23rd July - Picture promppt

Welcome to Tuesday's Tales

A place where books are born.

This month's picture prompt is a road scene, and while my tale for this week is a continuation from Regency I hope you will be able to envisage the type of road travellers experienced back in  1813

Last week my hero, Juan, was stranded at an inn after returning to England. This week he has been rescued by his friend Lord Charles Vidal, but now disaster has struck again...

 

Within seconds of him (Vidal) pulling Juan and their mounts through a gap in the bushes lining the road two horsemen came thundering round the corner and pulled up sharply.

 

“What ails you?” One of the men asked.

 

 The other urged his mount closer to the coach muttered an expletive before dismounting and peering into the coach. “Where’s your master?” he interrupted his companion and grabbed the groom’s arm.

 

“Master?”

 

Vidal grinned at the slow drawl his servant employed.

 

“Don’t waste my time man. That is my lord Vidal’s coach, is it not?”

 

“Aye.” His groom swiped his hat off and rubbed the back of his hand across his hair before he scratched his head and replaced the cap on his head.

 

“So —"

 

His groom looked about him then at his interrogator. “He ain’t here.”

 

Vidal choked back a laugh.

 “That is obvious,” the second man stated. “But where is he?”  

 The laugh died in Vidal’s throat when he saw the raised gun in the newcomer’s hand.

 

“He’s been gone these last fifteen minutes sir.” Real fear showed in his groom’s eyes, and yet the man still managed to defy his interrogators. When Juan shifted at his side he spied the gun in the Spaniard’s hand. He shook his head and held up one hand. His own pistols were still in the coach, they couldn't save lives with only one weapon between them. He watched the two men confer together then one turned and shot his fist out. The blow to his groom’s chin lifted him off his feet and slammed him against the stricken vehicle. In the next minute sunlight flashed off polished steel as the other man faced his second groom. A loud report shattered the air and the swordsman slid to the ground, landing on his own weapon.

 

Thank you for reading this week's offering, and please hop on over to read everyone's offering for this week's Tuesday's Tales prompt.

Hump Day hook 27-03-13

HUMP DAY HOOK is a blog hop where each participating author posts ONE paragraph from a WIP (work in progress) or finished book each Wednesday. This gives readers an opportunity to sample different author's work and perhaps even find a new-to-you author.

For the last time I am carrying on where I left off last week. Today you are getting a short snippet from 'her' point of view

She cursed when her opponent’s foil whipped past her face, and pushed her thoughts away.But along with the next clash of blades they came right back again...
Before she knew his intentions, the stranger had whipped the marriage certificate out of her hand and marched down chapel's the weather-smooth steps to the street.

To read more offering from the HDH group of authors please visit Hump Day Hook Blog.

 

Just Dessert Blog Event

A group of Secret Cravings Publishings authors have got together again, this time to offer you some scintalating recipes for you to enjoy today and tomorrow.

Many of the authors will also be offerings gifts to lucky visitors who leave comments. The more sites you visit the more chance you have of receiving a gift.

Each author will explain their rules of participation.

As I am offering one lucky commenter a free pdf copy of my Regency romantic suspense, No Job For a Woman, I thought I'd share a couple fo regency recipes with you. The first is...

Prince Regent chocolate cake recipe

(from UK TV Channel4 programme Come Dine With Me Mike Brett gave his guests a royal send off with this luscious dessert in Come Dine With Me, Wolverhampton)

Ingredients

• 1-2 tbsp sunflower oil, for greasing
• 250g butter, softened
• 250g caster sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract or a few drops of vanilla essence
• 4 free-range medium eggs
• 200g plain flour
• 50g cornflour
• 1 tsp baking powder

For the filling

• 4 tbsp cocoa powder
• 350-450g icing sugar
• 250g unsalted butter, softened
• 1-2 tbsp almond or coffee cream liqueur or freshly made strong coffee For the glaze
• 150g plain dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa solids), broken into squares
• 50g coconut oil or unsalted butter
• 50ml coffee cream liqueur
• Chocolate shavings, to decorate

METHOD

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/Gas 6. Base-line a 25cm loose-based cake tin with baking parchment and brush the base and sides with a little sunflower oil to grease. Cream the butter with the sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy. Slowly beat in the eggs then sift over the flour, cornflour and baking powder. Fold in lightly. (Use an electric mixer to make the cake batter if you like.)

