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Friday 30 July 2010

Friday 55 Flash Fiction #129 The Sea....


Nothing but sea for ever.


Turquoise, with occasional frothy splashes of white.


No distinction between where it ends and the sky starts.


Sun beating down relentlessly, reflecting on the swell.


Just the odd seagull to break the monotony, and intermittent rollers.


"I hope they realise soon that they left without me" thought the scuba diver.





Friday 55 Flash Fiction is brought to you by G-man (Mr Knowitall). The idea is you write a story in exactly 55 words. If you want to take part pop over and let G-man know when you've posted your 55.

Wednesday 28 July 2010

Sally & Andy.....

No one believes seniors, everyone thinks they are senile.



An elderly couple was celebrating their sixtieth anniversary. The couple had married as childhood sweethearts and had moved back to their old neighborhood after they retired. One day holding hands, they walked back to their old school. It was not locked, so they entered, and found the old desk they'd shared, where Andy had carved “I love you, Sally .”

On their way back home, a bag of money fell out of an armored car, practically landing at their feet. Sally quickly picked it up and, not sure what to do with it, they took it home. There, she counted the money-fifty thousand dollars! Andy said, “We've got to give it back.” Sally said, “Finders keepers.” She put the money back in the bag and hid it in their attic.


The next day, two police officers were canvassing the neighborhood looking for the money, and knocked on their door. “Pardon me, did either of you find a bag that fell out of an armored car yesterday?” Sally said, “No.” Andy said, “She's lying. She hid it up in the attic. Sally said, “Don't believe him, he's getting senile.”


The two police officers turn to Andy and began to question him. One said: “Tell us the story from the beginning.” Andy said, “Well, when Sally and I were walking home from school yesterday!” The first police officer turned to his partner and said, “We're out of here!”

Monday 26 July 2010

Microfiction Monday #13


Susan at Stony River hosts this fun theme each Monday, so do pop over and read the others who have signed Mr. Linky. The rules are thus:



Every Monday Susan will post a picture for the subject of your story. Microfiction means the shortest of short stories. Think Aesop's fables, comic strips, or even jokes: complete stories that can be told in under a minute. For this game, the limit is a tweetable 140 characters or fewer, including punctuation and spaces.


Here's today's picture and my contribution.






Daniel was worried about his girlfriend.



Since the bang on the head she was seeing stars



but even worse, kept going on about wanting a baby!

Friday 23 July 2010

Friday 55 Flash Fiction #128 Pampered....


The scent of the candles filled her senses.


She gently stroked her skin, smoothing the bubbles.


Steam rose from the bath, swirling towards the ceiling.


"Oh my God, what have I done?" she suddenly panicked.


Reaching for the phone she dialled 999.


"Please send help quickly.....


I've got my big toe stuck up the bathtap!"


Friday 55 Flash Fiction is brought to you by G-man (Mr Knowitall). The idea is you write a story in exactly 55 words. If you want to take part pop over and let G-man know when you've posted your 55.

Wednesday 21 July 2010

Six Affairs......

The 1st Affair
A married man was having an affair with his secretary.   One day they went to her place and made love all afternoon. Exhausted, they fell asleep and woke up at 8 PM. The man hurriedly dressed and told his lover to take his shoes outside and rub them in the grass and dirt. He put on his shoes and drove home.
'Where have you been?' his wife demanded.
'I can't lie to you,' he replied, 'I'm having an affair with my secretary. We had sex all afternoon.'
She looked down at his shoes and said:
'You lying bastard! You've been playing golf!'


The 2nd Affair
A middle-aged couple had two beautiful daughters but always talked about having a son. They decided to try one last time for the son they always wanted. The wife got pregnant and delivered a healthy baby boy. The joyful father rushed to the nursery to see his new son. He was horrified at the ugliest child he had ever seen.

He told his wife: 'There's no way I can be the father of this baby. Look at the two beautiful daughters I fathered! Have you been fooling around behind my back?'

The wife smiled sweetly and replied: 'No, not this time!'


The 3rd Affair
A mortician was working late one night. He examined the body of Mr. Schwartz, about to be cremated, and made a startling discovery. Schwartz had the largest private part he had ever seen!

'I'm sorry Mr. Schwartz,' the mortician commented, 'I can't allow you to be cremated with such an impressive private part. It must be saved for posterity.' So, he removed it, stuffed it into his briefcase, and took it home.

'I have something to show you, you won't believe,' he said to his wife, opening his briefcase.
'My God!' the wife exclaimed, 'Schwartz is dead!'


The 4th Affair
A woman was in bed with her lover when she heard her husband opening the front door.

'Hurry,' she said, 'stand in the corner.' She rubbed baby oil all over him, then dusted him with talcum powder.

'Don't move until I tell you,' she said. 'Pretend you're a statue.'

