my part,…
Sandal
My brother Ian will shortly arrive for a two day hiatus at my West Yorkshire apartment. News of my habitually clumsy siblings return to the area of his birth no doubt leading to the flat’s ornaments quaking in their boots. Of course, the ornamental trinkets don’t literally quake in the boots. For one thing they’re…
Tears & Fears of a Clown
For a variety of reasons my literary output has diminished of late; as a consequence of this tardiness my mental health has tumbled like a latter-day Humpty Dumpty. With the art of penmanship acting as my goto anti-depressant, it’s proved a foolish self-care strategy if ever there was one! As a result, from today I’ve…
Four Years On
Four years ago yesterday a life episode played out which, although shaking my being to the very core, became a positive catalyst for significant life changes on my part. Transformations which have enhanced my life immeasurably; subsequently, augmenting my self-worth and esteem. Let me point out this life event, the suffering of a heart attack,…
Rosie Outlook
Last Wednesday on a chilled and misty North Yorkshire evening, four days before the birthday celebrated globally by millions, a baby girl was born to my son Jonathon and his wife Jenny,. The arrival’s inaugural appearance providing the greatest possible Christmas gift to both parents and their respective broods. A euphoric episode catapulting GJ Strachan…
Family Xmas Traditions
It’s 18th December and the festive ambience in my apartment intensifies apace. To be honest, though, how could GJ Strachan not be flushed with yuletide ardour after the greeting of ‘Bollocks’ from behind door 18 of my Tourettes advent calendar? Augmenting yuletide spirit further, the unmistakable redolence of mulled wine, a bowl of satsumas, and…