2. Spread roughly a seventh of the mixture over the prepared cake tin and bake in the centre of the oven for 10 minutes. Remove, cool for a few minutes then turn out onto a wire rack and peel off the baking parchment. Wash the tin, base-line and grease once more. Spread a sixth of the cake batter over the tin and bake as before. Repeat the method until you have seven even-sized sponges. Leave the sponges to cool, separated by sheets of baking parchment.

3. To make the filling, sift the cocoa powder and 350g of the icing sugar into a bowl with the butter and cream together until smooth and fairly thick, adding more icing sugar if necessary. Stir in the liqueur or coffee and beat until soft. Put one of the sponges on a serving plate and spread with a little of the filling. Top with a second cake and repeat the method until all the cakes are stacked one on top of the other with the chocolate filling between the layers.

4. To make the glaze, melt the chocolate with the coconut oil or butter and coffee liqueur in a heat-proof basin over gently simmering water until smooth, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat and leave to cool for a few minutes then spread with a large rubber spatula over the assembled cake. Decorate with chocolate shavings and chill until ready to serve.

Please note this recipe is the contestant's own and has not been tested professionally. Like the Come Dine With Me contestants, you could be creating a culinary delight or dining disaster, so switch on your ovens and be bold.

As a bonus I thought I'd include a recipe for Ratafia.

What is ratafia?

It is defined as "1- a sweet cordial flavored with fruit kernels or almonds. 2 - a biscuit flavored with ratafia."The following recipe for Ratafia can be found in Robert's Guide for Butlers & Other Household Staff, published in 1828.
Into one quart of brandy pour half a pint of cherry juice, as much currant juice, as much of raspberry juice, add a few cloves, and some white pepper in grains, two grains of green coriander, and a stick or two of cinnamon, then pound the stones of cherries, and put them in wood and all. Add about twenty five or thirty kernels of apricots. Stop your demijohn close and let it infuse for one month in the shade, shaking it five or six times in that time at the end of which strain it through a flannel bag, then through a filtering paper, and then bottle it and cork close for use; you can make any quantity you chose, only by adding or increasing more brandy or other ingredients.

Now for my giveaway~

All you have to do to enter my giveaway is to share your favourite recipe and I will use random.org to pick a lucky recipient.

Blurb:Deborah Stavely is determined to overcome the increasing harassment from her neighbour without calling on her brother for help. So she is not pleased when Freddie intervenes and involves his friend, Julian Fanshaw. Circumstances demand Julian and Deborah learn to work together and Julian dares to dream that he might gain the love of the only person he’s ever given his heart to.

But will Deborah live long enough to discover that by releasing everything she values, she will gain everything her heart desires?

Julian Fanshaw answers a call for help from his life-long friend Lord Worth to help keep his friend’s widowed sister, Deborah, safe from her increasingly vindictive neighbours. It doesn’t take long to realise him or Freddie long to realise the Grangers aren’t using her as a long-promised act of revenge against them; but are playing a deeper and far more sinister game of their own.

To see more wonderful Secret Cravings Publishings Desert offerings, please go to Secret Cravings Publishings to find the other participants.

Tuesday's Tales - prompt 'green'

Working to this week's Tuesday's Tales prompt of 'green' I am continuing with a short snippet from the piece I started two weeks ago of my current WIP. ( I still haven't discovered the heroine's name yet - hence the 'she'.)

When she woke Tyler had taken her parents’ place at her bedside. Patches of bruised blue beneath his eyes advertised his lack of sleep, while his dark green shirt told her he’d been home and changed since he’d rescued her. And, she noticed, that although he looked straight at her, it hadn’t registered yet that she was awake and studying his face.

“Hi.” Shyness robbed her of the words she wanted say. The sharpening of Tyler’s eyes, the worry that clouded them, she saw it all.