'What's this?' the husband inquired as he entered the room.

'Oh it's a statue,' she replied. 'The Smiths bought one and I liked it so I got one for us, too.'

No more was said, not even when they went to bed. Around 2 AM the husband got up, went to the kitchen and returned with a sandwich and a beer.

'Here,' he said to the statue, 'have this. I stood like that for two days at the Smiths and nobody offered me a damned thing.'


The 5th Affair
A man walked into a cafe, went to the bar and ordered a beer.

'Certainly, Sir, that'll be one cent.'
'One Cent?' the man exclaimed. He glanced at the menu and asked: 'How much for a nice juicy steak and a bottle of wine?'

'A nickel,' the barman replied.
'A nickel?' exclaimed the man.

'Where's the guy who owns this place?'
The bartender replied: 'Upstairs, with my wife.'

The man asked: 'What's he doing upstairs with your wife?'

The bartender replied: 'The same thing I'm doing to his business down here.'


The 6th & Best Affair

Jake was dying. His wife sat at the bedside. He looked up and said weakly:

'I have something I must confess.'

'There's no need to, 'his wife replied.

'No,' he insisted, 'I want to die in peace. I slept with your sister, your best friend, her best friend, and your mother!'

'I know,' she replied. 'Now just rest and let the poison work.'

Monday 19 July 2010

Microfiction Monday #12


Susan at Stony River hosts this fun theme each Monday, so do pop over and read the others who have signed Mr. Linky. The rules are thus:



Every Monday Susan will post a picture for the subject of your story. Microfiction means the shortest of short stories. Think Aesop's fables, comic strips, or even jokes: complete stories that can be told in under a minute. For this game, the limit is a tweetable 140 characters or fewer, including punctuation and spaces.


Here's today's picture and my contribution.




At tea with the new vicar, Mabel was horrified to see a plastic lobster and flowers in the milk jug!

She instantly decided he needed a wife.



Friday 16 July 2010

Friday 55 Flash Fiction #127 Deprived...


Chico hated her for depriving him.


She said it was for 'his own good' - How?


He was miserable and would look at her dolefully.


He tried ignoring her, even crying, but she wouldn't give in.


After many months he got used to it and now he was a happy


lightweight, lithe, labrador who could run.



Friday 55 Flash Fiction is brought to you by G-man (Mr Knowitall). The idea is you write a story in exactly 55 words. If you want to take part pop over and let G-man know when you've posted your 55.

Wednesday 14 July 2010

Colonoscopy Journal.....

THE WRITER:   Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning humor columnist for the Miami Herald.



Colonoscopy Journal:
I called my friend Andy Sable, a gastroenterologist, to make an appointment for a colonoscopy.
A few days later, in his office, Andy showed me a color diagram of the colon, a lengthy organ that appears to go all over the place, at one point passing briefly through Minneapolis.

Then Andy explained the colonoscopy procedure to me in a thorough, reassuring and patient manner.


I nodded thoughtfully, but I didn't really hear anything he said, because my brain was shrieking, 'HE'S GOING TO STICK A TUBE 17,000 FEET UP YOUR BEHIND!'


I left Andy's office with some written instructions, and a prescription for a product called 'MoviPrep,' which comes in a box large enough to hold a microwave oven. I will discuss MoviPrep in detail later; for now suffice it to say that we must never allow it to fall into the hands of America's enemies.

I spent the next several days productively sitting around being nervous.


Then, on the day before my colonoscopy, I began my preparation. In accordance with my instructions, I didn't eat any solid food that day; all I had was chicken broth, which is basically water, only with less flavor.

Then, in the evening, I took the MoviPrep. You mix two packets of powder together in a one-liter plastic jug, then you fill it with lukewarm water. (For those unfamiliar with the metric system, a liter is about 32 gallons). Then you have to drink the whole jug. This takes about an hour, because MoviPrep tastes - and here I am being kind - like a mixture of goat spit and urinal cleanser, with just a hint of lemon.


The instructions for MoviPrep, clearly written by somebody with a great sense of humor, state that after you drink it, 'a loose, watery bowel movement may result.'

This is kind of like saying that after you jump off your roof, you may experience contact with the ground.

MoviPrep is a nuclear laxative. I don't want to be too graphic, here, but, have you ever seen a space-shuttle launch? This is pretty much the MoviPrep experience, with you as the shuttle. There are times when you wish the commode had a seat belt. You spend several hours pretty much confined to the bathroom, spurting violently. You eliminate everything. And then, when you figure you must be totally empty, you have to drink another liter of MoviPrep, at which point, as far as I can tell, your bowels travel into the future and start eliminating food that you have not even eaten yet.

After an action-packed evening, I finally got to sleep.


The next morning my wife drove me to the clinic. I was very nervous. Not only was I worried about the procedure, but I had been experiencing occasional return bouts of MoviPrep spurtage. I was thinking, 'What if I spurt on Andy?' How do you apologize to a friend for something like that? Flowers would not be enough.


