Crimson’s Creative Challenge #247

Here’s how it works:

Every Wednesday I post a photo (this week it’s that one above.)
You respond with something CREATIVE

Here are some suggestions:

  • An answering photo
  • A cartoon
  • A joke
  • A caption
  • An anecdote
  • A short story (flash fiction)
  • A poem
  • A newly minted proverb, adage or saying
  • An essay
  • A song—the lyrics or the performance

You have plenty of scope and only two criteria:

  • Your creative offering is indeed yours
  • Your writing is kept to 150 words or less

If you post a link in the comments section of this post I’ll be able to find it.

Here’s wishing you inspirational explosions. And FUN

Posted in Crimson's Creative Challenge, Photos | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

Tuesdays’ Flowers

Some of the flowers from our walk on 30th June 2023. Hope you enjoy…

30th June 2023

Bladder Campion…

30th June 2023

Stonecrop, not sure which species…

30th June 2023

Mullein and Vipers Bugloss…

30th June 2023

Weld, a popular medieval dye plant…

30th June 2023

Small Balsam, this is the only place I know where it grows!

30th June 2023

Easily mistaken for Balsam, this is Enchanter’s Nightshade…

30th June 2023

White Bryony…

30th June 2023

Everyone knows this one: Honeysuckle…

30th June 2023

Tutsan, the wild form of Rose of Sharon/St John’s Wort…

30th June 2023

Knapweed. The knap element means knob…

30th June 2023

Scabious with bee!

30th June 2023

And to finish, Pink Campion and Bracken…

Hope you enjoyed. More next week!

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To Celebrate…

To celebrate the release of

ALSALDIC BEAR

Bk 2, Alsaldic Lands Trilogy on Thursday 10th August

I am offering Hare and Adder e-book FREE for 4 days
From Thursday 10th to Sunday 13th August. You’ll find it here!

Hare and Adder

Of Granaries, Traders and Circles of Inspiration – A Neolithic Odyssey

Hegrissa should have been a granary keeper. She should have been able to find her way back to Lienershi when Kerrid, Head of the Granaries, sent her south to meet with her father. She should have been safe with the copper-smith since smiths are sworn off women. But now seduced, pregnant and with her trade lost, her only hope lies with her native family. Yet rejected there too, she finds acceptance with an eblan, a Speaker for the Dead, who believes her inspired. Can she find a new identity amongst these people, or will she reclaim what should have been hers?

Alsalda Bear, Book Two

You’ll find it here!
on pre-order, releases for sale 10th August

Born into the granary family, Detah believes she has no choice but to be a granary-worker; the keeper herself if her sister should die without daughters. But Detah prefers to be a trader and traveller like her father whose stories she devours. Her opportunity arrives on the heels of four horsemen from Dal Uest where a judgement has been made and their clan must leave. That arrival and the changes wrought throw the granary system into turmoil. Now is Detah’s chance – but first she must stand against her family.

Alsaldic Lands Trilogy

Three separate stories, one land united
Alsaldic Lands Trilogy charts its rise and fall through the lives of the people who made it great, and destroyed it

Two thousand years after the events of The Spinner’s Game, Kerrid is the Head of the Kerdolan and granary traders. Though established in this role, there are still Asars who oppose her, led by Urinod who believes the moment of Kerrid’s death will return the Asars to their rightful otherworld realm. Stuck between these are the next generation, Brictans born of Asar-human parentage, and those who seek to make a life within the increasingly important Alsaldic Lands. The trilogy maps the development, flowering and collapse of the Alsaldic Empire as it moves from its birth within an early agricultural society, through the copper and bronze-using warrior cults, to topple at the first whisper of iron.

A Note about the Neolithic

When I started my nerdy love affair, we had little solid knowledge of the Neolithic. But that’s no longer the case. Yet my stories took form in those earlier days.

Therefore, I have to say these are works of imagination, inspired by mythology, anthropology and archaeology; they do not purport to be accurate or speculative accounts of the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of Western Europe.

Posted in Fantasy Fiction, Mythic Fiction, On Writing | 7 Comments

Sunday Picture Post: Cool Beneath Trees

Where to go when, the last day of June, the forecast says hot? Two buses out of town to the small village of Attlebridge, on the River Wensum. Please come along…

30th June 2023

River Wensum west of Norwich

30th June 2023

Attlebridge church stands proud on a rise…

30th June 2023

Attlebridge Station, though no trains have run here for many a year. And that’s as well, since we’re heading back to Norwich along the old track…

30th June 2023

The old tracks now provide the occasional (uncomfortable) seat…

30th June 2023

Taking a breather on a more comfortable seat…enjoying the view over the Wensum Valley…

30th June 2023

We’re in the shade of trees…but the fields to either side are not…

30th June 2023

The fields transition to woodland…

30th June 2023

This is sooo cool…

30th June 2023

Several bridges carry several rural lanes across the former railway track…

30th June 2023

But this bridge is to carry us over a (fairly new) road…

30th June 2023

Another bridge, where I stop to look back at the other bridge. It’s so blazing hot there, that bridge has disappeared in the heat haze…

30th June 2023

Where-oh-where has my green land gone. Although it’s not to last much longer, we’re currently experiencing drought… Norfolk, the drought centre of UK in many years…

30th June 2023

We don’t walk all the way back to Norwich. We hop off the track and go catch a bus. Phew, it was hot away from the trees!