The warmth of his hand clasping hers travelled up her arm and into her heart and then she remembered and tried to pull her hand away.

His smile, so soft, so gentle and so full of understanding joined the warmth surrounding her heart. A heart that had gone into overdrive.

“She’s gone,” Tyler said.

“Gone?” She tried to refocus her attention on his words rather than what he was doing to her emotions. "Who? What?"

“Rachel,” he said.  “She’s gone, as are four other girls involved in the attack on you.

“Oh!” Relief roared through her. She could admit, even to herself now, the thought of returning to school had terrified her nearly as much as the prospect of losing Tyler.  But, she looked away and back again, perhaps she hadn’t lost him after all.

“No,” he said, and she watched him trace a pattern on the back of her hand with his thumb. “I love you. You don’t get rid of me that easily.”

Her world righted itself and she relished the warmth of his fingers curled round hers and smiled at her parents as they entered the room before turning to gaze into Tyler’s eyes.

“I’m glad,” she said “because, without you, my world just wouldn’t be right.”  Leaning up, she touched his lips with a gentle finger; turned to her parents she reached out with her other hand.

“I’m so sorry I said all those horrible things, I didn’t mean them.”

“We know.” Her mother came to the side of the bed and rested her hand over the one now clasped in Tyler’s, while her father beamed at them all from where he stood propped up against the door.

 

Please visit the rest of this week's Tuesday's Tales

Sweet Saturday Sample

Sweet Saturday Sample is back again! Where does the week go?  Seeing as how we are now into February and Valentine's day is fast approaching I thoought I'd share a little bit from His Chosen Bride, book 2 of The Gasquet Princes series.

She lost track of time until the flames caught her attention once more. They flickered from orange to gold, to silver, to white.

A flurry of snowflakes masked the flames and for a second Monica watched the most beautiful, pristine snow-scene she’d ever seen. Her lips curved in longing. How she’d love to get a toboggan and slide down that slope. She knew where it was, and had done just that many times in her childhood, first with her parents and then, in clandestine manner, with her brother. Sneaking an old tin tray from the back of her mother’s walk-in pantry, she’d then grabbed Billy’s hand and they’d rushed out the back gate, heading for the lakeside track that led up into the hills.

Darkness, dense and thick with grief dropped over the scene. Startled and disconcerted by the strength of emotion emanating from the vision Monica shifted to her knees, ready to stand, when a voice, a deep male voice, sharp with fear called out her name.
“Monica!”

She knew she’d never heard the voice before, and yet—it was as familiar to her as the image she saw in her mirror each morning.

“Help me, Monica.”

Desperate for more clues, she searched the darkness within the flames until it sputtered and faded. With a curse she jumped up and ran for the phone. With her outstretched hand hovering over it she halted and let her hand drop to her side once more. What could she say? What would the police or rescue team think of her if she called them and told them she’d seen a vision of a man in distress?

They’d laugh in her face and classify her as a lunatic. Well, maybe not. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d contacted them with positive information but something—an instinctive gut reaction told her what she’d seen this time hadn’t happened yet.

Hop on back to Sweet Saturday Sample to read more fabulous authors.

Tuesdays Tales - Picture Prompt

As this is the final Tuesday's Tale for 2012, I'd like to take a moment to thank everyone who's visited, read and shared their thoughts on my offering during 2012.
I've loved being part of such an awesome group of authors, and been amazed by the number of published stories - some full-length novels, others novellas that started their life here in the Tuesday's Tales arena.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday/Christmas and look forward to seeing you all back to read more Tuesday's Tales in 2013.

 

The picture prompt is slightly different from the regular prompts, in as much with picture prompts we are limited to 300 words to tell our tale. :-0

 

 ~ ~ ~ ~

No babies! 

Alex had made it clear when he asked her to marry him, he didn’t want children. And at the time she’d agreed— she had a career to follow.

But now?

The warmth of her hand, resting on the slight mound of her belly, caressed and soothed.

Now, three months after the night, crazed with grief after his father’s funeral, they spent in a frenzy of passion, she’d finally faced up to her denial and taken a test.

