Crimson’s Creative Challenge #103
Annie’s colleagues didn’t like her. She was stern, they said; she never smiled. Yet with me, she was fine. She invited me to dinner, after work one Friday night.
“What the…!” I said when I saw where she lived.
She nodded, a hint of a smile. “That’s what my family said too. Then painted gloom for the day the cliff crumbles.”
“But it will,” I said. This stretch of coastline was rapidly collapsing.
Again, she nodded. Then she whispered conspiratorially. “Don’t let on, but this isn’t my only home. I have a… chalet… in the Italian lakes. It earns me a tidy income let out for vacations and invested. And in two years I retire… then let the sea take this shabby old shack. I shall be where the sea can’t reach me.”
Based on a true story.
crispina kemp 
Oh wow! Very interesting story
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Thank you, Sadje 🙂
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You’re welcome
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🙂
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🙏
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My little dit is also based on a true story, name changed for sentimental reasons
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Yea, Annie wasn’t the real name either. Neither did it happen where I took this photo but further along the coast
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I see what you meant when you read my take on your picture. Now I’d love to hear about the true story that yours was based on.
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It was quite similar. The woman involved worked at the hospital, and she was coming up to retirement. And rather than to continue commuting she decided to buy a really cheap house… on a cliff that was rapidly eroding. Her family went loopy. But she retired and moved back to London before the cliff finally gave way
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This was a good story! I liked it!
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Thank you, Kim
Whenever I see evidence of a fallen building, I think of Annie
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Awesome! Sometimes our first impressions are categorically way off the mark.
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Mmm, they are. Annie (or the person she’s based on) was Head of Midwifery and they young midwives in training were terrified of her. And that reputation spread.
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Way to go Annie! Smart woman (and lucky her shack held out until she was ready to get off the cliff before the cliff let her go…)
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Loosely based on a real story. And though not that cliff, the cliff did hold out
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So I gathered from the comments. Amazing anyway.
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Thanks 🙂 🙂 🙂
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🙂
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I love the story and the truth behind it. I have a short story in progress about a collapsing cliff after I read The Easternmost House’ by Juliet Blaxland.
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I am so familiar with these sandy cliffs, they feature in Bk 3 of The Spinner’s Game (The Pole That Threads)
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Wow! The story was amazing. As always, you found an interesting and really cool way to introduce us to a real story. Thank you so much for it!
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It’s what I like doing. And we all should do what we like doing (as long as it’s legal and it doesn’t harm anybody!)
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