Hope you enjoyed

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Take Me To A Place I Love

30th June 2023 

So many thoughts reeled through my head when I saw this…of aboriginal art, of dream time, of psychedelic art and good and bad trips.

Then came a song that I always have liked: Under The Bridge, by Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

And so my title (Take Me To A Place I Love…for I sure do love this place) and thence to the title I’m claiming from Maria Antonia’s #2023picofthe week: All That Jazz.

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His Eyes…Most Unwise

Image by Sly on Pixabay

His dark blue eyes
Like star-studded skies
Wide, alarmed by surprise
As if caught by his lies
With all that implies
Well, we know about guys
All that made my heart flutter, most unwise.


34 words written for Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Flutter

Posted in Poems (Some Silly) | Tagged , | 12 Comments

CCC246: The Jazz Players Hostel

I was standing on the seafront prom
Lining up a shot of Baba Yaga’s one-legged hut
When beside me a polite lady’s voice asked
Do you wish to know what it is?

I turned to see a white-haired lady, all purples, lilacs and mauves
Yes. Please. I said
There are two, she said, and pointed away to the north
That other I’d missed, I thanked her.

They belong to the Jazz Club, she said
I eyed her, but let her continue
That to the south is where visiting jazz players lodge the night
I squished my face, I now didn’t believe her.

And the one to the north?
She chuckled, and said, that’s for their crew
I laughed along with her
In truth, she admitted, they’re kittiwake hotels.

[True story
Kittiwakes are seasonal visitors to the town. Much apart from the noise from their breeding colonies, they coat the town with their droppings. It’s hoped these two hotels will keep the birds out of town.]

Posted in Crimson's Creative Challenge, Photos | Tagged , , , | 15 Comments

Crimson’s Creative Challenge #246

Here’s how it works:

Every Wednesday I post a photo (this week it’s that one above.)
You respond with something CREATIVE

Here are some suggestions:

  • An answering photo
  • A cartoon
  • A joke
  • A caption
  • An anecdote
  • A short story (flash fiction)
  • A poem
  • A newly minted proverb, adage or saying
  • An essay
  • A song—the lyrics or the performance

You have plenty of scope and only two criteria:

  • Your creative offering is indeed yours
  • Your writing is kept to 150 words or less

If you post a link in the comments section of this post I’ll be able to find it
If you include Crimson’s Creative Challenge as a heading, WP Search will find it (theory) by ‘Searching’ in the WP Reader (fingers crossed)

Here’s wishing you inspirational explosions. And FUN

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Tuesday Flowers

A few of the blooms that decked our way on our walk from Acle to Upton on 24th June 2023. Enjoy

24th June 2023

It’s poppy season. And to my mind, the best poppies are those that grow amongst the grain…

24th June 2023

24th June 2023

And you can’t have grain and poppies without mayweed (the arable sister to chamomile)

24th June 2023

Apt to see this on St John’s Day (it’s one of several species of St John’s Wort)

24th June 2023

24th June 2023

Geraniums/Cranesbills, garden and wild…

24th June 2023

24th June 2023

In the hedgerows, honeysuckle…

24th June 2023

And roses…

24th June 2023

And in the village pond…

24th June 2023

24th June 2023

24th June 2023

I do hope you’ve enjoyed. Looking at them again has reminded me of the day. Intensely hot, but so pretty!

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Monday Flyers

A collection of photos taken on our walk 24th June 2023, united by wings. Enjoy

24th June 2023

This first was serendipitous!

24th June 2023

Moth. According to my app, a Large Yellow Underwing

24th June 2023

Again, resorting to my app, a Black Tailed Skimmer. But my book says it’s a Black Lined Skimmer. That’s dragonfly to you and me!

24th June 2023

Ah, this one’s familiar. It’s a Meadow Brown

24th June 2023

And a Red Admiral

24th June 2023

24th June 2023

The app gives me a Latin name, and it’s not the same Latin name as my book provides: It’s a Common Blue Damselfly, getting it on with the female, that’s green.

24th June 2023

No, these aren’t ducklings. These are Moorhen chicks. Aw, so sweet.

24th June 2023

Hey, it has wings. It flies. I think it was coming down to land at Norwich airport

That’s all for now, folks. Flowers tomorrow. Hope you enjoyed

 

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