Confirmation, she told herself. Of what, a silent voice in her head demanded. Yes, she’d known; almost from the moment she’d woken the next morning and smelled the sugar in the bowl, she’d known.

Pregnant! And loving it, loving the baby, and still she hadn’t told Alex.

Crossing to the window of their secluded holiday cabin, she stared out at the pristine carpet of snow on the ground. Another reprieve?  The snow must be all of two feet deep, and where the road cut through the ravine, probably deeper still.

She’d intended to tell Alex last week, well not tell him precisely, kinda ease him into the possibility; sound him out.  She sighed and rested her forehead against the cool glass.

Would he demand a divorce? She couldn’t bear the thought. Salt on her lips alerted her to her tears.  She never cried, now she never stopped.

The sound of a helicopter in the distance barely impinged on her grief. Would she become a single parent, separated from the only man she loved by the child they’d conceived? The child she already loved.

“What am I going to do?” Her voice echoed round the room and hung in the silence.

“How about coming home and letting the man who loves you both look after you?” Alex asked from the doorway.

 

Click HERE to visit the other authors :-)



A Tuesday Taster

Today I'm offering another snippet from my latest release, and first Regency Romance, No Job For A Woman, and would love to hear your comments.

The shiver running up her spine owed nothing to the light spring breeze and everything to the memory of the gruesome tale she’d overheard one of her workers relating to another.

 

“Found ‘er in the river, they did.”

Thinking the men spoke of one of her cattle she’d moved forward, only to stop at the man’s next words.

“They do say as ‘ow ‘e killed ‘er and threw ‘er body over the side of the bridge, they do.”

“I heard tell Ned Granger never denied it.”

She recognized her foreman’s voice.

“Some even claimed he enjoyed the infamy of it all.”

“’e would too.”

Whether she made some sound or not, she’d never know when the men spun round, spotted her presence, and after doffing their caps moved away, still talking in low voices.

Now after the discussion and revelations of the night before, she gave careful consideration to her fears. Was it possible Harold’s death may not have been the accident the coroner claimed? Certainly she’d given it thought a few days ago but dismissed it as far-fetched. Now? Now she hated the thought her fears may be justified. Too many emotions to identify churned, coalesced, and gnawed at her gut.

Tuesday Tales - Prompt - Blue

:-) Another week, another Tuesday Tales promt.  This week it is BLUE.  I have skipped forward in my WIP from last week and now my hero and heroine are heading for the Pyrenees and the French border.

From the vast acres of deep green foliage of the woods several feet below them now, Honor took in the tranquil blue of the Mediterranean sky, the vast expanse of green slopes dropping away from them, criss-crossed with hard-packed tracks that would turn into muddy rivers after a downpour of rain. Shiny outcrops of rock spearing through the green shimmered in the sunlight. Bird song, not the cry of battle, filled the sky. Only the clip-clop of the mules’ hooves disturbed the humming insects as they passed.  And still the heaviness of intuition told Honor they were not alone.

"How can you be sure we have moved away from Phillipe's recommended routes?  Have you been here before?"

“Of course not. We alway took our leave in a town where we could relax and top up on our personal items of need.”

“A hard life.”

Honor barely heard the words he spoke so quietly.

“We knew how to play, make no mistake, we had good times. I can’t deny it, life could be tough, and yet the friendships are the sort that will last a lifetime.”

Her voice trailed off as the image of three men pulling her husband off his horse and dragging him out of the camp ambushed her.

Tuesday's Tales 22nd May = Prompt ~ Pie

Welcome to another Tuesday's Tales.  Where does the time go between each one?  Today's prompt is 'Pie'.
My snippet today is a stand alone piece and as yet I have no idea whether it will fit into one of my WsIP or turn into a short story of its own.  Woe the trials and tribulations of the'pantser'!
Thank you to every one who visits and any comments are allways appreciated.

“Well will you look at that?” Maisie set her champagne flute on the table and stared towards the entrance.