At the clinic I had to sign many forms acknowledging that I understood and totally agreed with whatever the heck the forms said. Then they led me to a room full of other colonoscopy people, where I went inside a little curtained space and took off my clothes and put on one of those hospital garments designed by sadist perverts, the kind that, when you put it on, makes you feel even more naked than when you are actually naked.

Then a nurse named Eddie put a little needle in a vein in my left hand. Ordinarily I would have fainted, but Eddie was very good, and I was already lying down. Eddie also told me that some people put vodka in their MoviPrep.

At first I was ticked off that I hadn't thought of this, but then I pondered what would happen if you got yourself too tipsy to make it to the bathroom, so you were staggering around in full Fire Hose Mode. You would have no choice but to burn your house.

When everything was ready, Eddie wheeled me into the procedure room, where Andy was waiting with a nurse and an anesthesiologist. I did not see the 17,000-foot tube, but I knew Andy had it hidden around there somewhere. I was seriously nervous at this point.


Andy had me roll over on my left side, and the anesthesiologist began hooking something up to the needle in my hand.


There was music playing in the room, and I realized that the song was 'Dancing Queen' by ABBA. I remarked to Andy that, of all the songs that could be playing during this particular procedure, 'Dancing Queen' had to be the least appropriate.


'You want me to turn it up?' said Andy, from somewhere behind me.


'Ha ha,' I said. And then it was time, the moment I had been dreading for more than a decade. If you are squeamish, prepare yourself, because I am going to tell you, in explicit detail, exactly what it was like.


I have no idea. Really. I slept through it. One moment, ABBA was yelling 'Dancing Queen, feel the beat of the tambourine,' and the next moment, I was back in the other room, waking up in a very mellow mood.


Andy was looking down at me and asking me how I felt. I felt excellent. I felt even more excellent when Andy told me that it was all over, and that my colon had passed with flying colors. I have never been prouder of an internal organ.


On the subject of Colonoscopies . . .

Colonoscopies are no joke, but these comments during the exam were quite humorous. A physician claimed that the following are actual comments made by his patients (predominately male) while he was performing their colonoscopies:

1. 'Take it easy, Doc. You're boldly going where no man has gone before!'

2. 'Find Amelia Earhart yet?'

3. 'Can you hear me NOW?'

4. 'Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?'


5. 'You know, in Arkansas , we're now legally married.'


6. 'Any sign of the trapped miners, Chief?'


7. 'You put your left hand in, you take your left hand out . . .'


8. 'Hey! Now I know how a Muppet feels!'


9. 'If your hand doesn't fit, you must quit!'

10. 'Hey Doc, let me know if you find my dignity.'


11. 'You used to be an executive at Enron, didn't you?'


12. 'God, now I know why I am not gay.'

And the VERY best one of all:

13. 'Could you write a note for my wife saying that my head is not up there?'

Monday 12 July 2010

Microfiction Monday #11



Susan at Stony River hosts this fun theme each Monday, so do pop over and read the others who have signed Mr. Linky. The rules are thus:


Every Monday Susan will post a picture for the subject of your story. Microfiction means the shortest of short stories. Think Aesop's fables, comic strips, or even jokes: complete stories that can be told in under a minute. For this game, the limit is a tweetable 140 characters or fewer, including punctuation and spaces.


Here's today's picture and my contribution.



Reading all the promises of eternal youth on the label of the bath oil,

Daphne didn’t know whether to add it to her bathwater or drink it!



Friday 9 July 2010

Friday 55 Flash Fiction #126 Passion...


Tom spent hours watching.


Secreted in the bushes, camera poised.


There had been a couple of hairy moments when he'd been questioned


but he'd managed to convince them it was purely innocent


and so he'd continued with his passion.


All he asked was just one glimpse of


the White-Crowned Sparrow reported in the area.




Friday 55 Flash Fiction is brought to you by G-man (Mr Knowitall). The idea is you write a story in exactly 55 words. If you want to take part pop over and let G-man know when you've posted your 55.

Wednesday 7 July 2010

All roads leading south........



Our last day in Scotland we were up bright and early to have breakfast and board our coach for the 66 mile journey to Fort William railway station to catch the train to Mallaig.

Fort William Station

Of course the most famous site at Fort William is Ben Nevis, which is the highest mountain in Great Britain.  As is common for many Scottish mountains, it is known both to locals and visitors as simply The Ben. It attracts an estimated 100,000 ascents a year, around three-quarters of which are made using the well-constructed Pony Track from Glen Nevis on the south side of the mountain. For climbers and mountaineers the main attraction lies in the 700-metre (2,300 ft) high cliffs of the north face; among the highest cliffs in the United Kingdom, they harbour some classic scrambles and rock climbs of all difficulties, and are one of the principal locations in the UK for ice climbing.

