I’m back in Leeds after a three night hiatus in Dunstable in the company of two old friends; brothers in arms of whom I wrote yesterday in Pineapple Days. A sojourn, which among the events arranged, saw me re-united with several former work mates/colleagues during a surprise retirement presentation for a long-standing buddy of mine (Alan). The event an informal get together at the offices of the financial institution who’d employed my […]
On the 75th anniversary of D-Day I wanted to pen a tribute to the 10,000+ Allied casualties who lost their lives during the Normandy invasion, on June 6th 1944. Codename Operation Neptune, a massed incursion aiming at securing an Allied foothold on Western France. This offensive ultimately securing an area which by the end of June had allowed the landing of 875,000 Allied forces, significantly strengthening their WWII position against […]
Recently I was asked by a younger acquaintance to describe life residing on the sometimes fraught pastures of middle age. They didn’t ask in exactly that manner, their enquiry delivered more along the lines of “It must be s**t being middle aged, you fat b*****d!” However, I thought my version more poetic. Ordinarily, when questioned about the merits (or otherwise) of residing at this juncture of the ageing process I […]
Relentless precipitation is this morning’s meteorological guest in Leeds 15. Consequently, I’m witnessing a Zeusian deluge akin to that written about in Genesis, where Noah, his family and two of every animal (apart from the snargle) avoided drowning by boarding an ark. The snargle a species of wild cat, which folklore journals could run as fast backwards as it could forwards. An evolutionary ‘gift’ which meant that, without possessing eyes […]
A couple of years back, in an attempt to increase the versatility of my work, I set myself a challenge of penning poetry, as an aside to my daily blog. Deliberately quilled in an enigmatic, cryptic and pretentious style, these sonnets provoked the reader into their own challenge of unravelling the meaning of the locutions. I must have written around fifty of these poems in the summer of 2017. Prose […]
Yesterday evening my fan assisted oven decided to join its kitchen appliance buddies, the refrigerator and washing machine, with their recent decision to cease working. This inconvenient collective withdrawal of white goods labour all occurring in the past two weeks. Consequently at various junctures within the last fortnight Mrs S’s laundry schedule has been disrupted, perishable comestible purchases have required more thorough planning, and the family’s lost the ability to […]
Yesterday, in the narrative Till Death Us Do Part, I wrote of a late April evening in 1970 when introduced to the misery of witnessing my football amours, Leeds United, falling at the final hurdle. The first of many heartbreaking experiences over the past five decades when they were a hairsbreadth from achieving their seasons trophy or promotion objective(s). Don’t get me wrong, there’s also been many highs while following the West Yorkshire […]