“What? Where?” Florence, her grey coffered hair bobbing as she spun round in her chair, then bounced once more when her hand covered her wildly beating heart. Could it be? How could it be?

She’d moved away a few months after the memorial service for her only son. Moved right across the country, well more like from south to ‘up North’ to get away from the memories, and here he was—standing tall, and proud like his father before him.

“Look’s like he’s been in the wars.” Maisie’s voice cut through Florence’s shock. Her friend was right. A livid white scar from his chin to his brow crawled up his face like a millipede. Ten years had stripped away any naiveté from his features. Ragged, sharp boned and deeply sun-tanned. Apart from the scar Florence could be looking at Raoul’s father thirty years ago. The day she’d told him about her pregnancy.

The day he’d walked away from her and never returned. The day he’d sent divorce papers by special delivery less than an hour after his departure.

And now…

Now she sat in her seat, too stunned to move, and watched her son scan the room, became aware of the hushed voices whispering around their table, clearly audible now the band had ceased playing. Two men moved into the room and stood, one each side of her son, while he continued to scan the room.

Raoul cocked his head to one side, listening to the man on his right. Florence noticed the speaker’s hand emulate a circle, saw Raoul’s eyes narrow, harden and resume their search. Could she, when everyone else’s attention was riveted on the doorway, look away? If she didn’t she feared her heart, scarcely mended after ten years of grieving, would shatter all over again. And if she moved a single muscle, she knew with soul-deep recognition, her son would hone on the movement and come to her.

She’d dreamed of his return almost nightly for the last month. So much so, she’d stopped going upstairs to bed and slept in her armchair in front of the TV for the last week. But in the end it wasn’t her movement that foccussed her son’s gaze in her direction, it was Maisie’s.

“I swear, Flo—“ She dug Florence in the ribs, “—if I didn’t know better I’d say that was Raoul standing there.”

“It is.” Florence watched him move in their direction and tried to red his expression. ‘Flint-eyed’ didn’t begin to describe it. His mouth a thin white line, almost as pallid as his scar confirmed this would be no happy reunion, but why had he decided to return from the dead so publically?

Overhead lights glinted in the flash of silver in his hair above his right eye, above the scar. And for a moment fear, unexpected and unexplained threatened to rob her of her senses. She fought the curling blackness eager to steel her into oblivion and straightened her spine.

She knew, without seeing, that every eye in the room followed her son’s deliberate approach. Time stretched and compressed simultaneously.

The police, so impersonal, and yet, one, just one seemed genuinely caring when they’d turned up and told her Raoul had died in a car accident all those years ago.

The image of those men, three of them, standing at her front door and asking to come in superimposed itself on her present surroundings.

“He’s beyond recognition.” One told her as he passed her a cup of tea. “Fire…” another said. “No survivors.”

And yet they’d ‘handed’ over the body for burial.

Fury, fire-bright, as hot as Hades, shook her out of her memories. Regardless of who this man claimed to be, he wasn’t her son. He may look like him, but it was a fantasy, a ‘pie-in the-sky’ fantasy. No amount of wishful thinking would bring her son back, and if this man intended to try and dupe her into believing otherwise—

“Mother?”

His voice, softer than expected, and in total contradiction to the hardness of his features, rolled over her, curled around her heart and dug deep.

She couldn’t speak. Her words refused to push past the constriction in her throat. Her gaze never left his face. Whoever this man was, he even sounded like Raoul.

She shrugged off the hand on her arm.

“Flo!”

Maisie’s voice finally penetrated her shock, intruded her pain. As though in a dream, she refocused on her friend’s worried face. And this time she didn’t shake Maisie’s hand away when she caught hold of her arm.

“Let’s get out of here.” Maisie bent down to retrieve their bags, nodded to their table companions, after all, Flo thought, what did one say in circumstance like this?

“Yeah,” she said, fear, fury and grief boiling within. “Sounds like a plan.”

Thank you for visiting here today.

Don't forget to visit all the other wonderful TT participants :-)

Tuesday Tales ~ Picture Prompt

This week's Tuesday Tales prompt is the picture so... I've called today's offering... The Bridge!