The summit, at 1,344 metres (4,409 ft) above sea level, features the ruins of an observatory, which was permanently staffed between 1883 and 1904. The meteorological data collected during this period are still important for understanding Scottish mountain weather. C. T. R. Wilson was inspired to invent the cloud chamber after a period spent working at the observatory.

The Ben

Fort William is at the southern end of the Caledonian Canal which slices through the Great Glen.  This majestic canal is considered by many as one of the greatest waterways of the world. Four natural lochs – Loch Lochy, Loch Oich, the famous Loch Ness and Loch Dochfour – all lie in near perfect alignment between Fort William and Inverness making up 38 of the 60 mile coast to coast channel. The remaining 22 miles being man-made canal linking these four lochs together.   One of the features of the Fort William end of the Caledonian Canal is Neptune's Staircase, which is a staircase lock comprising eight locks on the Caledonian Canal. It is the longest staircase lock in the United Kingdom, and lifts boats 64 feet (19.5 metres). The locks were originally hand-powered, but have been converted to hydraulic operation. The base plinths of the original capstans are still present, although the capstans themselves are now gone.


Neptune's Staircase


The train took us from Fort William via Loch Eil up to Glennfinnan across the Glenfinnan Viaduct, where the Hogwarts Express was filmed. Glenfinnan Viaduct is at the head of Loch Shiel.


Glenfinnan Viaduct

The 21-arch single track viaduct was one of the largest engineering undertakings using concrete without reinforcing when it was built by Sir Robert McAlpine.


According to myth, during construction a cart-horse and driver were killed when they fell into one of the piers while dumping their load, and were buried in the concrete. Recent research has shown that the incident happened at Loch Nan Uamh Viaduct, further down the line, near Arisaig, and the driver survived.  Memorial plaques are at the latter viaduct and at Glenfinnan Station Museum.


I've put together a slide show of shots taken from the train on the journey from Fort William to Malliag.



We arrived at Mallaig Station and saw The Jacobite Steam Train (see photo in slide show below), which belongs to West Coast Railways, who provided the actual Hogwarts Express used in the Harry Potter films.  We took some snaps as we headed towards the sea to look across at the Isle of Skye (again).


The view across to the Isle of Skye was beautiful, here's MWM and I with that view in the background.


All too soon the holiday was over and it was time to set off South and home.   Our route took us back via Fort William, then south along the coast of Loch Linnhe, then through the pass of Glencoe with the magnificent mountains rising on either side of the road for 10 miles, where the landscape flattened out to Rannoch Moor.






This leg of the journey took us through Bridge of Orchy, Tyndrum (where MWM and I stayed approximately 28 years ago on our first visit to Scotland), Crianlarich, down through the Trossachs on the west bank of Loch Lomond heading towards the Erskine Bridge and Glasgow.


Crossing the Firth of Clyde over the Erskine Bridge

We picked up the motorway which took us through Glasgow onto the M74, where we stopped at Bothwell Services for a much needed break and some food.    Twenty six of us decended on these tiny services to find only two staff working - a lady serving and a young man cooking when we only had 45 minutes before we had to set off again.   These two stars managed to cook us all a meal of Fish and Chips in that short time and we were on our way again for the 160 mile journey to Lancaster, where we had to change ,then onto Rochdale, our destination, where we arrived at 1 a.m. on Tuesday morning.  We had travelled over 369 since we left the hotel at 9.30 a.m. on Monday morning.    After a short taxi ride home and a cup of tea we went to bed. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz


I hope you enjoyed our visit to Scotland, we sure did.

Monday 5 July 2010

Microfiction Monday #10


Susan at Stony River hosts this fun theme each Monday, so do pop over and read the others who have signed Mr. Linky. The rules are thus:


Every Monday Susan will post a picture for the subject of your story. Microfiction means the shortest of short stories. Think Aesop's fables, comic strips, or even jokes: complete stories that can be told in under a minute. For this game, the limit is a tweetable 140 characters or fewer, including punctuation and spaces.


Here's today's picture and my contribution.




“Look at that view, it’s spectacular” said Josie . “It’s so exciting, are you texting your Mum?”

“Yeah, how do you spell vertigo?” asked Amy

Friday 2 July 2010

Friday 55 Flash Fiction # 125 Grudge....



Facing each other the two men stared into each other's eyes.


Nowhere to run.


Nowhere to hide.


This is it, do or die, fears banished.


Launching themselves at each other, fists flailing, sweat and blood spattering.


A grudge match if ever there was one.


but legal because it takes place in a boxing ring - Sport!



Friday 55 Flash Fiction is brought to you by G-man (Mr Knowitall). The idea is you write a story in exactly 55 words. If you want to take part pop over and let G-man know when you've posted your 55.