(It has been edited to fit the 300 word max remit)

Darkness and light.

A bit like her life really, Sharon thought, as she approached the narrow aperture. Shadow and sunlight bathed the bridge in stark contrasts...

The lack of sunshine, cut off by the rough hewn stones piled one upon another, sent a shiver up her spine, and whipped her out of the nightmare memories in time to prevent herself tripping over the drunk lying right across the path underneath the bridge.

Venting her anger at allowing old memories in, and idiots who drank too much and passed out where they dropped, she stopped, bent over the man and discovered a pool of blood beneath his skull.

A closer look revealed a trail of blood that led to the side of the path. She looked round for help. No one behind her. Stepping over the inert form, she realised the one time you wanted company, company took a hike. She couldn’t leave him in the middle of the path for others to trip over as she nearly had, and bent to take a closer look at the man at her feet.

Lying face down, it was partially hidden from view.

His jacket was rucked up round his neck, masking more of his face, and the now obvious blow to his skull.

Sharon stared up at the bridge arcing high above her. Had someone hit him on the skull and pushed him over the bridge? If so, when, and where were they now? And why?

Why leave evidence of their crimes where anyone could find it?

Fear skittered up her spine. On the one morning she’d left her cell phone behind…

Sharon dropped to her knees and sighed with relief to feel a faint but steady pulse. 

For more Tuesday Tales Click Here

A-Z Challenge ~ Reflections

I came upon the A-Z challenge quite by accident and at first decided I didn't have time to commit, then a few days later, I think with 24 hours to go before it started, I changed my mind.
I had no theme, my only goal to complete the challenge without posting 30 days' worth of drival.  Yeah!  I came close a time or two, but I finished the challenge, met some wonderful people, found some very interesting new topics to follow and people to keep in touch with.
Did I get many new followers, perhaps not as many as I hoped for, and yet... my FB friend list increases daily, perhaps some are from the Challenge?  I don't know, but I do know I have plenty of sites still to visit which I didn't manage to during the challenge.
I loved the commeraderie of the challenge, I'm chuffed I made it through to the end, and vastly relieved I didn't consider doing a themed challenge, as this was my first year.
Will I do it again?  Oh yes!
Will it be themed this time? Oh no! :-)

I'd just like to add my thanks to those who organised the challenge and to everyone I met during April.

A-Z Challenge - Day 7 'G'

Is the brainchild of Arlee Bird, at Tossing it Out. The A to Z Challenges to post the letter of the alphabet every day during the month of April, with Sundays off for good behavior. Since April 1 falls on a Sunday, that will be the day we start with A. Whether you go with a theme or freestyle, your post must match the letter of the alphabet for that day. And this year nearly 1900 signed up for the challenge.

Today's letter is 'G'

so I decided - probably like hundreds of others to start with Google.

Did you know Google was chosen because  the word Google is a play on the word “googol,” a mathematical term for the number represented by the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros?

Did you know that Google's founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin are reported to have disagree about almost everything during this first meeting in 1995?

Did you know that one year later these two began collaborating on a search engine called BackRub?

Did you know it took them another year to come up with the Google name that is a part of everyday life in most internet users' lives today?

Did you know that in August 1998 Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim wrote a check for $100,000 to an entity that did not exist... a company called Google Inc. and that a month later this company began its life in Susan Wojcicki’s garage? 

The rest, as they say 'is history'.

If you look up the word 'google' at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/google?s=t you will find it has become not only a household word, but a way of life.

This is what is said at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/google?s=t

Word Story

Founded in 1998, the Web site Google.com has become such an institution that in its short existence, it has changed not only the way we process the endless data found on the information superhighway, but also the way we think and talk about the Internet.


The term google itself is a creative spelling of googol, a number equal to 10 to the 100th power, or more colloquially, an unfathomable number. Googol was coined in the 1930s and is attributed to the nine-year-old nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner.


Soon after Google was created, the trademarked company name became a popular verb. People were “googling” all sorts of information, including their own names. When users google themselves, unless their names are absurdly rare, they may find their “googlegangers” (a portmanteau word combining “google” and “doppelgänger”), or their namesakes, listed in the Google search results.


A whole new industry has sprung up around Google, including the new field of search-engine optimization, or SEO, which works to boost the ranking of a name or term in Google and other search-engine results. In 2005, the newly-minted term Google bomb became popular, to describe the intentional skewing of Google search results by creating links to misleading Web pages. Whether we like it or not, we now live in a Google-centric world.

Citations

“Google has come to represent all our hopes, dreams, and fears about the disruptive promise and dangers of the Internet.”

  —Rob Hof, “Is Google Too Powerful?,” Bloomberg Businessweek  (April 9, 2007) http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_15/b4029001.htm

“Google's uncorporate slogan—‘Don't be evil’—appeals to Americans who embrace underdogs.”
  —Ken Auletta, Googled: The End of the World As We Know It  (2009) http://books.google.com/books?id=-oZY9GJW7YgC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

“Show us a man or woman who’s never Googled an ex, and we’ll show you someone without an Internet connection.”
  —Em & Lo, “You, Again: Reconnecting with the ex is a dicey proposition,” New York  (September 24, 2006) http://nymag.com/relationships/mating/21634/

“I know nothing about this man, except for what I Googled.”


  —Irene Zutell, Pieces of Happily Ever After  (2009) http://books.google.com/books?id=FqhWm4GYHxMC&lpg=PP1&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false 
 

There are nearly 1700 participants this year and you'll find a list HERE



A-Z Challenge Day 2

B is today's letter, and my chosen word is Beautiful ~

Be happy

Even if it is for someone else

Appreciation is a gift ~ don't lose it

Ultimately life is a circle

Today's thoughts become tomorrow's actions

Imagine the power this gives you

For using your personal control wisely when it is

Unveiled and released to create

Love and beauty in your life, for all your tomorrows.

There are nearly 1700 participants this year and you'll find a list HERE

Tuesday Tales 24th - Games

Thank you for dropping in to read this week's TUESDAY TALES
The prompt is 'Games'

“Com’on.” Brad led the group of fellow ten-year-olds across the park towards the trees. “It’ll be easy.”

He heard the muttering behind him and hefted his mini crossbow from one hand to the other. He patted the knotted tie that held his arrows against his back. Jeff was carrying a bag of apples, and Will and Harry had tagged along to watch.

“Hey!” Will called to his friend Logan, you coming to see Brad split an apple on top of Jeff’s head?” He’d never heard of William Tell but that didn’t matter.

“Don’t be daft, he can’t do that!” Logan loped across the grass to join the group and on spying another friend invited them along.

“Where we going?” Tyler, the tenth boy to join the group, demanded.

“Dun’ know.” Will admitted.

“There’s a clearing that’s big enough just along the path that leads to the tennis courts.” Brad called over his shoulder. “Not many people use it so we won’t be disturbed.”

Brad’s confidence plummeted with each addition to the small band of boys now crossing the park. Several adults, he noticed, were watching their progress towards the trees. Perhaps he shouldn’t have accepted Jeff’s challenge?

He looked across at his best buddy and noted the freckles standing out against the pallor of his skin. Was he regretting the challenge? And would he withdraw it? Anger joined his fear when he heard his silent prayers he wouldn’t have to follow through.

It all seemed such a lark last night when they’d been trolling the ‘net and come across the story of William Tell, who in an effort to avoid being imprisoned shot an apple off the top of his son’s head.

Now, as the group of boys increased, it turned into something more like a nightmare than a game.

From the corner of his eye Brad saw two men approaching. One was Jeff’s father. What was he doing here? Why wasn’t he watching the game on TV?

“Nah! My Dad won’t notice,” Jeff assured him last night when they plotted this. “He always stays in and watches the game, and my Mom goes round to Aunt Bella, so no one will see us.”

“What you doing, boys?” Jeff’s dad asked with an easy smile.

Hadn’t he noticed the crossbow, Brad wondered and shifted it closer to the ground, and cringed at the glee in Will’s response.

“We’re gonna’ watch Brad shoot an apple off Jeff’s head.” he shouted.

As one the group halted.

Brad wasn’t sure who the second adult was, but vaguely thought he might be the deputy sheriff he’d seen in school a few weeks ago after a spate of thefts.

Shifting his gaze from the deputy Brad stared at Jeff’s Dad and waited for his wrath to descend upon them. The man’s rueful grin disconcerted him.

“Well now,” he said, letting his glance encompass all the boys. “That’s a mighty fine idea, but perhaps we can offer a little help here.” With a gesture towards his companion, Jeff’s dad laid a hand on Brad’s shoulder.

“You heading for the knoll clearing?”

Bemused, Brad nodded.

“Let’s get going then.”

With Jeff’s dad in the lead and the deputy bringing up the rear, the boys trouped further into the trees until the clearing opened up in front of them.

“Let me look at your bow.” Jeff’s dad held out his hand took the weapon and inspected it thoroughly. “Your Dad is an excellent craftsman,” he said, after turning it over in his hand for a few moments. He leaned behind and pulled the arrows out of Brad’s makeshift quiver and accorded them the same meticulous attention before nodding.

Jeff blanched when his father instructed him to stand against a tree and dragged his feet as he crossed the clearing and leaned his back against it.

“Deputy, perhaps you’d be good enough to mark the tree just above my son’s head.”

They all watched the deputy remove his camping knife and cut a nick in the tree bark. “That do?”

“Good enough.” Jeff’s dad nodded, and ordered his son to join the group again. “Did you bring an apple?”

Dumbstruck, Brad grabbed the bag from Will and handed it over.

“As we don’t have any means of pinning the apple to the tree, we’ll have to draw a circle instead.”

It didn’t take long, and before Brad knew what Jeff’s dad intended, the man once more stood beside him.

“Now then, Brad. Do you see the mark I’ve made?” He waited for Brad’s acknowledgement . “Very well, we’ll do this properly, come over to the tree.”

His panic rising with every second, Brad found himself moving forward.

Jeff’s dad took his arm and walked beside him as together they paced out fifty yards. The distance seemed enormous to Brad and the lump in his throat threatened to choke him.

The boys no longer shuffled or whispered and it seemed even the birds and the trees were holding their breath.

“William Tell was a grown man, so I think we can make allowances for your age and size.” With a grin Jeff’s dad sought affirmation from the sheriff.

Why were the adults grinning? When he’d seen them coming, he’d expected them both to put a stop to their game, expected to be able to back out with dignity and now both men were going to force him to go through with something terrifying. The trembling started in his knees and spread to his hands within seconds. His chest tightened making it hard to breathe.

“Now then, young Bradley,” Jeff’s dad paced out twenty steps closer to the target and instructed Brad to stand on the cross he’d dug into the ground with the heel of his shoe. “Stand here, steady yourself and make sure your breathing is even and your hand is steady. Take all the time you like and then fire your arrow at the round mark I’ve made on the tree.”

The next five minutes passed in a blur, broken only by a volley of clapping. As if coming out of a dream he looked up, and round, at the shining, excited faces.

“Well done, lad.” The sheriff’s voice cut through his stupor. “That was a fine piece of shooting.”

Before he could bask in the praise, the man’s tone changed and encompassed all the children.

“Luckily for all of you, someone informed us they’d seen you in the park. What you proposed today was both stupid and dangerous. What if you’d missed, Brad? You could have killed young Jeff here.”

The nearer they’d come to the trees the more vivid such an outcome had become to Brad.

The lecture was issued in firm but understanding words and left each boy in no doubt of the seriousness of the occasion.

The boys that trouped out from the trees bore little resemblance to the ones that entered them. Each child now knew that some games could so easily end in tragedy, and heaved a sigh of relief that this time they’d been lucky.

Happy New Year

Thank you to everyone who has shared my path during 2011.
I treasure your gifts of 'being' a part of my life.

And wish you all,

all the best for 2012

"Remember today, for it is the beginning of always. Today marks the start of a brave new future filled with all your dreams can hold. Think truly to the future and make those dreams come true."

unacknowledged